quence that their best
qualities should be carefully preserved. Vegetables are generally a
wholesome diet, but become very prejudicial if not properly dressed.
Cauliflowers, and others of the same species, are often boiled only
crisp, to preserve their beauty. For the look alone, they had better not
be boiled at all, and almost as well for the purpose of food, as in such
a crude state they are scarcely digestible by the strongest stomach. On
the other hand, when overboiled they become vapid, and in a state
similar to decay, in which they afford no sweet purifying juices to the
stomach, but load it with a mass of mere feculent matter. The same may
be said of many other vegetables, their utility being too often
sacrificed to appearance, and sent to table in a state not fit to be
eaten. A contrary error often prevails respecting potatoes, as if they
could never be done too much. Hence they are popped into the saucepan or
steamer, just when it happens to suit, and are left doing, not for the
time they require, but till it is convenient to take them up; when
perhaps their nutricious qualities are all boiled away, and they taste
of nothing but water. Ideas of nicety and beauty in this case ought all
to be subservient to utility; for what is beauty in vegetables growing
in the garden is not so at table, from the change of circumstances. They
are brought to be eaten, and if not adapted properly to the occasion,
they are deformities on the dish instead of ornaments. The true
criterion of beauty is their suitableness to the purposes intended. Let
them be carefully adapted to this, by being neither under nor over done,
and they will not fail to please both a correct eye and taste, while
they constitute a wholesome species of diet. A most pernicious method of
dressing vegetables is often adopted, by putting copper into the
saucepan with them in the form of halfpence. This is a dangerous
experiment, as the green colour imparted by the copperas, renders them
in the highest degree unwholesome, and even poisonous. Besides, it is
perfectly unnecessary, for if put into boiling water with a little
salt, and boiled up directly, they will be as beautifully green as the
most fastidious person can require. A little pearlash might safely be
used on such an occasion, and with equal effect, its alkaline properties
tending to correct the acidity. Many vegetables are more wholesome, and
more agreeable to the taste, when stewed a good while, only car