Saratoga Potatoes (1870); Delmonico Pudding (1875), Slang (1874)

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   Several volumes of THE CULTIVATOR & COUNTRY GENTLEMAN that I requested were "not on shelf."  I also requested ten years of THE RURAL NEW YORKER, but got back a message from the annex that it was "already sent."  (It wasn't.)
   What else could go wrong?  I'm flying the Friendly Skies.  The mechanics are striking....

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SARATOGA POTATOES

17 November 1870, THE CULTIVATOR & COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, pg. 728, col. 3:
   _Saratoga Potatoes._--Will you tell me how to cook the so-called "Saratoga" potatoes? A. L.  (Slice raw potatoes, as thin and even as possible, into cold water.  Fry in very hot lard and plenty of it.)

24 November 1870, THE CULTIVATOR & COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, pg. 744, col. 3:
   _Saratoga Potatoes._--I see an inquiry in your paper in regard to "Saratoga potatoes," or as they are called with us "shaved."  A. L. can make them very fast, by using an instrument such as is used to shave smoked beef or cabbage, only have the opening in the plane very fine.  Those for shaving potatoes especially are sold at all the hardware stores at Saratoga.
   _Rose Hill, N. Y._  JAMES THOMPSON.

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DELMONICO PUDDING

   From THE CULTIVATOR & COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, 15 April 1875, pg. 231, col. 2:

   DELMONICO PUDDING.--One quart of milk; three even tablespoonfuls of carnstarch, dissolved in cold milk; the yelks of five eggs; six tablespoonfuls of sugar.  Boil three or four minutes; our in a pudding dish and bake half an hour, or perhaps less time will do if the oven is hot.  Beat the whites of the eggs with six tablespoonfuls of sugar; put it over the top and return the pudding to the oven till it is a nice light brown.  No sauce.  Nice for Sunday, as it can be made the day before.

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SLANG

   From THE CULTIVATOR & COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, 10 December 1874, pg. 799, col. 1:

   SLANG.--We allow ourselves to say of a rich man that he has got "stamps;" of the drunken man that he is "tight," or "boozy;" of anything that pleases us or is satisfactory that it is "stunning;" "awful" is considered a better word than very, and we are awful cold, or hot, or sick, or jolly, as the case may be; it is finer to say "you bet," than to answer a simple yes; everything that annoys us is "infernal" or "beastly;" bank bills are "greenbacks."  I heard a lady in a good society say recently that her dressmaker had disappointed her, and that in consequence she was "regularly up a tree;" we threaten not to humiliate or mortify a man, but to "take the starch out of him:" we rack our brain to invent slang words for various drinks, and bring out such names as "forty-rod," "tangle-foot," "rot-gut," "blue ruin" and "Jersey lighning," words that would puzzle a foreigner; a man is not cheated, but "done brown," or "bamboozled;" railroad conductors do not steal (in fact we are getting a little sensitive about using the word), but "knock down;" bank cashiers do not swindle and steal, but commit "irregularities;" we hear of a house being "burgled," and that two foot-pads "went through" a belated traveler; a fair dealer is spoken of as "a sqaure man," a most wonderful _lusus naturae_; a substantial dinner is spoken of as a "square meal;" we hear invitations given, not to take a drink, but to "hoist in some poison;" anything antiquated or exhausted (Col. 2--ed.) is "played out;" an insufficent excuse is said to be "too thin," or we are told that it "will not wash;" we buy stocks on a "margin," or sell them "short," or "bull" the market; or "take a flyer," or "scoop in a long line of stocks;" we do not stake a sum of money, but "bet our pile;" after a convivial party we next morning find ourselves "precious seedy;" our railroad trains "telescope," or a "Pullman" breaks a wheel; a party of rowdies "clean out" a drinking-saloon; a big man threatens to "wipe out" a little one; we do not outwit or circumvent another, but "euchre" him; we "take the shine out of" a rival, and "fix his flint" for him; a carpenter "runs up" a cheap house in a week; an investigating committee in Congress "whitewashes" the character of some defaulter, and so on and so forth in all the departments of business and trade and social intercourse we permit ourselves to use words and phrases which are of no authority, often vulgar and always needless.--_American Homes_.