con, cut square if
possible, scrape and wash clean, put on in plenty of water, with a young
onion, a little thyme and parsley, bring to a quick boil, throw in cold
water, skim the pot clean, then let stand simmering for two to three
hours. Add to it either greens--mustard, turnip, or dandelion or field
salad, well washed and picked, let cook till very tender, then skim out,
drain in a colander, lay in a hot dish with the square of bacon on top.
Here is the foundation of a hearty and wholesome meal. The bacon by long
boiling is in a measure emulsified, and calculated to nourish the most
delicate stomach rather than to upset it. Serve two thin slices of it
with each helping of greens. You should have plenty of Cayenne vinegar,
very hot and sharp, hot corn bread, and cider or beer, to go along with
it.

String beans, known to the south country as snaps, never come fully to
their own, unless thus cooked with bacon. Even pork does not answer,
though that is far and away better than boiling and buttering or
flooding with milk sauces. It is the same with cabbage. Wash well, halve
or quarter, boil until very tender, drain and serve. Better cook as many
as the pot will hold and the bacon season, since fried cabbage, which is
chopped fine, and tossed in bacon fat with a seasoning of pepper, salt
and vinegar, helps out wonderfully for either breakfast, luncheon or
supper. Never throw away proper pot-liquor--it is a good and cheap
substitute for soup on cold days. Heat, and drop into it crisp
bread-crusts--if they are corn bread crusts made very brown, all the
better. Pioneer folk throve on pot-liquor to such an extent they had a
saying that it was sinful to have too much--pot-liquor and buttermilk at
the same meal.

_Fruit Desserts_: Fruits have affinities the same as human beings.
Witness the excellent agreement of grape fruit and rum. Nothing else,
not the finest liqueur, so brings out the flavor. But there are other
fruits which, conjoined to the grape fruit, make it more than ever
delicious. Strawberries for example. They must be fine and ripe. Wash
well, pick, wash again, halve if very large, and mix well in a bowl with
grape fruit pulp, freed of skin and seed, and broken to berry size. Add
sugar in layers, then pour over a tumbler of rum, let stand six hours on
ice, and serve with or without cream.

Strawberries mixed with ripe fresh pineapple, cut to berry size, and
well sweetened, are worthy of sherry, the best in the c