Angelique is so easy to raise and is of such value that two methods of handling it when home grown are given below. Why so many candy-makers with gardens continue to buy it when it can be cultivated so easily is a mystery.
=Preserved Green Angelique.=--Select angelique that is fresh, young, crisp, and as tender as possible. Cut the stalks into six inch lengths; wash them thoroughly. Boil them in water for ten minutes, and drain them. Thereupon, boil them in a syrup for half an hour. Let them cool in the syrup. Store in wide-mouthed bottles or jars.
=Dried Angelique.=--Prepare the angelique as before. Cut the stalks into strips, lozenges, or large and small rings. Boil them in the syrup three or four times--as was directed before. After draining, roll each piece in powdered sugar. Dry them thoroughly on a screen, and store carefully.
XXII
FOR THE CATERER
Vegetable candy opens up a new field for the caterer. It furnishes him material that is not only cheaper but better than that with which he has been accustomed to work. Not only are the results better, but they are achieved by the expenditure of much less effort. Potato fondant can be made to a.s.sume clear outlines without the hour after hour beating required by the traditional French methods. Moreover, the caterer"s customers can have the satisfaction of knowing that the pretty things that they are buying are not made with the help of plaster of Paris or other ingredients of which the less there is said the better!
The caterer should take particular note of the ill.u.s.tration facing page 138. It will suggest many of the uses to which the new mediums can be put. The caterer, also, should read with particular care the chapter relating to decorative candy. Chapter and ill.u.s.tration together will furnish him with ideas as to how he can make use of this discovery in his own profession. Of course, for success, absolute familiarity with the processes of vegetable candy-making is essential.
There are a few definite points which should be borne in mind, however, by the person who wishes to use vegetable candy in catering. Flowers can be wired and used as bouquets. As will be seen from the ill.u.s.tration facing the next page, to hold candles for use on birthday cakes there is no need to use the objectionable wire cups. Smaller flower cups made from potato fondant can be subst.i.tuted. An excellent method is to use them in the border. There, they are not only useful but highly decorative. Nor need there be used cups made from starch, plaster of Paris, or other inedible mixtures.
The possibilities of using potato fondant as the base for fancy cups to hold ice creams and ices are unlimited. For instance, the fondant can be molded into cups of conventionalized flower designs. The caterer should remember that these cups should be dipped one or more times in a crystal syrup. This will not only make them resemble somewhat the ever popular spun sugar, but will tend to make them impervious to the melting ices or creams. As a result, the fondant itself will retain its crispness. A similar use is for novel containers for salted almonds and nut meats.
[Ill.u.s.tration: For the Caterer]
One great advantage of the use of objects made from vegetable candy is that they may very easily be made to follow the color schemes used at luncheons or dinners. The color may be very easily applied to the exterior or may be worked into the ma.s.s itself before it is molded. Just how these operations should be followed will readily be seen by re-reading Chapter VIII, division III,
"DECORATIVE CANDIES FROM POTATO FONDANT."
For instance, if pink is the color for the luncheon, wild roses easily suggest themselves as promising decorations. The form of the wild rose lends itself readily to cups,--the larger ones for ices and the smaller for nuts. If the function is a birthday, wild roses may well be used for candle cups on cakes. If not a birthday, and decorative icing is desired for large or small cakes, nothing could be prettier than the roses. They can be used either as a border of conventional regularity around a large cake or in the center of small, round cakes covered with white icing. As a flower decoration, candy wild roses can be placed in a vase in the middle of the table. To carry the place cards, there may be a b.u.t.terfly alighting upon each rose cup holding nuts. These b.u.t.terflies can be made of vegetable candy, water color paper, or bolting cloth; whatever their material, they must be wired, or glued, with a few drops of crystal syrup, to the edge of the rose.
If, however, the luncheon is to be violet, other decorations can be used. The center piece may be a large bunch of pop-corn violets. At each plate there may be French baskets, made from potato fondant colored pale violet, filled with cocoanut violets. To give the idea that the baskets have just come from the florist"s, to each there may well be tied a card bearing the name of the guest. In this instance, it would be well for the ice to be served in a fondant basket and capped with a few violets.
The caterer will readily see that vegetable candy offers itself in countless ways in connection with place cards. The new candy can not only be used as the holder for daintily designed cards, but the design itself may be painted directly upon the object modeled from potato fondant or potato paste. The first method is likely to be rather more easy in its process and attractive in its results, on the whole, but the second has the distinction of novelty. It surely is an interesting thing for the guests to be able to eat their place cards, decoration, design, and all!
For Easter, yellow is a particularly good color. For ices, cups and cases can be made of white and yellow fondant modeled in the form of jonquils or daffodils. Carrot rings, served with the salad course, would add a touch of variety. As is suggested in the chapter concerning decorative candies, potato fondant can be made to serve the table decorator especially well for special times and functions. Insignia can easily be formed of fondant, either as separate forms to be wired and used as place cards or as place cards attached to the little cases--paper or fondant. A Masonic dinner, for instance, would use the square and compa.s.s in different ways, and one for the Odd Fellows would make use of their three links. For college banquets, the appropriate Greek letter insignia could be used. In this case, however, the caterer must make sure that he is not violating any of the rules of the societies to which his guests belong.
For any decoration that is flat instead of modeled, the potato paste can be subst.i.tuted for the potato fondant. Thus, in the case last cited above, many of the insignia can be cut from paste more easily than they can be modeled from fondant. A tinsmith can easily make a cutter that will save time if a number of the same design are desired.
The paste can be used with the fondant, either in the same object or separately for the same occasion.
Vegetable candy can be made by the skillful amateur as readily as by the manufacturer. No large plant or complicated machinery is required. As a result, the girl or woman with a skill that is great, but a bank account that is small, may find vegetable candy the road to a profitable catering trade. If in a small town, she can--if she is sufficiently skillful--fashion decorations for food that will rival the products of the art of the city caterer. Moreover, inasmuch as she is put to comparatively little expense, and is using comparatively cheap ingredients, she can undersell her urban compet.i.tor. And her fellow townswomen who buy her wares will have the distinct satisfaction of knowing that her product is free from harmful ingredients.
XXIII
FOR THE TEACHER
The discovery of vegetable candy has been of great pedagogic value.
Teachers of household arts and all art are beginning to find that the new bases are of great service to them in their cla.s.s work. Before this discovery, there was no medium which was of use for both cooking and the modeling cla.s.ses. Now cooking cla.s.ses and modeling cla.s.ses can be correlated in such a way that much is promised both.
The processes in the making of potato fondant and potato paste ill.u.s.trate fundamental principles in domestic science. With the exercise of a little care on the part of the teacher, their making can be as simple and educationally valuable as the traditional first lesson in peppermint drops. In the fashioning of these new candies, however, there is more incentive to the child than there was in the cooking of the old-fashioned confection, no matter how delectable it might be. But the pedagogic value of vegetable candy does not fall wholly within the field of household arts. As has been explained in the chapter concerning decorative candy, potato fondant and paste are the basis of very attractive objects. Their fashioning, obviously, can be made to teach principles of line, design and color. Is it not safe to say that no other modeling medium--edible or inedible--possesses this threefold recommendation? Fondant or paste can be colored by painting directly upon the finished surfaces, or the coloring matter can be worked into the ma.s.s. In either case, there is a pleasing relief from the gray or green of clay and its preparations. Now the child can model in natural colors what he sees on his nature study rambles. Now he can make roses in their natural colorings and shadings, and buds that are not wholly a dull, dead green! Moreover, potato fondant can be modeled so as to have clearer outlines than clay. There are two disadvantages, however, which should be stated: first, potato fondant must be handled with moderate quickness in order to give the best results, and, second, it is so good that there is danger that the pupil will prematurely eat his lesson!
Because the finished product is good to eat as well as to look upon, potato fondant as a modeling medium adds to the teacher"s resources another incentive for the child. In work with defective children, it has been found, again and again, that the more senses to which appeal can be made, the better. Do not the same principles apply to the normal child, although with somewhat lessened force? In art work with vegetable candy, sight and touch are not the only senses in operation; taste and smell are in full play.
Often, teachers of both art and household arts are perplexed when it comes time for the annual school exhibition. "What can we do," they ask, "that will be properly ill.u.s.trative of our work and, at the same time, of appeal to the popular imagination?" It is hoped that vegetable candy offers an answer to this question. Its novelty and hygienic value are such that parents of the children are interested in it. Moreover, the unusual interest of the children themselves has been known to react upon the parents.
Suggestions for the details of working out the school use of vegetable candy will be found in the pages which precede. The teachers should read with particular care the chapter which refers to decorative candy, and particularly the division relating to modeling. They will find many hints as to how it can be successfully applied to their own school work.
THE END