and small bits of bacon just made hot before the fire.
CALF'S HEAD PIE. Stew a knuckle of veal till fit for eating, with two onions, a few isinglass shavings, a bunch of herbs, a blade of mace, and a few peppercorns, in three pints of water. Keep the broth for the pie. Take off a bit of the meat for the balls, and let the other be eaten; but simmer the bones in the broth till it is very good. Half boil the head, and cut it into square bits; put a layer of ham at the bottom, then some head, first fat and then lean, with balls and hard eggs cut in half, and so on till the dish be full; but great care must be taken not to place the pieces close, or the pie will be too solid, and there will be no space for the jelly. The meat must be first seasoned pretty well with pepper and salt, and a scrape or two of nutmeg. Put a little water and gravy into the dish, cover it with a tolerably thick crust, and bake it in a slow oven. When done, fill it up with gravy, and do not cut it till quite cold. Use a very sharp knife for this purpose, first cutting out a large piece, and going down to the bottom of the dish: thinner slices may afterwards be cut. The different colours, and the clear jelly, will have a beautiful marbled appearance. A small pie may be made to eat hot, and will have a good appearance, if seasoned high with oysters, mushrooms, truffles and morels. The cold pie will keep several days, and slices of it will make a handsome side-dish. If the isinglass jelly be not found stiff enough, a calf's foot or a cow heel may be used instead. To vary the colour, pickled tongue may be cut in, instead of ham.
CALF'S HEAD ROASTED. Wash the head perfectly clean, stew it with oysters, tie it together and spit it, baste it well with butter and flour rubbed smooth. Stew together some of the oyster liquor, gravy, butter and salt, with a few sprigs of marjoram and savoury, adding a little claret, and pour the sauce over the dish.
CALF'S HEAD SOUP. After the head has been thoroughly cleaned, put it into a stewpan with a proper quantity of water, an onion, some sweet herbs, mace and cloves, and a little pearl barley. Boil it quite tender, put in some stewed celery, and season it with pepper. Pour the soup into a dish, place the head in the middle, and send it hot to table.
CALF'S HEAD STEWED. Wash and soak it for an hour, bone it, take out the brains, the tongue and the eyes. Make a forcemeat with two pounds of beef suet, as much lean veal, two anchovies boned and washed, the peel of a lemon, some grated nutmeg, and a little thyme. Chop them up together with some grated bread, and mix in the yolks of four eggs. Make part of this forcemeat into fifteen or twenty balls; boil five eggs hard, some oysters washed clean, and half a pint of fresh mushrooms, and mix with the rest of the forcemeat. Stuff that part of the head where the bones were taken out, tie it up carefully with packthread, put it into two quarts of gravy or good broth, with a blade of mace, cover it close, and stew it very slowly for two hours. While the head is doing, beat up the brains with some lemon-thyme and parsley chopped very fine, some grated nutmeg, and the yolk of an egg mixed with it. Fry half the brains in dripping, in little cakes, and fry the balls. When the head is done, keep it warm with the brain-cakes and balls; strain off the liquor in which the head was stewed, add to it some stewed truffles and morels, and a few pickled mushrooms. Put in the other half of the brains chopped, boil them up together, and let them simmer a few minutes. Lay the head into a hot dish, pour the liquor over it, and place the balls and the brain-cakes round it. For a small family, half the head will be sufficient. A lamb's head may be done in the same way.
CALF'S HEART. Chop fine some suet, parsley, sweet marjoram and a boiled egg. Add some grated bread, lemon peel, pepper, salt and mustard. Mix them together in a paste, and stuff the heart with it, after it has been well washed and cleaned. If done carefully, it is better baked than roasted. Serve it up quite hot, with gravy and melted butter.
CALF'S KIDNEY. Chop veal kidney, and some of the fat; likewise a little leek or onion, pepper, and salt. Roll the kidney up with an egg into balls, and fry it. – A calf's heart should be stuffed and roasted as a beef's heart; or sliced and made into a pudding, the same as for a steak or kidney pudding.
CALF'S LIVER. There are several ways of making this into a good dish. One is to broil it, after it has been seasoned with pepper and salt. Then rub a bit of cold butter over, and serve it up hot and hot. – If the liver is to be roasted, first wash and wipe it, then cut a long hole in it, and stuff it with crumbs of bread, chopped anchovy, herbs, fat bacon, onion, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, and an egg. Sew up the liver, lard or wrap it in a veal caul, and put it to the fire. Serve it with good brown gravy, and currant jelly. – If the liver and lights are to be dressed together, half boil an equal quantity of each; then cut them in a middling-sized mince, add a spoonful or two of the water that boiled it, a bit of butter, flour, salt and pepper. Simmer them together ten minutes, and serve the dish up hot.
CALF'S SWEETBREADS. These should be half boiled, and then stewed in white gravy. Add cream, flour, butter, nutmeg, salt, and white pepper. Or do them in brown sauce seasoned. Or parboil, and then cover them with crumbs, herbs, and seasoning, and brown them in a Dutch oven. Serve with butter, and mushroom ketchup, or gravy.
CALVES. The general method of rearing calves consumes so much of the milk of the dairy, that it is highly necessary to adopt other means, or the calves must be sold to the butcher while they are young. A composition called linseed milk, made of linseed oil-cake powdered, and gradually mixed with skim-milk sweetened with treacle, has been tried with considerable effect. It must be made nearly as warm as new milk when taken from the cow. Hay tea mixed with linseed and boiled to a jelly, has likewise been tried with success. A species of water gruel, made in the following manner, is strongly recommended. Put a handful or two of oatmeal into some boiling water, and after it has thickened a little, leave it to cool till it is lukewarm; mix with it two or three pints of skim-milk, and give it to the calf to drink. At first it may be necessary to make the calf drink by presenting the fingers to it; but it will soon learn to drink of itself, and will grow much faster than by any other method. According to the old custom, a calf intended to be reared is allowed to suck for six or eight weeks; and if the cow give only a moderate quantity of milk, the value of it will amount to the price of the calf in half that time. By the method now recommended, only a little oatmeal or ground barley is consumed, and a small quantity of skim-milk. The calf is also more healthy and strong, and less subject to disease. Small whisps of hay should be placed round them on cleft sticks, to induce the calves to eat; and when they are weaned, they should be turned into short sweet grass; for if hay and water only are used, they are liable to swellings and the rot. The fatting of calves being an object of great importance, a greater variety of food is now provided for this purpose than formerly, and great improvements have been made in this part of rural economy. Grains, potatoes, malt dust, pollard, and turnips now constitute their common aliment. But in order to make them fine and fat, they must be kept as clean as possible, with fresh litter every day. Bleeding them twice before they are slaughtered, improves the beauty and whiteness of the flesh, but it may be doubted whether the meat is equally good and nutricious. If calves be taken with the scouring, which often happens in a few days after being cast, make a medicine of powdered chalk and wheat meal, wrought into a ball with some gin; and it will afford relief. The shoote is another distemper to which they are liable, and is attended with a violent cholic and the loathing of food. The general remedy in this case is milk, well mulled with eggs; or eggs and flour mixed with oil, melted butter, linseed or anniseed. To prevent the sickness which commonly attends calves about Michaelmas time, take newly-churned butter, without salt, and form it into a cup the size of an egg; into this cup put three or four cloves of bruised garlic, and fill it up with tar. Having put the cup down the calf's throat, pour into its nostrils half a spoonful of the spirit of turpentine, rub a little tar upon its nose, and keep it within doors for an hour. Calves ought to be housed a night before this medicine is given.
CALICO FURNITURE. When curtains or bed furniture of this description are to be taken down for the summer, shake off the loose dust, and lightly brush them with a small long-haired furniture brush. Wipe them afterwards very closely with clean flannels, and rub them with dry bread. If properly done, the curtains will look nearly as well as at first, and if the colour be not very light, they will not require washing for years. Fold them up in large parcels, and put them by carefully. While the furniture remains up, it should be preserved as much as possible from the sun and air,
