RAW FRUIT DESSERTS.

ALWAYS select the best fruit, as it is the cheapest, and requires less sugar, and where every berry is perfect there is no waste. Never wash strawberries, as it injures their flavor. If they are too "sandy," do not use them raw. Pick the berries and pile them in the fruit dish in the shape of a hill, and when ready to serve, put over them plenty of pulverized sugar. Reserve half a cup of the berries, mash to a pulp, sweeten and strain, and pour sweet cream gradually to the juice, stirring constantly; pour this over the berries when ready to serve, and not before, for fear of curdling. Some object to cream of any kind; in this case it is better to pass the cream around the table.

(No. 2.) Pick nice ripe berries, pile them in a fruit dish and pour over them a gill of rum or wine (rum is better). Then strew plenty of pulverized sugar over them and garnish with round slices or quarters of oranges, also well sugared.

Select nice, large, well-shaped tomatoes, pare, slice and put on ice. When ready to serve sprinkle each layer thickly with pulverized sugar, and pour over all a pint of whipped cream. Delicious.

Peel the pineapple, dig out all the eyes, then cut from the core downward, or chop in a chopping-bowl, and set on ice until ready to serve. Then sugar the fruit well, and form into a mound in a handsome dish. Garnish the base well with leaves or small fruit or any kind. You may squeeze the juiee of a fine orange over all.

Pare and slice nice, sweet oranges, the seedless "navel orange" being the best. Set on ice. Do not sugar until absolutely necessary, as it extracts the flavor of the fruit and leaves nothing but juice. When ready to serve arrange the slices in a glass bowl and sprinkle powdered sugar over them. You may add a glass of wine if you like the flavor.

Take eight or nine sweet oranges, peel them, take out the seeds after cutting into slices. Take a large-sized fresh cocoanut, grate it and then put alternate layers of the oranges and cocoanut in a glass dish, and sprinkle pulverized sugar over each layer of cocoanut and orange.

These berries, mixed, make a very palatable dish. Set on ice until ready to serve. Then pile in a mound, strewing plenty of pulverized sugar among them. As you do this, garnish the base with white or black currants (blackberries look pretty also) in bunches. Eat with cream or wine.

May be sliced according to fancy, either round or lengthwise. Set on ice until required. Then add sugar, wine or orange juice. In serving, dish out with a heaping tablespoonful of whipped cream.

Slice oranges, bananas, pineapples and arrange in a glass bowl; sprinkle with pulverized sugar, and serve either with wine or cream. You may use both.

Wash and pick over carefully, drain off all the water, sprinkle powdered sugar over them and serve with cream or milk.

Peel fine, ripe freestone peaches. Cover plentifully with pulverized sugar, and serve with whipped cream and plenty of it. The cream should be ice cold. Peaches should not be sliced until just before dining, or they will be very apt to change color.

Pick fine, even, large bunches of red currants (not too ripe) and dip each bunch, one at a time, into a mixture of frothed white of egg, then into a thick, boiled sugar syrup. Drain the bunches by laying on a sieve, and when partly dry dip again into the boiled syrup. Repeat the process a third time; then sprinkle powdered sugar over them and lay on a sheet of paper in a slightly warm oven to dry. Used on extra occasions for ornamenting charlottes, cakes, creams, etc.

Use only those melons that are perfectly ripe. Do not select those that are very large in circumference; a rough melon with a bumpy surface is the best. Either cut in half or plug and fill with the following: Put on to boil some pale sherry or claret and boil down to quite a thick syrup with sugar. Pour this into either a plugged melon or over the half-cut melon, and lay on ice for a couple of hours before serving. If you use claret you may spice it while boiling with whole spices.

Grate a large cocoanut into a nice fruit dish, and mix it thoroughly and lightly with pulverized sugar. Serve with whipped or plain sweet cream.