Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/163

Rh Roast beef bones, or shank-bones of ham, make excellent stock for soup.

When the whites of eggs are used for jelly, confectionery, or other purposes, a pudding or a custard should be made, that the yolks may be used.

All things likely to be wanted should be in readiness: sugars of different sorts; currants washed, picked, and perfectly dry; spices pounded, and kept in very small bottles closely corked, or in canisters, as we have already directed. Not more of these should be purchased at a time than are likely to be used in the course of a month.

Much waste is always prevented by keeping every article in the place best suited to it.

In very cold weather, vegetables touched by the frost should be brought into the kitchen early in the morning and soaked in cold water. Vegetables keep best on a stone floor, if the air be excluded; meat in a cold, dry place; as also salt, sugar, sweetmeats, candles, dried meats and hams.

Rice, and all sorts of cereals for pudding, should be closely covered to preserve them from insects; but even this will not prevent them from being affected by these destroyers, if they are long and carelessly kept in a damp place.

Pears and grapes should be strung, and hung up in a cold, dry place. Apples should be laid on straw, after being carefully wiped, and should not touch each other. They keep better on wood than on china.

ADULTERATION.

The Act passed in 1872 for the prevention of Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs declares that persons who adulterate articles of food, or who sell those that they know to have been adulterated, whether with material injurious to the health or not, are punishable with fine or imprisonment. The vendor is bound to declare such admixture to the purchaser at the time of the sale. The inspectors under the local authorities are directed to procure samples from time to time, and to submit them to the public analyst.

Any purchaser may have any article of food, or drink, or drugs analyzed by the public analyst of his district on payment of a sum not less than half-a-crown and not more than half-a-guinea.

In olden times the prices of the chief necessaries of life were regulated by authority. Such interference has long been a thing of the past. Vendors may ask any price they please for the things they sell, and the legislature only insists that no fraud shall be practised on the public, and that goods shall be sold under their rightful names.