1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

HOTEL AND RESTAURANT COOKERY.

20I

The vegetable pantry should have a good stone, or brick floor, and be of a northern aspect. And the stores of winter carrots, potatoes, and turnips kept in bins, and well covered,

apples, which

protect them from

Shelves

for

to

frost.

other, and

should be spread out so as not to touch each

placed bud downwards. The stock requires periodical ex- amination, the shelves washing and scrubbing, and the stock kept off till they are perfectly dry. Keeping pears, I hang under the apple shelves ; these being made in strips two inches wide, and one inch open, like soap and candle store shelves. I tie a string to the pear stalk, and tie it to a bar of the shelf, and there it hangs till wanted. To ripen, I store in little air tight boxes for a few days or a week, surrounding them with cotton wool or flannel. Flour, I like in iron bins, they are less likely to harbour the weevil and do not absorb damp and wet. Besides, the iron bins on wheels are more useful, being easily transported from one kitchen to another, or to the scullery for cleaning. Baked flour for brown roux and sauces, I keep in a large canister near the fire, to be dry and handy, also the corn Jars, glass bottles for such goods as rice, tapioca, sago, large and small, potatoe flour, rice flour, corn flour, dessi- cated cocoanut, &c., &c., I keep in my general stores. All labelled plainly, so that if I were ill, my sub could make no mistake. It is only an evening's amusement, to make the apprentices write in a fair hand labels, cut them out, and paste them on, and they last a couple of years if the jars are carefully cleaned. Soaps should be bought in bulk in the summer time, also stearine and composition for decorative moulds. By the way, mutton fat, home rendered, is just as cheap, and if a flour ; white, sifted and baked crumbs, and brown crumbs and raspings.