257 Coffee
To make good strong coffee, allow for each person a heaping table spoonful of ground coffee, and a pint of water. Put your coffee into a tin pot, with a piece of fish skin about the size of a ninepence, to two or three quarts of water, turn on your water boiling hot, and boil the coffee from fifteen to twenty minutes, take it off, and let it stand to settle five or six minutes, then turn it off carefully. French coffee is made in a German filter, the water is turned on to it boiling hot, an ounce to each person is allowed, put in a piece of fish skin before you turn on the water. When cream cannot be preserved for coffee, boiled milk is a good substitute. Many people dislike to settle coffee with fish skin, thinking it imparts a disagreeable taste to the coffee, but it is owing to its not being prepared properly, the skin should be taken from mild codfish, washed, and cut into small pieces and dried perfectly. The white of an egg, egg shells, and isinglass, are all good to settle coffee. The best kind of coffee is old Java, and Mocha; before it is roasted, it should be hung over the fire two or three hours to dry, if dried in the oven it looses its strength, it should be hung at such a distance from the fire, as to be in no danger of burning. When dry put it on hot coals, and stir it constantly till done, which is ascertained by biting one of the lightest kernels, if it is brittle, the whole is done. Put it in a box, and cover it up tight, to keep in the steam.
Coffee is much better roasted in a coffee roaster, than a kettle, as the fine aromatic flavor of the coffee is preserved, which escapes in a great measure, when roasted in an open kettle.