Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/105

 tirely saved the tubers, and we still hope that this root, which has been for many years a luxury to the rich and bread to the poor, will yet continue to improve, as it has done during the past hundred years. On the quality of the Potato, as used for food, a few words will suffice. It is the most nutritious of vegetables, where it agrees with the constitution, which is almost invariably the case, excepting some few instances where there is a spare or thin habit of body. To those who take much exercise in the open air, it is excellent food, and yields a very considerable amount of nourishment.

Too little attention is generally paid to the dressing of it; for an indifferent potato becomes good when well cooked, and a superior one gains every attraction that an appetite can desire.

An untinned iron saucepan is preferable to any other for boiling potatoes. In preparing them, they should never be peeled, or much of their nutritious quality is lost. They only require to be washed clean, and at farthest to be slightly scraped. After soaking in water for an hour, put them into the saucepan, with cold water sufficient to cover them; when it begins to boil, let a cupful of cold water be put in, which will check the boiling, and allow time for the potatoes to be done through, without their being in any danger of breaking. When they are sufficiently soft, which may be known by trying them with a fork, pour off the water, and let the pot with the potatoes continue for a short time over a gentle fire, and the heat will cause any remaining moisture to evaporate; when, after being peeled, they will be fit for the table. By this method of cooking, if strictly adhered to, they will be found more palatable than under any other.

Various States and places have their favorite sorts. To enter into a general detail of their merits, would only produce conflicting opinions, for we are certain that what may do well in one State or country would fail in another. Mercer and Foxite for Pennsylvania, Pink-eyes and Mercer for New-York,