on is feeble, this is the best way of eating it; and spread on
bread, it makes an excellent supper. The flavour of this dish may be
encreased by pounding it with curry powder, ground spice, black cayenne,
and a little made mustard; or it may be moistened with a glass of
sherry. If pressed down hard in a jar, and covered with clarified
butter, it will keep for several days in cool weather.

PRAWNS AND SHRIMPS. When fresh they have a sweet flavour, are firm and
stiff, and of a bright colour. Shrimps are of the prawn kind, and may be
judged by the same rules.

PRAWN SOUP. Boil six whitings and a large eel, in as much water as will
cover them, after being well cleaned. Skim them clean, and put in whole
pepper, mace, ginger, parsley, or onion, a little thyme, and three
cloves, and boil the whole to a mash. Pick fifty crawfish, or a hundred
prawns; pound the shells, and a small roll. But first boil them with a
little water, vinegar, salt, and herbs. Put this liquor over the shells
in a sieve, and then pour the soup, clear from the sediment. Chop a
lobster, and add this to it, with a quart of good beef gravy. Add also
the tails of the crawfish, or the prawns, with some flour and butter.
The seasoning may be heightened, if approved.

PRESERVES. These can never be done to perfection, without plenty of good
sugar. Fruits may be kept with small quantities of sugar, but then they
must boil so long that there is as much waste in the boiling away, as
some more sugar added at first would have cost, and the quality of the
preserve will neither be so proper for use, nor of so good an
appearance, as with a larger proportion of sugar, and moderate boiling.
Fruits are often put up without any sugar at all, but if they do not
ferment and spoil, which is very common, they must have a good deal of
sugar added to them when used, and thus the risk of spoiling seems
hardly compensated by any saving. The only real economy that can be
exercised in this case is, not to make any preserves at all. The most
perfect state in which fruits in general can be taken for preserving is,
just when they are full ripe. Sooner than this they have not acquired
their best qualities, and if they hang long after it they begin to lose
them. Some persons will delay the doing them, under an idea that the
longer they hang the less sugar they require. But it is a false economy
that would lose the perfection of the fruit to save some of the sugar,
and probably quit