The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) Part 148

Six pounds of was.h.i.+ng soda and three of unslaked lime. Pour on four gallons of boiling water, let it stand until perfectly clear, then drain off, and put in six pounds of clean fat. Boil it until it begins to harden, about two hours, stirring most of the time. While boiling, thin it with two gallons of cold water, which you have previously poured on the alkaline mixture, after draining off the four gallons.

This must be settled clear before it is drawn off. Add it when there is danger of boiling over. Try the thickness by cooling a little on a plate. Put in a handful of salt just before taking from the fire. Wet a tub to prevent sticking; turn in the soap and let it stand until solid. Cut into bars, put on a board and let it dry. This makes about forty pounds of soap. It can be flavored just as you turn it out.

SOAP FOR WAs.h.i.+NG WITHOUT RUBBING.

A soap to clean clothes without rubbing: Take two pounds of sal soda, two pounds of common bar soap and ten quarts of water. Cut the soap in thin slices and boil together two hours; strain and it will be fit for use. Put the clothes in soak the night before you wash, and to every pailful of water in which you boil them add a pound of soap. They will need no rubbing, but merely rinsing.

TO MAKE SOFT SOAP WITHOUT COOKING.

Pour two pailfuls of boiling water upon twenty pounds of potash and let it stand two hours. Have ready thirty pounds of clean grease, upon which pour one pailful of the lye, adding another pail of water to the potash; let it stand three or four hours, stir it well; then pour a gallon of the lye upon the grease, stir it well; and in half an hour another gallon of the lye, stir it thoroughly; in half an hour repeat the process, and thus proceed until you have poured off all the lye; then add two pails of boiling hot water to the remainder of the potash, and let it stand ten hours; then stir the mixture, and if it has become stiff and the grease has disappeared from the surface, take out a little and see whether the weak lye will thicken it; if it does, add the lye; if it does not, try water, and if that thickens it, let it stand another day, stirring it well five or six times during the day; if the lye does not separate from the grease you may fill up with water.

OLD-STYLE FAMILY SOFT SOAP.

To _set the leach_, bore several holes in the bottom of a barrel, or use one without a bottom; prepare a board larger than the barrel, then set the barrel on it, and cut a groove around just outside the barrel, making one groove from this to the edge of the board, to carry off the lye as it runs off, with a groove around it, running into one in the centre of the board. Place all two feet from the ground and tip it so that the lye may run easily from the board into the vessel below prepared to receive it. Put half bricks or stones around the edge of the inside of the barrel; place on them one end of some sticks about two inches wide, inclining to the centre; on those place some straw to the depth of two inches, over it scatter two pounds of slaked lime.

Put in ashes, about half of a bushel at a time, pack it well, by pounding it down, and continue doing so until the barrel is full, leaving a funnel-shaped hollow in the centre large enough to hold several quarts of water. Use rain-water boiling hot. Let the water disappear before adding more. If the ashes are packed very _tightly_ it may require two or three days before the lye will begin to run, but it will be the stronger for it, and much better.

_To Make Boiled Soft Soap_.--Put in a kettle the grease consisting of all kinds of fat that has acc.u.mulated in the kitchen, such as sc.r.a.ps and bones from the soup-kettle, rinds from meat, etc.; fill the kettle half full; if there is too much grease it can be skimmed off after the soap is cold, for another kettle of soap. This is the only true test when enough grease is used, as the lye will consume all that is needed and no more. Make a fire under one side of it. The kettle should be in an out-house or out of doors. Let it heat very hot so as to fry; stir occasionally to prevent burning. Now put in the lye a gallon at a time, watching it closely until it boils, as it sometimes runs over at the beginning. Add lye until the kettle is full enough, but not _too full to boil well_. Soap should boil from the _side_ and not the middle, as this would be more likely to cause it to boil over. To test the soap, to one spoonful of soap add one of rain-water; if it stirs up very thick, the soap is good and will keep; if it becomes thinner, it is not good. This is the result of one of three causes, either it is too weak, or there is a deposit of dirt or it is too strong.

Continue to boil for a few hours, when it should flow from the stick with which it is stirred like thick mola.s.ses; but if after boiling it remains thin, let it stand over night, removing it from the fire, then drain it off very carefully into another vessel, being very particular to prevent any sediment from pa.s.sing. Wash the kettle, return the soap and boil again, if dirt was the cause; it will now be thick and good; otherwise if it was _too strong_, rain-water added will make it right, adding the water gradually until right and just thick enough.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FACTS WORTH KNOWING.

_An Agreeable Disinfectant:_--Sprinkle fresh ground coffee on a shovel of hot coals, or burn sugar on hot coals. Vinegar boiled with myrrh, sprinkled on the floor and furniture of a sick room, is an excellent deodorizer.

_To Prevent Mold:_--A small quant.i.ty of carbolic acid added to paste, mucilage and ink, will prevent mold. An ounce of the acid to a gallon of whitewash will keep cellars and dairies from the disagreeable odor which often taints milk and meat kept in such places.

_To Make Tracing-Paper:_--Dissolve a ball of white beeswax, one inch in diameter, in half a pint of turpentine. Saturate the paper in this bath and let it dry two or three days before using.

_To Preserve Brooms:_--Dip them for a minute or two in a kettle of boiling suds once a week and they will last much longer, making them tough and pliable. A carpet wears much longer swept with a broom cared for in this manner.

_To Clean Bra.s.s-Ware, etc.:_--Mix one ounce of oxalic acid, six ounces of rotten stone, all in powder, one ounce of sweet oil, and sufficient water to make a paste. Apply a small portion, and rub dry with a flannel or leather. The liquid dip most generally used consists of nitric and sulphuric acids; but this is more corrosive.

_Polish or Enamel for s.h.i.+rt Bosoms_ is made by melting together one ounce of white wax, and two ounces of spermaceti; heat gently and turn into a very shallow pan; when cold cut or break in pieces. When making boiled starch the usual way, enough for a dozen bosoms, add to it a piece of the polish the size of a hazel nut.

_An Erasive Fluid for the Removal of Spots on Furniture_, and all kinds of fabrics, without injuring the color, is made of four ounces of aqua ammonia, one ounce of glycerine, one ounce of castile soap and one of spirits of wine. Dissolve the soap in two quarts of soft water, add the other ingredients. Apply with a soft sponge and rub out. Very good for deaning silks.

_To Remove the Odor of Onion_ from fish-kettle and saucepans in which they have been cooked, put wood-ashes or sal soda, potash or lye; fill with water and let it stand on the stove until it boils; then wash in hot suds, and rinse well.

_To Clean Marble Busts:_--First free them from all dust, then wash them with very weak hydrochloric acid. Soap injures the color of marble.

_To Remove old Putty from Window Frames_, pa.s.s a red hot poker slowly over it and it will come off easily.

_Hanging Pictures:_--The most safe material and also the best, is copper wire, of the size proportioned to the weight of the picture.

When hung the wire is scarcely visible, and its strength is far superior to cord.

_To Keep Milk Sweet:--_Put into a panful a spoonful of grated horse-radish, it will keep it sweet for days.

_To Take Rust from Steel Implements or Knives:--_Rub them well with kerosene oil, leaving them covered with it a day or so; then rub them hard and well with finely powdered unslaked lime.

_Poison Water:--_Water boiled in galvanized iron becomes poisonous, and cold water pa.s.sed through zinc-lined iron pipes should never be used for cooking or drinking. Hot water for cooking should never be taken from hot water pipes; keep a supply heated in kettles.

_Scouring Soap for Cotton and Silk Goods:_--Mix one pound of common soap, half a pound of beef-gall and one ounce and a half of Venetian turpentine.

_A Paint for Wood or Stone that Resists all Moisture:_--Melt twelve ounces of resin; mix with it, thoroughly, six gallons of fish oil and one pound of melted sulphur. Rub up some ochre or any other coloring substance with a little linseed oil, enough to give it the right, color and thickness. Apply several coats of the hot composition with a brush. The first coat should be very thin.

_To Ventilate a Room:_--Place a pitcher of cold water on a table in your room and it will absorb all the gases with which the room is filled from the respiration of those eating or sleeping in the apartment. Very few realize how important such purification is for the health of the family, or, indeed, understand or realize that there can be any impurity in the rooms; yet in a few hours a pitcher or pail of cold water--the colder the more effective--will make the air of a room pure, but the water will be entirely unfit for use.

_To Fill Cracks in Plaster:_--Use vinegar instead of water to mix your plaster of Paris. The resultant ma.s.s will be like putty, and will not "set" for twenty or thirty minutes; whereas, if you use water the plaster will become hard almost immediately, before you have time to use it. Push it into the cracks and smooth it off nicely with a table knife.

_To Take Spots from Wash Goods:_--Rub them with the yolk of egg before was.h.i.+ng.

_To Take White Spots from Varnished Furniture:_--Hold a hot stove lid or plate over them and they will soon disappear.

_To Prevent Oil from Becoming Rancid:_--Drop a few drops of ether into the bottle containing it.

_Troublesome Ants:_--A heavy chalk mark laid a finger's distance from your sugar box and all around (there must be no s.p.a.ce not covered) will surely prevent ants from troubling.

_To Make Tough Meat Tender:_--Lay it a few minutes in a strong vinegar water.

_To Remove Discoloration from Bruises:_--Apply a cloth wrung out in very hot water, and renew frequently until the pain ceases. Or apply raw beefsteak.

_A Good Polish for Removing Stains, Spots and Mildew from Furniture_ is made as follows: Take half a pint of ninety-eight per cent, alcohol, a quarter of an ounce each of pulverized resin and gum sh.e.l.lac, add half a pint of linseed oil; shake well and apply with a brush or sponge.

_To Remove Finger-Marks:_--Sweet oil will remove finger-marks from varnished furniture, and kerosene from oiled furniture.

_To Remove Paint from Black Silk:_--Patient rubbing with chloroform will remove paint from black silk or any other goods, and will not hurt the most delicate color or fabric.

_To Freshen Gilt Frames:_--Gilt frames may be revived by carefully dusting them, and then was.h.i.+ng with one ounce of soda beaten up with the whites of three eggs. Sc.r.a.ped patches might be touched tip with any gold paint. Castile soap and water, with proper care, may be used to clean oil paintings; other methods should not be employed without some skill.

_To Destroy Moths in Furniture:_--All the baking and steaming are useless, as, although the moths may be killed, their eggs are sure to hatch, and the upholstery to be well riddled. The naphtha-bath process is effectual. A sofa, chair or lounge may be immersed in the large vats used for the purpose, and all insect life will be absolutely destroyed. No egg ever hatches after pa.s.sing through the naphtha-bath; all oil, dirt or grease disappears, and not the slightest damage is done to the most costly article. Sponging with naphtha will not answer. It is the immersion for two hours or more in the specially prepared vats which is effectual.

_Slicing Pineapples:_--The knife used for peeling a pineapple should not be used for slicing it, as the rind contains an acid that is apt to cause a swollen mouth and sore lips. The Cubans use salt as an antidote for the ill effects of the peel.

_To Clean Iron Sinks:_--Rub them well with a cloth wet with kerosene oil.

_To Erase Discoloration on Stone China:_--Dishes and cups that are used for baking custards, puddings, etc., that require scouring, may be easily cleaned by rubbing with a damp cloth dipped in whiting or "Sapolio," then washed as usual.

_To Remove Ink, Wine or Fruit Stains:_--Saturate well in tomato juice; it is also an excellent thing to remove stains from the hands.

_To Set Colors in Washable Goods:_--Soak them previous to was.h.i.+ng in a water in which is allowed a tablespoonful of ox-gall to a gallon of water.