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

and all of these should be eaten with cream, and except as a dessert, never with sugar. Children who are trained to eat porridge and milk, or cream, without sugar, find the addition of this unpleasant. It certainly tends to acidity of the stomach. Every cereal, with the exception of rice, that needs any cooking needs a great deal of it. Soaking over night is indispensable to the excellence of most of them. Four hours of boiling make oatmeal good; eight hours make it better; twenty-four hours make it “best.” Oatmeal Soak over night. Even the varieties which are advertised “to require no soaking, and but fifteen minutes’ cooking,” are improved by this process. Turn a deaf ear to the charmer who would persuade you to the contrary. “Steam cooked” is often a delusion and a snare. Put your oatmeal into the inner vessel of your farina kettle, cover deep in cold water, put on the lid and set at the back of the range at bedtime. In the morning add boiling water, salt to taste, and draw to the front, filling the outer kettle with hot water. Cook steadily for an hour and as much longer as you can. My own taste is for oatmeal boiled to a jelly. It is as far superior to the ordinary preparation of the cereal as creamed cauliflower is to Dutch cabbage. Send to table and eat with cream. Never throw away oatmeal “left-overs.” Cook again, and yet again, always in a double boiler. Hominy Soak all night; cover with boiling water, slightly salted, in the morning, and cook for an hour. A delicious preparation of hominy is effected by cooking it in plenty of salted water until tender, turning off the water and supplying its place with cold milk. Bring to a boil and serve. Cracked wheat Cook as you would oatmeal. An hour’s boiling suffices. Milk porridge Heat a pint of milk to boiling. Into a pint of cold milk stir four tablespoonfuls of flour, and when this is smooth stir it into the hot milk. Cook in a double boiler