The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet Part 33

Take Sh.e.l.l Snails, and cast Salt upon them, and when you think they are cleansed well from their slime, wash them, and crack their Sh.e.l.ls and take them off, then wash them in the distilled Water of Hysop, then put them into a Bag made of Canvas, with some white Sugar Candy beaten, and hang up the Bag, and let it drop as long as it will, which if you bruise the Snails before you hang them up, it is the better; this Liquor taken morning and evening a Spoonful at a time is very rare.

287. _A Suitable Dish for Lent._

Take a large Dish with broad Brims, and in the middle put blanched Almonds round about them, Raisins of the Sun, and round them Figs, and beyond them all coloured Jellies, and on the Brims Fig-Cheese.

288. _To make a Rock in Sweet-Meats._

First take a flat broad voiding Basket, then have in readiness a good thick Plum Cake, then cut your Cake fit to the bottom of the Basket, and cut a hole in the middle of it, that the foot of your Gla.s.s may go in, which must be a Fountain-Gla.s.s, let it be as high a one as you can get; put the foot of it in the hole of the Cake edgling that it may stand the faster, then tie the Cake fast with a Tape to the Basket, first cross one way and then another, then tie the foot of the Gla.s.s in that manner too, that it may stand steady, then cut some odd holes in your Cake carelesly, then take some Gum Dragon steeped in Rosewater, and mix it with some fine Sugar, not too thick, and with that you must fasten all your Rock together, in these holes which you cut in your Cake you must fasten some sort of Biskets, as Naples Biskets, and other common Bisket made long, and some ragged, and some coloured, that they may look like great ill-favoured, Stones, and some handsome, some long, some short, some bigger, and some lesser, as you know Nature doth afford, and some of one colour and some of another, let some stand upright and some aslannt, and some quite along, and fasten them all with your Gum, then put in some better Sweet-meats, as Mackeroons and Marchpanes, carelesly made as to the shape, and not put on the Rock in a set form, also some rough Almond Cakes made with the long slices of Almonds (as I have directed before;) so build it up in this manner, and fasten it with the Gum and Sugar, till it be very high, then in some places you must put whole Quinces Candied, both red and white, whole Orange Pills and Limon Pills Candied; dried Apric.o.c.ks, Pears and Pippins Candied, whole Peaches Candied, then set up here and there great lumps of brown and white Sugar-candy upon the stick, which much resembles some cl.u.s.ters of fine Stones growing on a Rock; for Sand which lies sometimes among the little Stones, strew some brown Sugar; for Moss, take herbs of a Rock Candy; then you must make the likeness of Snakes and Snails and Worms, and of any venomous Creature you can think of; make them in Sugar Plate and colour them to their likeness, and put them in the holes that they may seem to lurk, and some Snails creeping one way and some other; then take all manner of Comfits, both rough and smooth, both great and small, and colour many of them, some of one colour and some of another, let some be white and some speckled, then when you have coloured them, and that they are dry, mix them together and throw them into the Clefts, but not too many in one place, for that will hide the shape of your work, then throw in some Chips of all sorts of Fruit Candied, as Orange, Limon, Citron, Quince, Pear, and Apples, for of all these you may make Chips; then all manner of dryed Plumbs, and Cherries, Cornelions dryed, Rasps and Currans; and in some places throw a few Prunelles, Pistacho Nuts, blanched Almonds, Pine Kernels, or any such like, and a pound of the great round perfumed Comfits; then take the lid off the top of the Gla.s.s and fill it with preserved Grapes, and fill another with some Harts-horn Jelly, place these two far from one another, and if you set some kind of Fowl, made in Marchpanes, as a Peac.o.c.k, or such like, and some right Feathers gummed on with Gum Arabick, let this Fowl stand as though it did go to drink at the Gla.s.s of Harts-horn Jelly, and then they will know who see it, that those two liquid Gla.s.ses serve for resemblance of several Waters in the Rock.

Then make good store of Oyster sh.e.l.ls and c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.ls of Sugar Plate, let some be pure white as though the Sea water had washed them, some brown on the outside, and some green, some as it were dirty, and others worn away in some Places, some of them broke, and some whole, so set them here and there about the Rock, some edgling, and some flat, some the hollow side upward, and some the other, then stick the Moss, some upon the sh.e.l.ls, and some upon the stones, and also little branches of Candied Fruits, as Barberries, Plums, and the like, then when all is done, sprinkle it over with Rosewater, with a Grain or two of Musk or Ambergreece in it; your Gla.s.s must be made with a reasonable proportion of bigness to hold the Wine, and from that, in the middle of it, there must be a Conveyance to fall into a Gla.s.s below it, which must have Spouts for the Wine to play upward or downward, then from thence in another Gla.s.s below, with Spouts also, and from thence it hath a Conveyance into a Gla.s.s below that, somewhat in form like a Sillibub Pot, where the Wine may be drunk out at the Spout; you may put some Eringo Roots, and being coloured, they will shew very well among the other Sweet-Meats, tie your Basket about with several sorts of small Ribbons: Do not take this for a simple Fancy, for I a.s.sure you, it is the very same that I taught to a young Gentlewoman to give for a Present to a Person of Quality.

TO THE READER.

_Courteous Reader,

I Think it not amiss, since I have given you, as I think, a very full Direction for all kinds of Food both for Nourishment and Pleasure, that I do shew also how to eat them in good order; for there is a Time and Season for all things: Besides, there is not anything well done which hath not a Rule, I shall therefore give you several Bills of Service for Meals according to the Season of the Year, so that you may with ease form up a Dinner in your Mind quickly; afterwards I shall speak of ordering of Banquets; but these things first, because Banquets are most proper after Meals.

All you who are knowing already and Vers'd in such things, I beseech you to take it only as a_ Memorandum; _and to those who are yet unlearned, I presume they will reap some Benefit by these Directions; which is truly wished and desired by_

Hanna Woolley _alias_ Chaloner.

_A Bill of Service for extraordinary Feasts in the Summer._

1. A Grand Sallad.

2. A boiled Capon or Chickens.

3. A boiled Pike or Bream.

4. A Florentine in Puff Paste.

5. A Haunch of Venison rosted.

6. A Lomber Pie.

7. A Dish of Green Geese.

8. A Fat Pig with a Pudding in the belly.

9. A Venison Pasty.

10. A Chicken Pie.

11. A Dish of young Turkeys.

12. A Potato Pie.

13. A couple of Caponets.

14. A Set Custard.

_The Second Course_

1. A Dish of Chickens rosted.

2. Souced Conger or Trouts.

3. An Artichoke Pie.

4. A Cold Baked Meat.

5. A Souced Pig.

6. A Dish of Partridges.

7. An Oringado Pie.

8. A Dish of Quails.

9. Another cold Baked Meat.

10. Fresh Salmon.

11. A Dish of Tarts.

12. A Joll of Sturgeon.

_The Third Course._

1. Dish of fried Perches.

2. A Dish of Green Pease.

3. A Dish of Artichokes.

4. A Dish of Lobsters.