Spinach, 20 to 60 minutes or more.

Cauliflower, 20 to 40 minutes.

Summer squash, 20 to 60 minutes.

If vegetables after being cooked cannot be served at once, dish them up
as soon as done, and place the dishes in a _bain marie_ or in pans of
hot water, where they will keep of even temperature, but not boil.
Vegetables are never so good after standing, but they spoil less kept in
this way than any other. The water in the pans should be of equal depth
with the food in the dishes. Stewed vegetables and others prepared with
a sauce, may, when cold, be reheated in a similar manner.

[Illustration: Bain Marie.]

If salt is to be used to season, one third of a teaspoonful for each
pint of cooked vegetables is an ample quantity.

THE IRISH POTATO.

DESCRIPTION.--The potato, a plant of the order _Solanaceae_, is
supposed to be indigenous to South America. Probably it was introduced
into Europe by the Spaniards early in the sixteenth century, but
cultivated only as a curiosity. To Sir Walter Raleigh, however, is
usually given the credit of its introduction as a food, he having
imported it from Virginia to Ireland in 1586, where its valuable
nutritive qualities were first appreciated. The potato has so long
constituted the staple article of diet in Ireland, that it has come to
be commonly, though incorrectly, known as the Irish potato.

The edible portion of the plant is the tuber, a thick, fleshy mass or
enlarged portion of an underground stem, having upon its surface a
number of little buds, or "eyes," each capable of independent growth.
The tuber is made up of little cells filled with starch granules,
surrounded and permeated with a watery fluid containing a small
percentage of the albuminous or nitrogenous elements. In cooking, heat
coagulates the albumen within and between the cells, while the starch
granules absorb the watery portion, swell, and distend the cells. The
cohesion between these is also destroyed, and they easily separate. When
these changes are complete, the potato becomes a loose, farinaceous
mass, or "mealy." When, however, the liquid portion is not wholly
absorbed, and the cells are but imperfectly separated, the potato
appears waxen, watery, or soggy. In a mealy state the potato is easily
digested; but when waxy or water-soaked, it is exceedingly trying to the
digestive powers.

It is obvious, then, that the great _desideratum_ in cooking the potato,
is to promote the expansion and separati