The baked
sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable.

CLASS III.--ROOTS.

DIVISION I.--MEALY ROOTS.

These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the
ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most
important.

SECTION A.--_The Common Potato._

This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made
into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of
cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my
protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary
memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in
his house.

The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent
when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed.

There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always
pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring,
but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest
part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much
tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly.

RECEIPT 1.--To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water
pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water
boils.[29] When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them
with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes.

RECEIPT 2.--To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry them, then
remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the
fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on
top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices
with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as
possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire
over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of
an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire.

RECEIPT 3.--Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so
generally known, that it hardly needs description.

RECEIPT 4.--Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew
them with vegetables for soup, etc.

SECTION B.--_The Sweet Potato._

This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in
tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than
the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious;