Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

when cool put into glass jars ready for use. SALT cakes and hardens in damp weather. Store it in your warmest and driest pantry. In very wet weather mix a little corn starch with that you put into the table salt-cellars. FLOUR can not be kept too dry, nor can INDIAN OATMEAL, and all kinds of SUGAR. PULVERIZED SUGAR is as susceptible to humidity as salt. Tin boxes are absolutely necessary for keeping it tolerably free from lumps. SPICES, PEPPER AND DRIED HERBS must also be shut up closely, and never be kept in open receptacles. Some brands of BAKING-POWDERS actually effervesce when exposed for days at a time to the open air. All are injured seriously by such exposure. For all these staples and ingredients, have closely-fitting lids—_and keep them on_! Store DRIED FRUITS in stone jars with covers; CANNED FRUITS AND PICKLES in glass jars; tumblers of JELLY AND MARMALADE should be kept in the dark. The light acts chemically upon the contents. If your storeroom be light, wrap jars and tumblers in thick paper tied on with strings. As soon as MEAT comes home from market remove every bit of the brown paper enveloping it, and lay upon a clean dish near the ice—never upon it. FISH does not suffer from contact with ice. Meat does, becoming flabby and viscid. If your refrigerator is so arranged that you can hang the meat up, that the air can get at all sides of it, it will keep far better than when laid on a platter. A good meat preserver is a box, as large as you can make room for in the refrigerator, the top and bottom of which are of wood, the sides of wire netting. Stout hooks are screwed into the inside of the top, and one of the netted sides is hinged, like a door. MEAT hung in this box will remain untainted and sweet much longer than when hung upon the side of the refrigerator. If you have a cool cellar, keep the meat box, thus prepared, upon a shelf in the darkest corner.