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

brown four sliced onions. Add four peeled tomatoes, four chopped green bell-peppers, and the corn cut from four cobs. Add as much water as may be needed in cooking, season with salt and sugar and a little black pepper. A full hour’s cooking will be necessary, and the chowder must be served piping hot. CUCUMBERS Many persons look upon the cucumber with fear as a source of indigestion and gastric discomfort. One able dietitian has left on record his opinion that a square inch of verdant cucumber is about as fit to be put into the human stomach as would be a like quantity of Paris green. Our cucumber, like many another abused article, is maligned because its enemies have never made the attempt to do it justice. If a few simple rules are followed it will prove less indigestible and more palatable than foes and friends imagine. When cooked, it loses many of its disturbing qualities. But, as some people enjoy the crisp freshness of its raw state, it is well to learn just how to prepare it properly. Raw cucumbers See to it that the cucumber is fresh and lay it on the ice until wanted. Do not be content with leaving it on the shelf of the refrigerator. It must be in actual contact with the ice. Just before sending to the table, peel quickly and slice thin, scattering crushed ice among the slices. At the table make a French dressing of one part vinegar, three parts oil, salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the cucumbers as you dish them. To allow the vegetable to lie for even fifteen minutes in the dressing is to toughen the fiber and make it as indigestible as gutta percha. Stewed cucumbers Peel eight medium-sized cucumbers and cut them into slices an inch thick. Lay in iced water for half an hour. Have a pint of unsalted, hot beef stock in a saucepan, drain the cucumbers and lay them in this. Stew until tender, then remove with a skimmer and lay in a vegetable-dish. Cook together a tablespoonful, each,