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EVERYDAY FOODS IN WAR TIME

by

MARY SWARTZ ROSE

Assistant-Professor, Department of Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia
University

New York

1918







  The time has come, the Aggies said,
     To talk of many things,
  Of what to eat, of calories,
     Of cabbages and kings,
  Of vitamines and sausages,
     And whether costs have wings.

               _Journal of Home Economics_,
                      November, 1917.




PREFACE


    "FOOD IS FUEL FOR FIGHTERS. Do not waste it. Save WHEAT, MEAT,
    SUGARS AND FATS. Send more to our Soldiers, Sailors and Allies."


The patriotic housewife finds her little domestic boat sailing in
uncharted waters. The above message of the Food Administration disturbs
her ordinary household routine, upsets her menus and puts her recipes out
of commission. It also renders inoperative some of her usual methods of
economy at a time when rising food prices make economy more imperative
than ever. To be patriotic and still live on one's income is a complex
problem. This little book was started in response to a request for "a war
message about food." It seemed to the author that a simple explanation of
the part which some of our common foods play in our diet might be both
helpful and reassuring. To change one's menu is often trying; to be
uncertain whether the substituted foods will preserve one's health and
strength makes adjustment doubly difficult. It is hoped that the brief
chapters which follow will make it easier to "save wheat, meat, sugars and
fats" and to make out an acceptable bill of fare without excessive cost.

Thanks are due to the Webb Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, for
permission to reprint three of the chapters, which appeared originally in
_The Farmer's Wife_.

TEACHERS COLLEGE, Columbia University, New York City.

December 1, 1917.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

        CHAPTER

     I. THE MILK PITCHER IN THE HOME

    II. CEREALS WE OUGHT TO EAT

   III. THE MEAT WE OUGHT TO SAVE

    IV. THE POTATO AND ITS SUBSTITUTES

     V. ARE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES LUXURIES?

    VI. FAT AND VITAMINES

   VII. "SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE"

  VIII. ON BEING ECONOMICAL AND PATRIOTIC AT THE SAME TIME

        APPENDIX--SOME WAR TIME RECIPES




EVERYDAY FOODS IN WAR TIME




CHAPTER I

THE MILK PITCHER IN THE HOME

    (Reprinted from _The Farmer's Wife_, by permission of the Webb
    Publishing Company.)


There is a quaint old fairy tale of a friendly pitcher that came and took
up its abode in the home of an aged couple, supplying them from its magic
depths with food and drink and many other comforts. Of this tale one is
reminded in considering the place of the milk pitcher in the home. How
many housewives recognize the bit of crockery sitting quietly on the shelf
as one of their very best friends? How many know that it will cover many
of their mistakes in the choice of food for their families? That it
contains mysterious substances upon which growth depends? That it stands
ready to save them both work and worry in regard to food? That it is
really the only indispensable article on the bill of fare?

Diet is like a house, a definite thing, though built of different kinds of
material. For a house we need wall material, floor material, window,
ceiling, chimney stuffs and so forth. We may, if we like, make floors,
walls, and ceilings all of the same kind of stuff, wood for example, but
we should need glass for windows and bricks or tile for chimneys. Or,
again, we may choose brick for walls, floors, and chimneys but it would
not do any better than wood for windows, would be rather unsatisfactory
for ceilings, and impossible for doors. In other words, we could not build
a modern house from one kind of material only and we really need at least
four to carry out even a simple plan.

In a similar fashion, diet is constructed from fuel material,
body-building material and body-regulating material. No diet is perfect in
which these are not all represented. Now, foods are like sections of
houses. Some correspond to single parts, as a floor or a window or perhaps
a chimney; others to a house complete except for windows and roof; still
others to a house lacking only a door or two. It takes some thought to put
them together so that we shall have all kinds of parts without a great
many extra ones of certain kinds and not enough of others.

Milk is unique in that it comes nearest of all foods to being a complete
diet in itself. It is like the house with only a door missing. We could be
quite comfortable in such a house for a long time though we could make a
more complete diet by adding some graham bread or an apple or some
spinach.

We all associate milk with cows and cows with farms, but how closely is
milk associated with the farm table? Is it prized as the most valuable
food which the farm produces? Every drop should be used as food; and this
applies to skim milk, sour milk, and buttermilk as well as sweet milk. Do
we all use milk to the best advantage in the diet? Here are a few points
which it is well to bear in mind:

_Milk will take the place of meat._ The world is facing a meat famine. The
famine was on the way before the war began but it has approached with
tremendous speed this last year. Every cow killed and eaten means not only
so much less meat available but so much less of an adequate substitute.
Lean meat contributes to the diet chiefly protein and iron. We eat it
primarily for the protein. Hence in comparing meat and milk we think first
of their protein content. One and one-fourth cups of milk will supply as
much protein as two ounces of lean beef. The protein of milk is largely
the part which makes cottage cheese. So cottage cheese is a good meat
substitute and a practical way of using part of the skim milk when the
cream is taken off for butter. One and one-half ounces of cottage cheese
(one-fourth cup) are the protein equivalent of two ounces of lean beef.
Skim milk and buttermilk are just as good substitutes for meat as whole
milk. Since meat is one of the most expensive items in the food bill, its
replacement by milk is a very great financial economy. This is true even
if the meat is raised on the farm, as food for cattle is used much more
economically in the production of milk than of beef.

_Milk is the greatest source of calcium (lime)._ Lime is one of the
components of food that serves two purposes; it is both building material
for bones and regulating material for the body as a whole, helping in
several important ways to maintain good health. It is essential that
everyone have a supply of lime and particularly important that all growing
infants, children, and young people have plenty for construction of bones
and teeth. There is almost none in meat and bread, none in common fats and
sugars, and comparatively few common foods can be taken alone and digested
in large enough quantities to insure an adequate supply; whereas a pint of
milk (whole, skim, or buttermilk) will guarantee to a grown person a
sufficient amount, and a quart a day will provide for the greater needs of
growing children. Whatever other foods we have, we cannot afford to
leave milk out of the diet because of its lime. Under the most favorable
dietary conditions, when the diet is liberal and varied, an adult should
have _at least_ half a pint of milk a day and no child should be
expected to thrive with less than a pint.

_Milk contains a most varied assortment of materials needed in small
amounts_ for the body welfare, partly for constructive and partly for
regulating purposes. These are rather irregularly distributed in other
kinds of food materials. When eggs, vegetables, and cereals are freely
used, we are not likely to suffer any lack; but when war conditions limit
the number of foods which we can get, it is well to remember that the more
limited the variety of foods in the diet the more important milk becomes.

_Milk will take the place of bread, butter, sugar, and other foods used
chiefly for fuel._ The body is an engine which must be stoked regularly in
order to work. The more work done the more fuel needed. That is what we
mean when we talk about the food giving "working strength." A farmer and
his wife and usually all the family need much fuel because they do much
physical work. Even people whose work is physically light require
considerable fuel. A quart of milk will give as much working force as half
a pound of bread, one-fourth of a pound of butter, or six ounces of sugar.
And this is in addition to the other advantages already mentioned.

_Milk contains specifics for growth._ Experiments with animals have taught
us that there are two specific substances, known as vitamines, which must
be present in the diet if a young animal is to grow. If either one is
absent, growth is impossible. Both are to be found in milk, one in the
cream and the other in the skim milk or whey. For this reason children
should have whole milk rather than skim milk. Of course, butter and skim
milk should produce the same result as whole milk. Eggs also have these
requisites and can be used to supplement milk for either one, but as a
rule it is more practical to depend upon milk, and usually more
economical.

For little children, milk is best served as a beverage. But as children
grow up, the fluidity of milk makes them feel as if it were not food
enough and it is generally better to use it freely in the kitchen first,
and then, if there is any surplus, put it on the table as a beverage or
serve it thus to those who need an extra supply--the half-grown boys, for
instance, who need more food in a day than even a hard-working farmer.

A good plan is to set aside definitely, as a day's supply, a quart apiece
for each person under sixteen and a pint apiece for each one over this
age. Then see at night how well one has succeeded in disposing of it. If
there is much left, one should consider ways of using it to advantage. The
two simplest probably are, first, as cream sauce for vegetables of all
sorts; for macaroni or hominy with or without cheese; or for hard cooked
eggs or left-over meats; and next in puddings baked a long time in the
oven so that much of the water in the milk is evaporated. Such puddings
are easy to prepare on almost any scale and are invaluable for persons
with big appetites because they are concentrated without being
unwholesome.

The milk pitcher and the vegetable garden are the best friends of the
woman wishing to set a wholesome and economical table. Vegetables
supplement milk almost ideally, since they contain the vegetable fiber
which helps to guard against constipation, and the iron which is the
lacking door in the "house that milk built."

Vegetables which are not perfect enough to serve uncooked, like the broken
leaves of lettuce and the green and tough parts of celery, are excellent
cooked and served with a cream sauce. Cream sauce makes it possible also
to cook enough of a vegetable for two days at once, sending it to the
table simply dressed in its own juices or a little butter the first time
and making a scalloped dish with cream sauce and crumbs the next day.
Vegetables which do not lend themselves to this treatment can be made into
cream soups, which are excellent as the hot dish for supper, because they
can be prepared in the morning and merely reheated at serving time.

Finally, the addition of milk in liberal quantities to tea and coffee
(used of course only by adults); its use without dilution with water in
cocoa; and instead of water in bread when that is made at home, ought to
enable a housewife to dispose satisfactorily of her day's quota of milk.
If it should accumulate, it can be dispatched with considerable rapidity
in the form of ice cream or milk sherbet. When there is much skim milk,
the latter is a most excellent way of making it popular, various fruits in
their seasons being used for flavor, as strawberries, raspberries, and
peaches, with lemons to fall back on when no native fruit is at hand.

The world needs milk today as badly as wheat. All that we can possibly
spare is needed in Europe for starving little ones. In any shortage the
slogan must be "children first." But in any limited diet milk is such a
safeguard that we should bend our energies to saving it from waste and
producing more, rather than learning to do without it. Skim milk from
creameries is too valuable to be thrown away. Everyone should be on the
alert to condemn any use of milk except as food and to encourage
condensation and drying of skim milk to be used as a substitute for fresh
milk.

When the milk pitcher is allowed to work its magic for the human race, we
shall have citizens of better physique than the records of our recruiting
stations show today. Even when the family table is deprived of its
familiar wheat bread and meat, we may be strong if we invoke the aid of
this friendly magician.




CHAPTER II

CEREALS WE OUGHT TO EAT

    (Reprinted from _The Farmer's Wife_, by permission of the Webb
    Publishing Company.)


"Save wheat!" This great slogan of our national food campaign has been
echoed and reëchoed for six months, but do we yet realize that it means
US? We have had, hitherto, a great deal of wheat in our diet. Fully
one-third of our calories have come from wheat flour. To ask us to do
without wheat is to shake the very foundation of our daily living. How
shall we be able to do without it? What shall we substitute for it? These
are questions which every housewife must ask and answer before she can
take her place in the Amazon Army of Food Conservers.

Is it not strange that out of half a dozen different grains cultivated for
human consumption, the demand should concentrate upon wheat? One might
almost say that the progress of civilization is marked by raised bread.
And wheat has, beyond all other grains, the unique properties that make
possible a light, porous yet somewhat tenacious loaf. We like the taste of
it, mild but sweet; the feel of it, soft yet firm; the comfort of it,
almost perfect digestion of every particle. We have been brought up on it
and it is a hardship to change our food habits. It takes courage and
resolution. It takes visions of our soldiers crossing the seas to defend
us from the greedy eye of militarism and thereby deprived of so many
things which we still enjoy. Shall we hold back from them the "staff of
life" which they need so much more than we?

Can we live without wheat? Certainly, and live well. We must recognize the
scientific fact that no one food (with the exception of milk) is
indispensable. There are four letters in the food alphabet: _A_, fuel for
the body machine; _B_, protein for the upkeep of the machinery; _C_,
mineral salts, partly for upkeep and partly for lubrication--to make all
parts work smoothly together; _D_, vitamines, subtle and elusive
substances upon whose presence depends the successful use by the body of
all the others. These four letters, rightly combined, spell health. They
are variously distributed in food materials. Sometimes all are found in
one food (milk for example), sometimes only one (as in sugar), sometimes
two or three. The amounts also vary in the different foods. To build up a
complete diet we have to know how many of these items are present in a
given food and also how much of each is there.

Now, cereals are much alike in what they contribute to the diet. In
comparing them we are apt to emphasize their differences, much as we do in
comparing two men. One man may be a little taller, a little heavier, have
a different tilt to his nose, but any two men are more alike than a man
and a dog. So corn has a little less protein than wheat and considerably
less lime, yet corn and wheat are, nutritionally, more alike than either
is like sugar.

None of the cereals will make a complete diet by itself. If we take white
bread as the foundation, we must add to it something containing lime, such
as milk or cheese; something containing iron, such as spinach, egg yolk,
meat, or other iron-rich food; something containing vitamines, such as
greens or other vitamine-rich food; something to reënforce the proteins,
as milk, eggs, meat, or nuts. It is not possible to make a perfect diet
with only one other kind of food besides white bread. It can be done with
three: bread, milk, and spinach, for example.

If we substitute whole wheat for white bread, we can make a complete diet
with two foods--this and milk. We get from the bran and the germ what in
the other case we got from the spinach. _All the cereals can be
effectively supplemented by milk and green vegetables._ If green
vegetables (or substitutes for them like dried peas and beans or fruit)
are hard to get we should give preference to cereals from which the bran
coats have not been removed, such as oatmeal and whole wheat. Then the
diet will not be deficient in iron, which is not supplied in large enough
amounts from white bread and milk. Oatmeal is the richest in iron of all
the cereals.

With such knowledge, we may alter our diet very greatly without danger of
undernutrition. But we must learn to cook other cereals at least as well
as we do wheat. Without proper cooking they are unpalatable and
unwholesome, and they are not so easy to cook as wheat. They take a longer
time and we cannot get the same culinary effects, since with the exception
of rye they will not make a light loaf. Fortunately we are not asked to
deny ourselves wheat entirely, only to substitute other cereals for part
of it. Let each housewife resolve when next she buys flour to buy at the
same time one-fourth as much of some other grain, finely ground, rye,
corn, barley, according to preference, and mix the two thoroughly at once.
Then she will be sure not to forget to carry out her good intentions.
Bread made of such a mixture will be light and tender, and anything that
cannot be made with it had better be dispensed with in these times.

Besides the saving of wheat for our country's sake, we shall do well to
economize in it for our own. Compared with other cereals, wheat is
expensive. We can get more food, in every sense of the word, from half a
pound of oatmeal than we can from a twelve-ounce loaf of white bread, and
the oatmeal will not cost one-half as much as the bread. A loaf of Boston
brown bread made with one cupful each of cornmeal, oatmeal (finely
ground), rye flour, molasses, and skim milk will have two and one-half
times the food value of a twelve-ounce loaf of white bread and will cost
little more. One-half pound of cornmeal, supplemented by a half pint of
milk, will furnish more of everything needed by the body than such a
twelve-ounce loaf, usually at less cost.

It pays at all times to use cereals in other forms than bread, for both
health and economy. Does your family eat cereal for breakfast? A dish of
oatmeal made from one-fourth cupful of the dry cereal will take the place
of two slices of white bread, each about half an inch thick and three
inches square, and give us iron besides. Served with milk, it will make a
well-balanced meal. When we add a little fruit to give zest and some crisp
corn bread to contrast with the soft mush, we have a meal in which we may
take a just pride, _provided the oatmeal is properly cooked_.

A good dish of oatmeal is as creditable a product as a good loaf of bread.
It cannot be made without taking pains to get the right proportions of
meal, water, and salt, and to cook thoroughly, which means at least four
hours in a double boiler, over night in a fireless cooker, or half an hour
at twenty pounds in a pressure cooker. Half-cooked oatmeal is most
unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. It is part of our patriotic duty not
to give so useful a food a bad reputation.

The man who does hard physical labor, especially in the open air, may
complain that the oatmeal breakfast does not "stay by" him. This is
because it digests rapidly. What he needs is a little fat stirred into the
mush before it is sent to the table, or butter as well as milk and sugar
served with it. If one must economize, the cereal breakfast should always
be the rule. It is impossible in any other way to provide for a family
adequately on a small sum, especially where there are growing children.

Next to oatmeal, hominy is one of the cheapest breakfast foods. It has
less flavor and is improved by the addition of a few dates cut into
quarters or some small stewed seedless raisins, which also add the iron
which hominy lacks. For the adults of the family the staying qualities of
hominy and cornmeal can be increased by cutting the molded mush in slices
and frying till a crisp crust is formed. This can be obtained more easily
if the cereals are cooked in a mixture of milk and water instead of water
alone. The milk supplements the cereal as acceptably as in a dish of mush
and milk. Cornmeal needs even more cooking than oatmeal to develop an
agreeable flavor. It can be improved by the addition of an equal amount of
farina or cream of wheat.

Cereals for dinner are acceptable substitutes for such vegetables as
potatoes, both for economy and for variety. The whole grains, rice,
barley, and hominy, lend themselves best to such use. Try a dish of
creamed salmon with a border of barley; one of hominy surrounded by fried
apples; or a bowl of rice heaped with bananas baked to a turn and removed
from their skins just before serving, and be glad that the war has stirred
you out of food ruts!

Cereals combined with milk make most wholesome puddings, each almost a
well-balanced meal in itself. They are easier to make than pies,
shortcakes, and other desserts which require wheat flour, and they are
splendid growing food for boys and girls.

For the hard-working man who misses the slowly-digesting pie, serve the
puddings with a hard sauce or add a little butter when making them. For
the growing children, raisins, dates, and other fruits are welcome
additions on account of their iron. From half a cupful to a cupful of
almost any cereal pudding made with milk is the equivalent of an ordinary
serving of pie.

Aside from the avoidance of actual waste of food materials, there seems to
be no one service so imperative for housewives to render in these critical
times as the mastery of the art of using cereals. These must be made to
save not only wheat but meat, and for most of us also money.

A wholesome and yet economical diet may be built upon a plan wherein we
find for an average working man fourteen ounces of cereal food and one
pint of milk, from two to four ounces of meat or a good meat substitute,
two ounces of fat, three ounces of sugar or other sweeteners, at least one
kind of fruit, and one kind of vegetable besides potatoes (more if one has
a garden).

The cereal may furnish half the fuel value of the diet, partly
bread-stuffs and partly in some of the other ways as suggested, without
any danger of undernutrition. Remember the fable of the farmer who told
his sons he had left them a fortune and bade them dig on his farm for it
after his death, and how they found wealth not as buried treasure but
through thorough tillage of the soil. So one might leave a message to
woman to look in the cereal pot, for there is a key to health and wealth,
and a weapon to win the greatest war the world has ever seen.




CHAPTER III

THE MEAT WE OUGHT TO SAVE


"Do not buy a pound of meat until you have bought three quarts of milk" is
a "war sign" pointing two ways. On the one hand it tells us that we need
to save meat; on the other, that we should encourage the production of
that most indispensable food--milk.

But what a revolution in some households if this advice is heeded!
Statisticians tell us that Americans have been consuming meat at the rate
of 171 pounds per capita per year, which means nearly half a pound apiece
every day for each man, woman, child, and infant in arms. Now, as mere
infants and some older folk have not had any, it follows that many of us
have had a great deal more. Did we need it? Shall we be worse off without
it? Meat is undeniably popular. In spite of the rising price and the
patriotic spirit of conservation, meat consumption goes on in many
quarters at much the usual rate. There is probably no other one food so
generally liked. It has a decided and agreeable flavor, a satisfactory
"chew," and leaves an after-sense of being well fed that many take as the
sign of whether they are well nourished or not. It digests well, even when
eaten rapidly, and perhaps partly for this reason is favored by the
hurried man of affairs. It is easy to prepare and hence is appreciated by
the cook, who knows that even with unskillful treatment it will be
acceptable and require few accessories to make an agreeable meal. Its rich
flavor helps to relieve the flatness of foods like rice, hominy, beans, or
bread. From this point of view there is no such thing as a "meat
substitute."

But, nutritionally speaking, meat is only one of many; undeniably a good
source of protein, but no better than milk or eggs. A lamb chop is a very
nice item on a bill of fare, but the protein it contains can be secured
just as well from one large egg, or two level tablespoonfuls of peanut
butter, or one and one-fourth ounces of cheese; or a part of the time from
a quarter of a cup of dried navy beans or a little less of dried split
peas.

Meat is highly regarded as a source of iron; but, again, it has no
monopoly of this important building-stone in the house of diet. The eggs,
or peas, or half the beans mentioned above would any one of them furnish
more iron than the lamb chop, while a quarter of a cup of cooked spinach
or a small dish of string beans would furnish quite as much. Besides green
vegetables, fruit, and the yolk of egg, cereals are a not inconsiderable
source of iron. A man would have adequate nourishment for a day, including
a sufficient supply of iron, if he were doing only moderate physical
labor, from one pint of milk, one and one-half pounds of whole wheat
bread, and three medium-sized apples. Beef juice is often used as a source
of iron for children and undoubtedly it is one which is palatable and
digestible, but it takes a quarter of a pound of beef to get a few
tablespoonfuls of juice, and a tablespoonful of juice would hardly contain
as much iron as one egg yolk; and it seems probable that the iron of the
egg yolk would be better utilized for the making of good red blood.

Meat is good fuel for the human machine if used in moderate amounts along
with other food. But meat is no better fuel than other food. An ordinary
lamb chop will furnish no more calories than a dish of oatmeal, a piece of
bread an inch thick and three inches square, a large apple or banana, an
egg, five ounces (five-eighths of a cup) of milk, or a tablespoonful of
peanut butter. The fatter meat is the higher its fuel value (providing the
fat is used for food). A tablespoonful of bacon fat or beef drippings has
the same fuel value as a tablespoonful of butter or lard, or as the lamb
chop mentioned above. The man who insists that he has to have meat for
working strength judges by how he feels after a meal and not by the
scientific facts. While in the long run appetite serves as a measure of
food requirement, we can find plenty of instances where it does not make a
perfect measure. Some people have too large appetites for their body needs
and get too fat from sheer surplus of fuel stored in the body for future
needs as fat. If such people have three good meals a day all the time,
there never is any future need and the fat stays. Other people have too
small appetites for their needs and they never seem to get a surplus of
fuel on hand. They live, as it were, from hand to mouth. Anyone accustomed
to eating meat will have an unsatisfied feeling at first after a meal
without meat. The same is true of other highly flavored foods. It is well
for the cook to bear this in mind and serve a few rather highly seasoned
dishes when there is no meat on the bill of fare. A very sweet dessert
will often satisfy this peculiar sensation, and it can be allayed, at
least in part, by the drinking of water some little time after the meal.
Such a sensation will pass away when one becomes accustomed to the change
in diet. It is probably due to certain highly flavored substances
dissolved in the meat juices which are known to be excellent stimulants to
the flow of gastric juice and which are stimulating in other ways. These
have no food value in themselves, but, nevertheless, we prize meat for
them, as is shown by the distaste we have for meat which has its juices
removed. "Soup meat" has always been a problem for the housewife--hard to
make palatable--and yet the greater part of the nourishment of meat is
left in the meat itself after soup is made from it.

Let us frankly recognize then that we eat meat because we like it--for its
flavor and texture rather than any peculiar nourishing properties--and
that it is only our patriotic self-denial or force of economic
circumstances that induces us to forgo our accustomed amounts of a food
which is pleasant and (in moderation) wholesome. We must save meat that
the babies of the world may have milk to drink. Nowhere in Europe is there
enough milk for babies today. A conservative request for one European city
alone was a shipment of one million pounds of condensed milk per month! If
cattle are killed for food there will be little milk to send and the
babies will perish. We must save meat for our soldiers and sailors,
because they need it more than we do. It is not only easily transported,
but one of the few things to give zest to their necessarily limited fare.
Fresh fruits and green vegetables, which may serve us as appetizers, are
not to be found on the war fields. Dainty concoctions from cheese and nuts
may provide for us flavor as well as nutriment, but meat is the
alternative to the dull monotony of bread and beans for the soldier--the
tonic of appetite, the stimulant to good digestion. We can scarcely send
him anything to take its place.

We must save meat, too, as a general food economy. Meat is produced at the
expense of grain, which we might eat ourselves. And the production of meat
is a very wasteful process. Grains have a fuel value for man approximating
1,600 calories per pound. A pound of meat in the form of beef will require
the consumption by the animal of some fourteen pounds of grain. The pound
of beef will furnish perhaps 1,200 calories, while the grain consumed will
represent over 20,000 calories. The production of milk from grain is only
about one-third as expensive, so the purchase of three quarts of milk to
one pound of meat is an economy in more ways than one.

Saving for the rest of the world will not be without some physical
advantage to ourselves, if we have been accustomed to indulge in meat
freely. Among the well-to-do meat eating is apt to be overdone to the
extent of affecting the kidneys and the arteries, and some enforced
restriction would be a real advantage to health, as has been demonstrated
in other than war times. Because a food is good is no reason for unlimited
quantities; an ounce of sugar a day is wholesome--a pound is likely to
result in both indigestion and a badly balanced diet. A quarter of a pound
of meat a day is not undesirable for an adult, but a pound a day may
result in general overeating or in the special ills which are related
directly to a large quantity of meat. One of these is an upsetting of a
proper balance of food elements in the diet. Diets high in meat are apt to
be low in milk and consequently low in calcium. If the income is limited
this is almost sure to be the case, since there will not be enough money
to provide meat freely and at the same time satisfy other nutritive
requirements. Such diets are also likely to be low in fuel value and not
provide enough working force even while men are declaring that they must
have meat to give them strength. They would have more strength and a
better diet from every point of view if part of the meat money were spent
for milk. So the injunction to buy three quarts of milk to one pound of
meat is a good rule for securing a well balanced and ample diet at the
lowest cost.

Another good rule is to spend no more for meat, fish, and eggs than for
milk, and as much for fruits and vegetables as for meat, fish, and eggs.
Families very commonly spend as much as one-third of the food money for
meat; and, while they may secure a full third of their protein, iron, and
phosphorus in this way, they may not get more than a sixth of their fuel
and almost no calcium. Three quarts of milk at fourteen cents a quart will
yield about 2,000 calories. For an expenditure of forty-two cents for beef
as free from waste as milk, we would pay perhaps thirty-two cents per
pound. A pound and a quarter of lean beef would yield about 1,000
calories. So as fuel alone the milk would be twice as cheap as the meat.
Three quarts of milk would yield almost if not quite as much protein as
the meat and a liberal supply of calcium to offset the iron furnished by
the meat. Everything considered, then, milk is a better investment than
meat. The same is true of some of the other foods which supply protein in
the diet such as dry peas and beans; cheese and peanut butter are at least
twice as valuable nutritionally as beef. The domestic problem is to make
palatable dishes from these foods. This requires time and patience. The
cook must not get discouraged if the first trial does not bring marked
success. The rest of the family should count it their "bit" to eat
valiantly until they can eat joyfully.




CHAPTER IV

THE POTATO AND ITS SUBSTITUTES


Never did it seem truer that "blessings brighten as they take their
flight" than when the potato went off the market or soaring prices put it
out of reach in the winter of 1917. "How shall I plan my meals without
it?" was the housewife's cry. "How shall I enjoy my meals without it?"
said all the millions of potato eaters who immediately forgot that there
was still a large number of foods from which they might extract some
modicum of enjoyment.

And so the Nutrition Expert was asked to talk about "potato substitutes"
and expected to exercise some necromancy whereby that which was not a
potato might become a potato. Now, the Nutrition Expert was very
imperturbable--not at all disturbed by the calamity which had befallen our
tables. That unfeeling person saw potatoes, not in terms of their hot
mealiness and spicy mildness, but in terms of that elusive thing called
"DIET." The vanishing tuber was bidden to answer the dietary roll-call:

    "Proteins?"         "Here!"           Answer somewhat faint but
                                          suggesting remarkable worth.

    "Fats?"             No answer.

    "Carbohydrates?"    Loud note from    "Starch."

    "Mineral salts?"    "Here!"           From a regular chorus, among
                                          which "Potassium" and "Iron"
                                          easily distinguishable.

    "Vitamines and      "Here! Here!"    Especially vociferous, the
    Other Accessories?"                  "Anti-Scorbutic Property."

"This is a good showing for any single food material. The potato, as truly
as bread, may be called a 'staff of life.' Men have lived in health upon
it for many months without any other food save oleomargarine. Its protein,
though small in amount, is most efficient in body-building, its salts are
varied in kind and liberal in amount, and it furnishes a large amount of
very easily digested fuel besides. It is at its best when cooked in the
simplest possible way--baked or boiled in its skin. Nevertheless we are
not absolutely dependent upon the potato."

"Alas," said the housewife, "this doesn't tell me what to cook for
dinner!" "Patience, Madam, we shall see about that." The fact that starch
is present is what makes the potato seem so substantial. But bread, rice,
hominy, in fact, all cereal foods can supply starch just as well. Pick out
the one you fancy and serve it for your dinner. One good-sized roll or a
two-inch cube of corn bread, or three-fourths of a cup of boiled rice will
sustain you just as well as a medium-sized potato. A banana, baked or
fried, makes an excellent substitute for a potato. An apple is also a very
palatable potato equivalent, if you want something more spicy than hominy
or corn bread. Why mourn over the lost potato?

But how about those mineral salts? Well, the potato has no monopoly on
those, either, though it is ordinarily a very valuable contributor. Milk
has already been mentioned as one of the great safeguarding sources of
so-called ash constituents. Others are vegetables and fruits of different
kinds. These have been a neglected and sometimes a despised part of the
diet: "Why spend money for that which is not meat?" is often taken
literally. Even food specialists have been known to say, "Fruits and
vegetables are mostly water and indigestible fiber; they have little food
value." This is a good deal like saying, "If your coat be long enough you
do not need a pair of shoes." A potato has as much iron as an egg yolk or
a medium-sized chop. This is one more reason why we should be sorry to
take the useful tuber from our tables, but we may feel a certain
independence, even when meat and eggs are prohibitive in price, since by
canning or drying, if in no other way, we can have green vegetables as a
source of iron the whole year through. Some people are afraid that canned
vegetables will prove unwholesome; but if removed from the can as soon as
opened and heated to boiling before they are eaten, we are recently
assured that the danger of food poisoning will be materially lessened.
Even when such vegetables are wanted for salads, boiling and subsequent
cooling are advised. The mineral salts of vegetables dissolve into the
water in which they stand, and in any shortage of such food, or for the
greatest economy, it would seem wise to save the water in the can, which
is often thrown away to secure a more delicate flavor. Water from the
cooking of fresh vegetables which are not protected by skins (among them
spinach, peas, carrots, and asparagus), can often be reduced to a small
amount by steaming instead of boiling the vegetable, or any drained off
can be used in gravy, soup, sauce, or some similar fashion. The strong
flavor of some vegetables, however, makes such economy rather impractical.

Some people discriminate against canned and dried vegetables because they
do not taste like fresh ones. This seems rather unreasonable, as we want a
variety of flavors in our diet and might welcome the change which comes
from this way of treating food as well as that which comes from different
methods of cooking. Nobody expects a stew to taste like a roast, and yet
both may be good and we would not want either one all the time. Instead of
regretting that canned peas do not taste like those fresh from the garden
(incomparable ones!) let us be glad that they taste as good as they do.
Would we like them any better if they tasted like cornmeal mush?

While a potato has about as much phosphorus as an egg yolk, substitutes
for it in this respect are not hard to find. Five tablespoonfuls of milk
or half an ounce of cheese will easily supply as much, while half a cup of
cooked string beans will provide all the iron as well as half the
phosphorus in a potato, and a teaspoon of butter or other fat added to the
beans will make them equal in fuel value. On the other hand, two small
slices of whole wheat bread would furnish all the phosphorus, half the
iron, and an equal amount of fuel.

The potato is conspicuously high in potassium, but it is not likely that
in any diet containing one kind of fruit and one kind of vegetable each
day there will be any permanent shortage of this substance. Spinach,
celery, parsnips, lettuce, cabbage, rutabagas, beets, carrots, tomatoes,
cucumbers, and turnips are all good sources of potassium and some of them
are available all the year round without canning and drying.

But what significance has the "Anti-Scorbutic Property"? Does that not
make potatoes indispensable? Scurvy, Madam, occurs whenever people live
for a long time on a monotonous diet without fresh food. The potato offers
good protection against this disease at a low cost, but other foods have
long been known to possess the same power, among them oranges, lemons,
limes, and other fruits, and cabbage and other green vegetables; in fact,
a mixed diet in which fruits and vegetables occur is assurance of freedom
from scurvy. Just how far the potato will go in providing the specific
vitamines essential for growth is still unsettled. It undoubtedly contains
one of them in goodly amount, but for the present it is wise to include
some green (leaf) vegetable in the diet even when potatoes are plentiful,
especially if butter, milk, and eggs cannot be freely used.

Nutritionally then, we can find substitutes for the potato; practically,
too, we can find quite satisfactory alternatives for it in our
conventional bills of fare. On the face of things the potato is a bland
mealy food which blends well with the high flavor and the firm texture of
meat and the softness of many other cooked vegetables. Gastronomically,
rice or hominy comes about as near to having the same qualities, with hot
bread, macaroni, sweet potatoes, and baked bananas (underripe so as not to
be too juicy and sweet) close rivals. These are not so easy to cook and
serve as the potato and are not likely to supplant it when it is
plentiful. It might be worth while, however, to substitute these for
potatoes rather often. The latter will be appreciated all the more if not
served every day in the week, or at least not more than once a day. We
might extend the fashion of baked beans and brown bread to roast pork with
rice, ham with baked bananas, roast beef with hominy, and broiled steak
with macaroni. Why not? You, Madam Housewife, are always sighing for
variety, but does it never occur to you that the greatest secret of
variety lies in new combinations?




CHAPTER V

ARE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES LUXURIES?


In the house of diet fruits and vegetables may be likened to windows and
doors, fire-places and chimneys; we could dispense with them, we could
board up our windows and make a fire on a big stone in the middle of the
room, letting the smoke escape through a hole in the roof, but such a
course would not mean comfort year in and year out. So we may exist
without fruits and vegetables, but it is worth while to stop and consider
what we gain by their use.

We shall have to admit at the outset that if we have to spend money or
labor for them, fruits and vegetables are not the cheapest source of fuel
for the human machine. Some of them are cheaper fuel than butter, eggs, or
meat, but not as cheap as cereals, sugar, molasses, syrups, and some of
our cheapest fats. This is true of potatoes, parsnips, carrots, dried peas
and beans, and such fruits as bananas, prunes, raisins, dates, figs, and
possibly a few other dried fruits, but we cannot justify our investment in
most fruits and vegetables solely on the plea that they are "filling" in
the sense of being of high fuel value; on this ground lettuce, celery,
cabbage, tomatoes, lemons, rhubarb, cranberries, and many others would
find no place in our domestic economy.

Remembering that man does not live by fuel alone, we may find ample
reasons for spending some of our food money upon things which at first
thought seem to give an inadequate return. There is an old adage, "An
apple a day keeps the doctor away," which if true means that the apple is
a real economy, a kind of health insurance, for an apple costs seldom over
five cents--often only one--and a doctor's visit may easily cost a hundred
times as much. There is a certain amount of truth in the saying, though
the apple does not have a monopoly of the supposed virtue. It is more
accurate, if less poetic, to say that an _assortment_ of fruits and
vegetables helps to keep us in good health. Before the days of modern
"cold pack" canning, mothers used to assemble their little home groups in
the spring and, in spite of sundry hidings under tables on the part of
reluctant Johnnies and Susies, dutifully portion out herb tea or sulphur
in molasses. Spring cleaning could never stop short of "cleansing the
blood!" And after a monotonous winter of salt pork and fried potatoes no
doubt heroic measures were necessary to make up for an ill-chosen diet.
Nowadays we recognize no such seasonal need. We carry our surplus of
fruits and vegetables over from summer to winter and profit not only in
the greater daily pleasure of our tables but in clearer skins, brighter
eyes, and less "spring fever."

How do fruits and vegetables help to keep us well? In the first place, by
their wholesome effect upon the bowels. As a rule we associate regular
daily movements with health, but do not always recognize the part which
diet plays in securing them. If we eat little besides meat and potatoes,
bread, butter, and cake or pie, we are very likely to have constipation.
This is particularly true for those who work indoors or sit much of the
time. Now, fruits and vegetables have several properties which help to
make them laxative. Many have considerable woody fiber. In celery and
asparagus we find it in actual "strings"; in cabbage, spinach, lettuce,
and other stem or leaf vegetables it may not be so noticeable, but it is
certainly present and we should realize that it is useful. The skins of
fruit are of this nature and may often be eaten, as in case of prunes,
figs, apples, dried peaches and apricots. The outer coats of grains, which
serve the same purpose, are frequently removed by milling, but similar
coats of peas and beans are not so removed except in the case of dried
split peas. In the juices of fruits and vegetables we find a variety of
laxative substances. This explains why apple juice (sweet cider), orange
juice or diluted lemon juice may be a very desirable morning drink. The
effect is partly due to the acid but not wholly. Juices which are not acid
to the taste, as those of prunes, figs, onions, have laxative properties.
So from a great variety of fruits and vegetables, especially those which
are fibrous or acid or both, we may obtain the substitute for "pills" in
wholesome foods which are generally cheaper than drugs.

No diet can be properly built without a suitable supply of mineral salts.
The free use of milk is our greatest safeguard against lack of any save
iron, but when milk is scarce and has to be saved as now for the babies of
the world, it is fortunate that we can make fruits and vegetables take its
place in part. Some of our very common vegetables are good sources of the
calcium (lime) and phosphorus so freely supplied in milk. Among these may
be taken as an example the carrot, which has not had due recognition in
many quarters and in some is even spoken of contemptuously as "cattle
food." Its cheapness comes from the fact that it is easy to grow and easy
to keep through the winter and should not blind us to its merits. A
good-sized carrot (weight one-fourth pound) will have only about half the
fuel value of a medium-sized potato, but nearly ten times as much calcium
as the potato and about one-third more phosphorus. While actual figures
show that other vegetables, especially parsnips, turnips, celery,
cauliflower, and lettuce, are richer in calcium than the carrot, its
cheapness and fuel value make it worthy of emphasis. Everyone who has a
garden should devote some space to this pretty and palatable vegetable. It
is perhaps at its best when steamed till soft without salting and then cut
up into a nicely seasoned white sauce; its sweetness will not then be
destroyed nor its salts lost in the cooking water. It is not only useful
as a hot vegetable, but in salads, in the form of a toothsome marmalade,
and as the foundation of a steamed pudding. For little children it is most
wholesome and they should make its acquaintance by the time they are a
year and a half old, in the form of a cream soup. A dish of carrots and
peas (one-half cup peas, one-fourth cup carrot cubes, one-half cup white
sauce) will have almost the same food values (for fuel, calcium,
phosphorus, and iron) as an equivalent serving of oatmeal, milk, and sugar
(three-fourths cup cooked oatmeal, one-half cup milk, one rounding
teaspoon sugar) and will add variety to the diet without costing a great
deal more unless one pays a fancy price for peas.

Even when meat and eggs are not prohibitive in price, fruit and green
vegetables are an important source of iron in the diet. And when war
conditions make the free consumption of meat unpatriotic, it is reassuring
to think that we really can get along without meat very well if we know
how. Two ounces of lean beef will furnish no more iron than a quarter of a
cup of cooked spinach or half a cup of cooked string beans or dried beans,
or one-sixth of a cup of raisins, or half a dozen good-sized prunes.
Cabbage, peas, lettuce, dandelion greens, beet tops, turnip tops and other
"greens" are well worth including in our bill of fare for their iron
alone. By the time children are a year old we begin to introduce special
iron-bearing foods into their diet to supplement milk. Aside from egg
yolk, we give preference for this purpose to green vegetable juice or
pulp, especially from peas and spinach or a mixture of both. The
substantial character of dry beans is too well known to require comment,
but how many realize that they are a most valuable source of iron and
other mineral salts? The fact that they are not a "complete diet" in
themselves should not disturb anyone who realizes that all diets are built
from a variety of foods. We are hardly likely to use beans to the
exclusion of everything else except in dire necessity, and then what
better could we do than use freely a food which will go so far toward
sustaining life at so small a cost?

There is a further significance for fruits and vegetables in their
contribution to the diet of the growth-promoting, health-protecting
vitamines. That the presence of fruits and vegetables in the diet is a
safeguard against scurvy is well known, though the full scientific
explanation is not yet ours. That the leaf vegetables (spinach, lettuce,
cabbage, and the like) contain both the vitamines which are essential to
growth in the young and to the maintenance of health in the adult seems
assured, and gives us further justification for emphasis on green
vegetables in the diet of little children, when properly
administered--i.e., always cooked, put through a fine sieve, and fed in
small quantities.

Aside from being valuable for regulation of the bowels, for mineral salts,
and vitamines, to say nothing of more or less fuel value, fruits and
vegetables give zest to the diet. The pleasant acidity of many fruits,
their delicate aroma, their beautiful form and coloring, the ease of
preparing them for the table, are qualities for which we may legitimately
prize them, though we may not spend money for them until actual nutritive
requirements are met. Dr. Simon Patten, in his _New Basis for
Civilisation_, ably expresses the value of appetizers: "Tomatoes, the
hothouse delicacy of the Civil War time, are doing now what many a bloody
revolution failed to accomplish; they have relieved the monotony of the
salt pork and boiled potatoes upon the poor man's table. The clear acid
flavor of the canned vegetable lightens ugly heaviness and adds tonic
gratifications for the lack of which men have let each other's blood."

As already remarked, those who have plenty of highly flavored meat are apt
to be satisfied by it or to demand stronger flavors (coffee, catsup,
pickles, and tobacco) than those found in fruits and vegetables. They are
also apt to spend so much money on meat that they have none left to buy
what seem to them unimportant items in the diet, and to have a much less
wholesome diet than they might have for the same money. Studies of
expenditures in many families show that a good rule to insure a well
balanced diet is to spend no more money for meat than one does for fruit
and vegetables. Also, it is well to remember that vegetables are usually
cheaper than fruits and that dried ones may largely take the place of
canned or fresh ones. For wholesome and economical living, have fruit of
some kind at least once a day and make the main dish of one meal a
vegetable dish whenever possible. Thick cream soups, souffles, creamed or
scalloped vegetables, are all substantial and appetizing. The way to learn
to like such foods is to keep trying. One may learn contentment with the
proverbial dinner of herbs more easily by realizing that one is building
valuable bricks into the house of diet; and in the present emergency one
may, by selection of fruits and vegetables of high energy value, save less
perishable foods for our soldiers and allies. The knowledge that a banana
is equivalent in calories to a large slice of bread or a small pat of
butter becomes tremendously significant; that an apple, an orange, four
prunes, four dates, or a cup of peas, may not only take the place of bread
but actually add something which the bread does not contain, means that we
may be the gainers from our own sacrifices, without embarrassment thereat.
We shall have reaped a speedy reward for doing our duty.




CHAPTER VI

FATS AND VITAMINES


In the days of the ancient Romans vegetable oils were prized for food and
butter was used for cosmetics. In America today we are asking what is to
become of us if we cannot have butter to eat! Such are the fashions in
food. "June butter" is one of our gastronomic traditions. The sample in
the restaurant may have none of the firm creamy texture and delicate
aromatic flavor of the product of the old spring house; but as long as it
is labeled butter we try to bring our sensations into line with our
imaginations. For the real butter flavor there is no more a substitute
than there is for the aroma of coffee. But these are matters of esthetic
pleasure rather than of nutrition. They depend largely upon habit. Whale
blubber and seal oil are as much appreciated in some quarters as butter is
by us. An American going inland from the Atlantic coast is often surprised
to find that olive oil, instead, of being served on every table, is
exceedingly disliked.

For the sustenance of the body we must recognize that fat is fat, whatever
its flavor. A calorie from butter yields neither more nor less energy than
a calorie from lard or bacon, olive oil or cottonseed oil. The common food
fats are all very well digested if judiciously used--not in too large
quantities, nor over-heated in cooking, and not "cooked into" things too
much as in pastries, rich sauces, and fried foods. Whether we spread our
bread with butter or beef drippings amounts to the same thing in the long
run; the main point is which we are willing to eat.

A change is rapidly coming over our food habits. The price of butter has
been soaring beyond our reach, and the market for "butterine," "nut
margarine," "oleomargarine," or whatever the substitute table fat may be
called, has expanded tremendously. It is excellent household economy to
buy milk and a butter substitute rather than cream or butter. In these
substitutes refined vegetable oils such as cottonseed, cocoanut, and
peanut, and oils derived from beef or lard are so combined or treated as
to produce the desired hardness, and churned with milk or milk and butter
to improve texture and flavor. Lard substitutes are similarly made from
one or more of these fats, but are harder in texture and no attempt is
made to give them a butter flavor by churning with milk. All the fats used
are wholesome and efficient sources of energy for the human machine.

In the absence of butter some other form of fat is desirable in the diet,
because fat is so concentrated a food. There is a limit to the capacity of
the human stomach to hold food. People who live on a diet largely of rice,
which has almost no fat in its make-up, develop characteristically
distended abdomens, because they have to eat such a great quantity of food
to get fuel enough for their day's work. When people are for any reason
put on a milk diet for a considerable time it is customary to put
something into the milk to make it more concentrated, for otherwise they
would drink and drink and then hardly get fuel enough. To give a concrete
illustration--a man's energy requirement for a day may be met by from four
to five quarts of milk (unless he is doing very heavy manual labor), but
it would be much more practical to substitute a loaf of bread, which is
comparatively dry, for one quart of milk, and three ounces of fat (six
tablespoonfuls) for another quart of milk, making the total volume but
little over half what it would be if four quarts of milk were taken. For
people who are engaged in hard physical toil, fat is exceedingly important
for this purpose of gaining in concentration. "Fat is fuel for fighters,"
and it is perfectly reasonable to ask those who are not doing much heavy
labor to eat other kinds of food and save fat for those who simply have to
have it to do their work well. In the ordinary mixed diet one can easily
dispense with an ounce of fat (two tablespoonfuls). Each tablespoonful is
equalled in energy by an apple, or a banana, a large egg, two half-inch
slices of bread about three inches square, four dates, four prunes--and it
is no great strain on one's capacity for food to substitute such items for
the fat.

On account of its concentration, fat is good for transportation; and aside
from its energy value it gives the diet "staying" qualities. Other things
being equal, one feels hungry sooner after a meal without fat than after
one in which it is liberally supplied. People doing manual labor, and
especially out of doors, feel the pangs of hunger more than sedentary
folks and hence need more fat to keep them comfortable. No man can do his
best work when all the time thinking how hungry he is. It behooves us all
then, as good citizens, to recognize the greater need of our soldiers and
sailors and our hard-working laborers for as liberal allowances of fat as
we can make. At the same time, we cannot for our own best health dispense
with fat altogether. We may consider anything up to two ounces apiece a
day legitimate for our own maintenance of efficiency.

In departing from food customs there is a natural timidity lest the new
food shall in some way be less healthful than the old. Recent scientific
researches have revealed a hitherto unsuspected property in butter, a
discovery which has aroused some concern as to whether we can safely
substitute other fats for it. Young animals fed on a diet of highly
purified food materials in which lard is the only kind of fat may seem
fairly well but do not grow normally, while those fed the same diet in
every respect except that the lard is replaced by butter grow as young
animals should and are more resistant to disease. Study of other food fats
shows that they may be divided into two groups, one with this growth
promoting property and one without it. In general, the vegetable oils do
not have it, while butter and beef oil do; on the other hand, lard does
not have it, while the oil from corn does. Careful analysis of the
situation has shown that a fat-soluble vitamine is present which can in
the laboratory be separated from the fat. This same vitamine is present in
a variety of food materials--in whole milk, in egg yolks, in leaves of
plants--but we have not studied it long enough to know just how much
spinach we can substitute for a tablespoonful of butter so far as the
vitamine is concerned. We must await further investigations. But we may
rest assured that with a fairly liberal amount of milk and some green
vegetables, possibly some beef fat, we need not fear any disastrous
consequences from the substitution of some other fat for butter. Where the
diet is limited and the entire quantity of fat is not very large, it seems
prudent to select oleomargarine made largely from beef oil and, where
circumstances permit its use without the sacrifice of any other dietary
essential, to use butter in the diet of growing children unless they get a
full quart of milk apiece a day.

Changing our food customs is difficult because it means also changing our
cooking customs. But many dishes can be made with less fat than we are
accustomed to put in or with different kinds from those we have hitherto
preferred. Often the fat from frying is left in the pan to be washed out
and thrown away. If every cook could say to herself, "Every two drops of
fat make a calorie and every calorie counts in the world today," it might
seem more worth while to hold the pan a minute and drain out the fat for
further use. A thousand calories mean a day's life to a baby. It is always
more wholesome to cook foods so that they are not coated with fat, and one
may get brown products in a frying pan without more than a thin film of
fat to keep the food from sticking. It is well to remember in this
connection that the unsalted lard substitutes are more satisfactory than
the saltier fat foods, in which there may be a trace of milk.

The thought that fat is fuel wherever we find it in food will stiffen our
resolution to take a little pains with the fats which we have been wont to
discard. Anyone can get from the Department of Agriculture suggestions for
the practical use of chicken, mutton, beef, and other kinds of meat fats.
The main points are to free them from flavor, by melting them with milk or
water, possibly using some special absorbent like potato or charcoal too,
and then mixing hard and soft together, just as the oleomargarine-makers
do, to get such a degree of hardness as suits one's purpose. All this
requires time and thought. Let no one dream that the patriotic duties of
the kitchen are trivial. Anything that is worth while costs something;
money, thought, labor--perhaps all three. To salvage kitchen fat may not
be economical in time and labor (though it generally is more so than one
might think), but there is more time and labor than food available today.
So it seems the "bit" of the housekeeper to set a standard for her family
as to the amount of fat she will purchase per week, which is at least
one-fourth lower than their ordinary consumption, and to depend upon
special conservation of what may have gone to waste hitherto for any
increase in this allowance.




CHAPTER VII

"SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE"


"Do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats!" So cried the miscreant
son of Hati when his attempt to rescue his father's live-stock from utter
destruction resulted (at least according to Lamb) in adding one more
delicacy to the table of civilized man. That the "burnt pig" commended
itself instantly to the taste of other men is attested by the recklessness
with which they ignited their own houses to secure the new sensation
again.

Not all flavors make an immediate appeal. Many persons can mark the time
when they learned to like olives, or tomatoes, or tea. The taste for some
foods was acquired so early that there is no consciousness of any time
when they were not enjoyed, and the impression prevails that the liking
for such foods is instinctive. Sometimes that is the case, but quite as
often not. Children have to be taught by patient repetition to like most
of the common foods which make the staples of the diet, and likings thus
acquired are as strong as those which seem more natural.

However taste be accounted for, we have to recognize the fact that food is
chosen for flavor more than for ultimate benefit. It is one thing to say
that oatmeal is more nutritious than bread and coffee; it is quite another
to induce a man to give up the latter for the former! And yet the
distinguishing characteristic of man is that he can subjugate his
immediate impulses for his future benefit, or find a course that will
harmonize the two--take coffee with his oatmeal for instance, or find some
way to flavor it, perhaps with sugar.

Probably no one flavor is so universally enjoyed as sweetness. "Sweeter
than the honey in the honey comb" is an ancient symbol of appreciation.
When the sugar bowl is empty how many things lose zest! Tea, coffee,
cocoa, breakfast cereals, fruit, might still be acceptable, but cake, pie,
and ice cream are unthinkable without sweetness; the soda fountain, the
bakery, and the candy shop bear further testimony to our love of sweets.
Four million tons of sugar a year for the American people--eighty-five
pounds apiece, nearly a quarter of a pound apiece daily--this is no
inconsiderable amount of flavoring!

But is not sugar good food? Most assuredly. Three lumps of sugar would
furnish the extra energy needed to walk a mile; a quarter of a pound
represents about one-sixth of a man's daily fuel requirement. But one
baked potato would furnish the same energy as the three lumps of sugar; a
quarter of a pound of cornstarch would supply the same fuel as the quarter
pound of sugar. Nutritionally starch and sugar are interchangeable, the
advantage as far as digestion is concerned being with the starch rather
than the sugar. And yet we put sugar on starch! So much for instinct being
a guide to scientific food combinations!

The problem of doing without sugar is primarily a problem of flavor--a
problem of finding something else which is sweet. Hence we turn our
cornstarch into glucose (make corn syrup, for example) outside the body
instead of inside it, so that we can taste the sweetness as it goes down.
The main trouble with this kind of sugar is that it is not sweet enough to
satisfy us and we are apt to use too much, thus endangering our digestions
by sheer concentration of what would be, in smaller quantities, most
wholesome. Once more we see that nutrition is largely a question of _how
much_; how much glucose or other sugar our stomachs can stand we find out
by experience; few stomachs can stand when empty the quantity represented
by a lollipop, and yet we frequently see children allowed to suck these
between meals. The same amount of sugar diluted with water, as in a glass
of lemonade, would do less harm; it might be combined with flour in a
cooky with more impunity; better yet, it might be made a part of a whole
meal, taking it in several dishes (sauce, dessert, etc.), or, if we must
have it as candy, at the end of the meal. Used in this way, the advantages
of sugar as a food may be had with relatively little disadvantage.

Honey, "the distilled sweetness of the flower," commands a price
commensurate with the exquisiteness of its production, but is not quite as
easy of digestion as some other forms of sugar. Because of its intense
sweetness it may be combined with advantage with less sweet syrups, such
as corn syrup. The cook estimates that by measure it will take one and a
half times as much corn syrup as cane sugar to get the customary effects
in sweet dishes. By using one part of honey to three of corn syrup a
sweeter product is obtained, which is free from several of the
disadvantages of honey in cookery.

Maple syrup and sugar are not only prized for their sweetness, due to the
presence of ordinary cane sugar, but for the delicate "maple" flavor so
difficult to duplicate. Nutritionally a tablespoon of maple sugar is
equivalent in fuel value to about four-fifths of a tablespoon of cane
sugar, while equal volumes of cane molasses, corn syrup, and maple syrup
are interchangeable as fuel, though not of equal sweetening power.

Molasses is a less one-sided food than cane sugar or corn syrup. The
latter furnish nothing but fuel, and if used too freely not only disturb
digestion but tend to crowd out foods which yield mineral salts. Molasses
is quite rich in calcium, one tablespoonful yielding as much as five
ounces of milk, and is for this reason a better sweet for growing children
than ordinary sugar or corn syrup when the amount of milk which they can
have is limited, or when fruits and vegetables are hard to get. Molasses
ginger snaps make, therefore, an excellent sweet for children, much better
than candy, but of course to be eaten only at meal time.

The aim of good home cooking should be to please the family with what they
ought to eat. The chef in a big hotel may have to prove the superiority of
his art over that of a rival chef, and vie with him in novelty and
elaboration, but the home cooking may be ever so simple provided the
result is a happy, well-nourished family. A chocolate layer cake that
takes two hours out of a day is no more nourishing than the same materials
served as poached eggs, bread and butter, and a cup of chocolate. It is
worth while to train a family to enjoy the flavor of simply prepared
foods, and to realize that the food is the thing which counts and not the
way it is dressed up. On the other hand, if one has to use a few food
materials over and over, as one must in many places when the money that
can be spent for food is very little, it is by slight changes in their
form and flavor that one keeps them from palling on the appetite. If one
has to use beans every day, it is a good thing to know a dozen different
ways of preparing beans. One may have the plain bean flavor, properly
toned up by a suitable amount of salt; the added flavor of onions, of
tomatoes, of fat pork, of molasses, or a combination of two or three. One
may have plain oatmeal for breakfast (the flavor developed by thorough
cooking, at least three or four hours in a double boiler or over night in
a fireless cooker); oatmeal flavored with apples in a pudding for dinner;
or oatmeal flavored with onions and tomatoes in a soup for supper; the
same food but quite different impressions on the palate.

Herbs and spices have from time immemorial given flavor to man's diet.
"Leeks and garlic," "anise and cumin," "salt and pepper," "curry and bean
cheese," are built into the very life of a people. The more variety of
natural foods we have the less dependent we are upon such things. Our
modern cooks, confronted in the present crisis with restrictions in the
number of foods which they may use, may find in bay leaves, nutmeg,
allspice, and all their kind, ways of making acceptable the cereals which
make a diet economical, the peas and beans which replace at least a part
of the meat, and dried fruits and vegetables which save transportation of
fresh or canned goods.

Tea and coffee are both flavors and stimulants. They are used literally by
thousands to give flavor to bread or rice. Dependence on a single flavor
is apt to result in a desire to have it stronger and stronger, and hence
less and less wholesome. This is a good reason for some variety of flavor;
better tea one meal and coffee another than the same one all the time. Too
freely used, and made too strong, tea and coffee may have a bad effect
upon the nervous as well as the digestive system. They should never be
given to children. It is better for adults to get their flavor from
something without such effects. Because the combination of bread and
coffee tastes good, one may be deceived into thinking himself well
nourished on a diet consisting of little else. And yet this is a very
inadequate diet for anybody, and disastrous to the normal development of
children. One must be on guard, then, lest one's desire for flavor be
satisfied without the body's real needs being met.

The wise cook saves her best flavors for the foods which would be least
acceptable without them and does not add them to foods which are good
enough by themselves. The latter course marks the insidious beginning of
luxury. "Once give your family luxuries and you are lost as far as
satisfying them economically is concerned," remarked a clever housewife.
"Even a rat will not taste bread when bacon is nigh," observed a sage
physiologist. The demand for flavor grows and grows with pampering, till
nothing but humming-birds' tongues and miniature geese floating in a sea
of aspic jelly will satisfy the palate of him who eats solely for
flavor--who never knows the sauce of hunger, or the deliciousness of a
plain crust of bread. We must be on guard, saying, like the little
daughter of a classical professor, "If Scylla doesn't get me Charybdis
will." Flavor we must have, but not too much, not too many kinds at once,
and not applied indiscriminately to foods which need them and foods which
do not. The wise cook uses her arts to secure the proper nourishment of
the family and not for her fame as "a good cook."




CHAPTER VIII

ON BEING ECONOMICAL AND PATRIOTIC AT THE SAME TIME


Who does not sigh for the fairy table that comes at the pressing of a
button? It is invariably laden with the most tempting viands, satisfies
beyond words, and disappears when the meal is over, leaving behind no
problem of leftovers or planning for the next meal! No money, no work, no
thought, only sheer enjoyment. Alas, how different is the world of fact!
Even if we have plenty of money we cannot escape from the thought of food
today. There is imperative need for saving of food materials; at best
there will not be enough to go around, and all the world, ourselves
included, will suffer in proportion as we neglect the duty of food
conservation. To be economical in the use of food materials according to
the program of the Food Administration may, probably will, demand the
spending of more money, time, and thought upon food. If we have the money
and time to spend, well and good; but if we have not, how shall we do our
share in sending more "wheat, meat, sugar and fats to our soldiers,
sailors and allies"?

Thousands of people had to practice strict economy before the war began.
They have no more money than they had then and the cost of food has
increased. Certainly the first duty of everyone is to secure sufficient
nourishment to avoid the undermining of health and strength which is sure
to follow inadequate food. But we must all remember that it is possible to
make a great many changes in diet without altering food value, and that
there are few diets which cannot be so rearranged as to give a better
nutritive return on the money spent than is usually secured by our
haphazard methods of planning meals. Saving of waste is commendable and
will go a long way, but this is a kind of passive service; loyal citizens
ought to be active participants in the food conservation movement, which
is a movement to distribute food in the way which shall promote the
efficiency of our allies and ourselves in this world upheaval. To do this
without increasing the cost of one's diet requires a careful study of the
situation. No one can give precise rules as to how it shall be done, but
perhaps a few suggestions as to the underlying principles will help in
determining a dietary plan which shall be economical and still in line
with the general policy.

The same nutritive essentials must be supplied whether the cost of the
diet be much or little. A moderately active man needs some 3,000 calories
per day whether his activity be playing golf or working on a farm; whether
his board bill be $3.00 a day or $3.00 a week. In both cases there must be
suitable kinds and amounts of protein-bearing food, of other "building
materials," and those substances which directly or indirectly affect the
smooth running of the body machinery; nevertheless, these two diets,
closely alike in nutritive value, may be very dissimilar in their
superficial appearance. For instance, all the nutritive requirements may
be met in a ration composed of three food materials, as milk, whole wheat
bread, and apples; on the other hand, by one composed of canvas-back duck,
truffles, lettuce, celery, cranberries, white bread and butter, cream,
coffee, and perhaps a dozen other items. We love all the various
sensations that come from the mingling in a meal of food hot and cold,
moist and dry, crisp and soft, sweet and sour, exhibiting the artistic
touch as well as the homelier virtues; it is the sacrifice of pleasure of
the esthetic sort that food economy and to some extent food conservation
entail.

The first step in food economy (aside from saving of waste) is to
emphasize the use of cereal foods. As much as one-fourth the food money
may be invested in grain products without nutritive disadvantage. But this
is not the last word on the subject, since cereal foods, while cheap,
differ among themselves in cost and somewhat in nutritive value. It is
possible to confine one's choice to some which contribute little besides
fuel to the diet, such as rice and white flour, or to include those which
are rich in other essentials, such as oatmeal. It is difficult to express
briefly this difference in foods in any concrete fashion, but recently a
method of grading or "scoring" foods has been introduced which may help to
make clearer the relationship between nutritive value and general economy.

We cannot live exclusively upon foods which furnish nothing but fuel,
though fuel is the largest item in the diet and one which in an effort to
economize is apt to fall short; hence a food which furnishes nothing but
fuel will not have as high a "score" as a food which will at the same time
supply certain amounts of other essentials, such as protein, calcium
(lime), iron, and the like. By giving definite values to each of the
dietary essentials taken into consideration and comparing the yield of
these from different foods, we may have such a score as follows:[1]

    Grain             Score value
    products           per pound

    White flour         1,257
    Graham flour        2,150
    Rye flour           1,459
    White bread         1,060
    Graham bread        1,525
    Cornmeal            1,360
    Oatmeal             2,465
    Cream of wheat      1,370
    Hominy              1,147
    Corn flakes         1,090

    [1] For the method of calculation and further data see "The
        Adequacy and Economy of Some City Dietaries" by H.C. Sherman
        and L.H. Gillett, published by The New York Association for
        Improving the Condition of the Poor, 105 East Twenty-second
        Street, New York City, from which these figures are taken.

By comparing the score with the price per pound we can easily see which
contributes most to the diet as a whole for the money expended. Thus, if
hominy and oatmeal cost the same, the oatmeal is more than twice as cheap
because we not only get a little more fuel from it but we also get
protein, calcium, iron, and phosphorus in considerably larger amounts;
that is, we shall need less of other foods with oatmeal than we shall with
hominy. This does not mean that hominy is not an excellent and a cheap
food, but it does mean that when the strictest economy must be practiced
it pays to buy oatmeal. The task of the housewife is to find out how much
she can make acceptable to her family; how much she can serve as breakfast
food, how much in muffins and bread, how much in soups and puddings. This
economy is strictly in harmony with the principles of food
conservation--saving of wheat, so hard to do without entirely, so easy to
dispense with in part.

Cornmeal gives as good a nutritive return per pound as cream of wheat, so
that as long as the price of cornmeal is not higher than that of the wheat
product it is both good economy and good patriotism to use it as far as
one can. And, even if cornmeal should be dearer than wheat, one can save
money by increasing the proportion of cereals in the diet so as to be able
to be patriotic without increasing the food bill.

A second measure which generally makes for food economy is to emphasize
the use of dried fruits and vegetables. The score of some of these foods
almost speaks for itself:

    Dried fruits       Score value
    and vegetables      per pound

    Beans                 3,350
    Peas                  2,960
    Apples                  955
    Dates                 1,240
    Figs                  1,782
    Prunes                1,135
    Raisins               1,550

    Fresh fruits
    and vegetables

    Beans                   472
    Peas                    475
    Apples                  156
    Bananas                 236
    Oranges                 228
    Peaches                 138
    Pears                   228


From the foregoing it is evident that, unless the cost of a pound of fresh
apples is less than one-fifth that of dried ones, the dried will be
cheaper; that if dates and raisins cost the same per pound they are
equally economical to buy. It may be noted, too, that the return on a
pound of dried fruit may be quite as good in its way as the return on a
pound of a grain product, but they will be equally cheap only when they
cost the same per pound in the market. Here, again, there is no
incompatibility between economy and conservation of special foods. Even in
the case of beans is this true, for, while certain kinds are wanted for
the army and navy, there are dozens of kinds of beans; one may count it as
part of one's service to find out where these can be obtained, how they
are best cooked and served. Soy beans commend themselves for their
nutritive value, but how many American housewives have made them a part of
their food program? How many have tried to buy them or asked their dealers
to secure them?

A third step in the program of economy is the reduction of the amount of
meat consumed. In many American families at least one-third the food money
is spent for meat. That there are adequate substitutes which may be used
to reduce the amount of meat bought has been already shown. Saving of meat
is one of the most important planks in the food conservation program; so
here again there is no inevitable conflict between conservation and
economy. Some meat is desirable for flavor if it can possibly be afforded,
but no economically inclined person should set aside more than one-fourth
to one-fifth of the food money for it. How much one will get depends upon
the kind and cut selected. There is not so much difference in the
nutritive value as there is in the cost, as the following examples of
"meat scores" will show:

    Meat                   Score value
    and fish                per pound

    Beef, lean round          1,664
    Beef, medium fat rump     1,221
    Beef, porterhouse steak   1,609
    Veal, lean leg            1,539
    Lamb, medium fat leg      1,320
    Fowl                      1,453
    Codfish, salt             1,710
    Codfish, fresh[2]           519
    Salmon, canned            1,074

        [2] The low score of fresh cod is due chiefly to the absence
            of fat and the presence of water.

The great value of milk in the diet has already been discussed. The
"score" of milk is about the same as that for sugar (milk, 761; sugar,
725); hence, if sugar is ten cents a pound and milk eighteen-cents a quart
(about nine cents per pound), milk is cheaper than sugar. Yet there are
people cutting down their milk supply when the cost is only thirteen or
fourteen cents per quart on the ground that milk is too expensive! The
economical housewife should have no compunctions in spending from
one-fifth to one-fourth of her food money for this almost indispensable
food. Whether the free use of milk will be good food conservation as well
as good economy depends upon the supply. If there is not enough to go
around, babies and the poor should have the first claim upon it and the
rest of the world should try to get along with something less economical.

A pound of eggs (eight or nine eggs) gives about the same nutritive return
as a pound of medium fat beef, but to be as cheap as beef at thirty cents
a pound, eggs must not cost over forty-five cents a dozen. Eggs must be
counted among the expensive foods, to be used very sparingly indeed in the
economical diet. Nevertheless the use of eggs as a means of saving meat is
a rational food conservation movement, to be encouraged where means
permit.

The saving of sugar, while a necessary conservation measure, is contrary
to general food economy, since sugar is a comparatively cheap fuel food
and has the great additional value of popularity. Sugar substitutes are
not all as cheap as sugar by any means, but molasses, on account of its
large amount of mineral salts, especially of calcium, has a score value of
2,315 as against 725 for granulated sugar, and may be regarded with favor
by those both economically and patriotically inclined.

In the case of fats, practical economy consists in paying for fuel value
and not for flavor. The score values for butter, lard, olive oil, and
cottonseed oil are about the same. The cheapest fat is the one whose face
value per pound (or market cost) is the lowest. Fats are not as cheap as
milk and cereals if they cost over ten cents per pound. The best way to
economize is by saving the fat bought with meat, using other fats without
much flavor, and cutting the total fat in the diet to a very small amount,
not over two ounces per person per day. This is also good food
conservation, since fats are almost invaluable in rationing an army, and
those with decidedly agreeable flavor are needed to make a limited diet
palatable.

No program either of economy or food conservation can cater to individual
likes and dislikes in the same way that an unrestricted choice of food
can. If one does not like cereals it is hard to consume them just to save
money, especially to the extent of ten to fifteen ounces of grain products
in a day. Yet one might as well recognize that in this direction the
lowering of the cost of the diet inevitably lies. If one does not like
corn, it is hard to substitute corn bread for wheat bread. But one might
as well open one's mind to the fact that the only way to put off the day
when there will be no white bread to eat is to begin eating cornmeal now.
Most of us want to eat our cake and keep it too--to enjoy our food and not
pay for our pleasure; to do our duty towards our country and not feel any
personal inconvenience. But the magic table of the fairy tale is not for a
nation at war; food is not going to come at the pressing of a button
during this conflict. If we are to escape bankruptcy and win the war we
must eat to be nourished and not to be entertained.




APPENDIX

SOME WAR TIME RECIPES


The following recipes illustrate some of the practical applications of the
principles discussed in the foregoing pages. They have been selected from
various publications, a list of which is given below. The numbers
following the titles of the recipes correspond with the numbers of the
publications in this list.

1. Canned Salmon: Cheaper than Meats and Why, U.S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of Fisheries, Economic Circular No. 11

2. Cheese and its Economical Use in the Home, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin No. 487

3. Economical Diet and Cookery in Time of Emergency, Teachers College,
Columbia University, Technical Education Bulletin No. 30 4. Food, Bulletin
of the Life Extension Institute, 25 West 45th Street, New York City

5. Honey and its Uses in the Home, U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Farmers' Bulletin No. 653

6. How to Select Food: Foods Rich in Protein, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin No. 824

7. Meat Substitutes, Connecticut Agricultural College, Emergency Food
Series, No. 10

8. Ninety Tested, Palatable and Economic Recipes, Teachers College,
Columbia University, Technical Educational Bulletin No. 34

9. Recipes of New York City Food Aid Committee, 280 Madison Avenue, New
York City

10. Recipes in The Farmer's Wife, St. Paul, Minnesota, September, 1917

11. Some Sugar Saving Sweets for Every Day, Teachers College, Columbia
University, Teachers College Record, November, 1917

12. War Economy in Food, Bulletin of the United States Food Administration

13. Waste of Meat in the Home, Cornell Reading Course for the Farm Home,
Lesson 109




BREAD AND MUFFINS



Corn Meal and Wheat Bread (9)

    Corn meal, 1 cup
    Wheat flour, 2 cups
    Fat, 1 tablespoon
    Corn syrup, 1 tablespoon
    Salt, 1-1/2 teaspoons
    Cold water, 1-1/4 cups
    Lukewarm water, 1/4 cup
    Yeast, 1 cake

Pour cold water gradually over corn meal and salt. Cook over water for 20
minutes. Add fat and syrup. Allow to cool to room temperature. Add yeast
which has been softened in the lukewarm water. Add flour gradually,
stirring or kneading thoroughly after each addition of flour. Knead
lightly for 10 or 15 minutes. Shape into a loaf. Let rise until double in
bulk. Bake in a moderate oven (360-380°) for about an hour. (The amount of
corn meal may be reduced if one desires a loaf with the characteristics of
wheat bread.)



Corn Meal and Rye Bread (9)

    Lukewarm water, 2 cups
    Yeast, 1 cake
    Salt, 1/2 tablespoon
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Rye flour, 1 cup
    Corn meal, 1 cup
    Flour, 3 cups

Soften yeast cake in water, add remaining ingredients, and mix thoroughly.
Let rise, shape, let rise again and bake.



Sour Milk Corn Bread (8)

    Corn meal, 1 pint
    Soda, 3/4 teaspoon
    Baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon
    Sour milk, 1 pint
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Egg, 1
    Lard (melted), 1 1/2 tablespoons

Slightly beat the egg, add milk, salt, and soda. Stir in the meal. Beat
well. Add melted lard and baking powder. Bake in hot greased pan. Cut in
squares and serve. Do not have batter too stiff.



Eggless Corn Muffins (8)

    Corn meal, 1 cup
    Pastry flour (sifted), 1/2 cup
    Sugar, 1/4 cup
    Melted butter, 2 tablespoons
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Baking powder, 2 teaspoons
    Milk, 1 cup

Mix dry ingredients and add milk and melted butter. Put in greased muffin
pan and bake 30 minutes in a moderate oven.



Oat Bread (4)

    Boiling water, 2 cups
    Salt, 1/2 tablespoon
    1/2 yeast cake, dissolved in 1/2 cup lukewarm water
    Rolled oats (dry), 1 cup
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Fat, 1 tablespoon
    Flour, 4-1/2 cups

Add boiling water to the rolled oats, stir well and let stand for one
hour. Add molasses, salt, fat, dissolved yeast cake, and flour; let the
dough rise to double its bulk, beat well, and turn into greased bread
pans, let rise the second time, and bake about one hour in a moderate
oven.



Oatmeal Muffins (8)

    Cooked oatmeal, 1 cup
    Flour, 1-1/2 cups
    Sugar, 2 tablespoons
    Baking powder, 4 teaspoons
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Egg, 1
    Melted butterine, 2 tablespoons

Mix and sift flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the egg well
beaten and one-half the milk. Mix the remainder of the milk with the
cereal, and beat in thoroughly. Then add the butter. Bake in buttered
muffin or gem tins about 30 minutes in a moderate oven.



War Time Boston Brown Bread

    Rye meal, 1 cup
    Corn meal, 1 cup
    Finely ground oatmeal, 1 cup
    Milk, 1-1/2 cups
    Soda, 3/4 teaspoon
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Molasses, 1 cup
    Baking powder, 2 teaspoons

Mix and sift dry ingredients, add molasses and milk, stir until well
mixed, turn into a well-greased mold, and steam three and one-half hours.
The cover should be greased before being placed on mold. The mold should
never be filled more than two-thirds full. A one-pound baking powder box
makes the most attractive shaped loaf for steaming; place mold on a trivet
in kettle containing boiling water, allowing water to come half-way up
around mold; cover closely and steam, adding as needed more boiling water.
One cup chopped peanuts and 1 cup of cut dates may be added.



Rice Bread (10)

    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Sugar, 6 tablespoons
    Fat, 4 tablespoons
    Salt, 1-1/2 teaspoons
    Compressed yeast, 1/2 cake, softened in 1/4 cup liquid
    Boiled rice, 7 cups
    Flour, 8 cups

This proportion makes two loaves of bread.

Scald the milk with sugar, salt, and fat. Let cool until lukewarm and pour
over the boiled rice. Add yeast which has been softened in one-quarter
cupful warm water. Stir in flour and knead. Let rise until double its
bulk. Knead again and put into pans. Let rise until light and bake 50
minutes to one hour in a moderate oven.

_The rice should be boiled in a large quantity of boiling water_, in
order to insure a dry rice. At least eight or ten times as much water as
rice should be used.



Eggless Rye Muffins (8)

    Rye flour, 2 cups
    Baking powder, 4 teaspoons
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Sugar, 4 teaspoons
    Milk, 1 cup
    Melted butter or other fat, 1 tablespoon

Mix and sift the dry ingredients; add the milk and melted fat. Mix
quickly, do not beat. Bake in greased muffin pans 20 minutes in a hot
oven.



Rye Corn Meal Muffins (9)

    Corn meal, 1/2 cup
    Rye flour, 1 cup
    Baking powder, 3 teaspoons
    Sugar, 2 tablespoons
    Melted butter, 1 tablespoon
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Milk, 1/4 cup
    Egg, 1

Mix and sift dry ingredients, beat egg, add to it milk and molasses, then
stir liquid mixture into dry ingredients. Do not beat. Place in
well-greased muffin tins and bake in moderate oven 25 to 30 minutes.



Rye Rolls (9)

    Milk, 1 cup
    Water, 1 cup
    Fat, 3 tablespoons
    Sugar, 2 teaspoons
    Salt, 2 teaspoons
    Yeast cakes, 2
    Water, 6 tablespoons
    Rye flour, 4 cups
    White flour, 4 cups

Scald the milk with the salt, sugar, and fat. Soften the yeast in the six
tablespoonfuls of water.

Cool the milk by adding the rest of the water cold, stir in the yeast and
flour, and knead. Let rise until double in bulk. Knead again and shape
into rolls. Let rise until very light and bake.




CAKE AND COOKIES



Apple Sauce Cake (4)

    Sugar, 1 cup
    Butter, 2 tablespoons
    Apple sauce, 1 cup
    Flour, 2 cups
    Raisins, 2/3 cup
    Soda, 1 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
    Cloves, 1/2 teaspoon
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon

Sift together the soda, spices, salt, and flour. Cream the butter, add
sugar, apple sauce, dry ingredients, and seeded raisins. Bake in a
moderate oven.



Buckwheat Cookies (8)

    Butterine, 1/2 cup
    Sugar, 1 cup
    Eggs, 2
    Clove, 1/2 teaspoon
    Buckwheat, 1 3/4 cups
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon

Beat the eggs, add the sugar and melted butter, and beat until thoroughly
mixed. Sift the buckwheat, spices, and salt together and add very slowly.
Mix well; roll on a floured board one-eighth to one-sixteenth inch thick.
Cut the cookies and bake on a greased baking sheet in a moderate oven
about 10 minutes.



Honey Bran Cookies (5)

    Bran, 3 cups
    Sugar, 1/2 cup
    Soda, 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon
    Ginger, 1/4 teaspoon
    Honey, 1/2 cup
    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Melted butter, 1/2 cup


Soft Honey Cake (5)

    Butter, 1/2 cup
    Honey, 1 cup
    Egg, 1
    Sour milk, 1/2 cup
    Soda, 1 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
    Ginger, 1/2 teaspoon
    Flour, 4 cups

Rub the butter and honey together; add the egg well beaten, then the sour
milk and the flour sifted with the soda and spices. Bake in a shallow pan.



Molasses Cakes (4)

    Sugar, 1/2 cup
    Fat, 1/2 cup
    Molasses, 1 cup
    Ginger, 1 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
    Egg, 1
    Flour, 2 1/2 cups
    Soda, 2 teaspoons
    Hot water, 1 cup
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon

Sift together the salt, sugar, flour, soda, and spices. Melt butter in hot
water, add molasses, egg well beaten, and dry ingredients. Mix well. Bake
in small cup cake tins in a moderate oven for about 25 minutes.



Molasses Cookies (11)

    Flour, 2-3/4 cups
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Soda, 1 teaspoon
    Ginger, 1 tablespoon
    Molasses, 1 cup
    Hot water, 1 tablespoon
    Hardened vegetable fat, 1/4 cup

Sift together the flour, salt, soda, and ginger. Melt fat; add hot water
and molasses; stir this liquid gradually into the dry ingredients. Chill.
Roll on floured board to one-eighth inch thickness. Cut. Bake about 10
minutes in a moderate oven (360-380° F.).



Nut Molasses Bars (9)

    Oleomargarine, 1/4 cup
    Hardened vegetable fat, 1/4 cup
    Boiling water, 1/4 cup
    Brown sugar, 1/2 cup
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Soda, 1 teaspoon
    Flour, 3-2/3 cups
    Ginger, 1/3 teaspoon
    Cloves, 1/8 teaspoon
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Cocoanut, 1/2 cup
    English walnuts, 1/2 cup

Pour boiling water over fat; add sugar and molasses; add flour, soda,
spices, and salt sifted together. Chill. Roll one-eighth inch thick. Cut
in strips about three and a half by one inch. Sprinkle with cocoanut and
English walnuts cut in small pieces.

Bake about 10 minutes in a moderate oven.



Oatmeal Cookies (4)

    Egg, 1
    Sugar, 1/4 cup
    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Water, 1/4 cup
    Flour, 2 cups
    Fine oatmeal, 1/2 cup
    Baking powder, 2 teaspoons
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Raisins, 1 cup
    Melted fat, 5 tablespoons

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the oatmeal. Beat
the egg add sugar, water, and milk, dry ingredients mixed together,
raisins, and melted fat. Drop from spoon on greased baking sheet and bake
in moderate oven.



Oatmeal Macaroons (12)

    Fat, 1 tablespoon
    Corn syrup, 3/8 cup
    Sugar, 2 tablespoons
    Egg, 1
    Almond extract if desired, 2 teaspoons
    Oatmeal, 1 1/2 cups
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
    Flour, 1-1/2 tablespoons

Combine the melted fat and sugar and syrup, add the beaten egg and stir in
the other ingredients. Drop from a teaspoon on greased baking sheets or
pans and bake in a moderate oven about 15 minutes.



Potato Drop Cookies (13)

    Hot mashed potatoes, 1-1/2 cups
    Sugar, 1-1/4 cups
    Beef or mutton fat, 1 cup
    Flour, 1-3/4 cups
    Baking powder, 2 teaspoons
    Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon
    Cloves, 1/2 teaspoon
    Nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon
    Raisins, chopped, 1/2 cup
    Nuts, chopped, 1/4 cup

Combine the ingredients in the order given and drop the mixture by
spoonfuls on a slightly greased tin. Bake the cookies in a moderate oven.



Spice Cake (9)

    Hardened vegetable fat, 3-1/2 tablespoons
    Sugar, 1/4 cup
    Egg, 1
    Corn syrup, 1/4 cup
    Milk, 1/4 cup
    Flour, 1 cup (plus 1-1/2 tablespoons)
    Baking powder, 1-1/4 teaspoons
    Chopped citron, 2 tablespoons
    Raisins, cut in half, 1/2 cup
    Cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon
    Clove, 1/4 teaspoon
    Nutmeg, 1/8 teaspoon

Cream fat; add sugar gradually, syrup, egg well beaten; mix and sift dry
ingredients; add alternately with milk to first mixture. Add raisins
(which have been rolled in a little of the flour), mixing them through the
cake thoroughly.

Bake about 30 minutes in a moderate oven (about 380° F.).




JAMS AND SANDWICH FILLINGS



Banana and Nut Paste for Sandwiches (11)

    Banana, 1
    Shelled peanuts, 1/4 cup

Mix the banana with the shelled peanuts, which have been crushed. Salt to
taste. Use as a filling for sandwiches.



Carrot Marmalade (3)

    Carrots, 3 pounds
    Sugar, 3 pounds
    Lemon, 1 (juice and grated rind)
    Oranges, 2 (juice and grated rind)

Wash, scrape, and steam carrots until soft; chop fine and mix with fruit
and sugar. Cook gently one hour.



Date and Cranberry Marmalade (3)

    Cranberries, 1 quart
    Dates, stoned, 1 pound
    Water, 1 pint
    Brown sugar, 2 cups

Simmer together for 20 minutes cranberries, dates, and water; put through
a sieve; add sugar and cook 15 minutes longer.



Dried Apricot Conserve (11)

    Dried apricots, 1/2 pound (1-2/3 cups)
    Cold water, 2 cups
    Raisins, 1 cup
    Juice of 1 lemon
    Whole orange, 1
    Nuts, 1/2 cup
    Corn syrup (light), 1 cup

Soak apricots over night in cold water. When soaked add raisins, lemon
juice, orange sliced very thin, with slices cut in small pieces, and corn
syrup. Bring to boiling point and simmer for about one and one-quarter
hours. Add nuts 15 minutes before taking from fire.



Fruit and Peanut Butter (for Sandwiches) (11)

    Dates, 1/4 cup
    Figs, 1/4 cup
    Peanut butter, 1/2 cup
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Lemon juice, 1-1/2 tablespoons
    Raisins, 1/4 cup
    Corn syrup (light), 2 tablespoons

Wash figs, raisins, and dates, and put through food chopper. Add salt,
peanut butter, lemon juice, and corn syrup, and mix well.



Plum Conserve (without sugar) (11)


    Pitted plums, 1 pound (2 dozen plums)
    Raisins, 1/3 pound
    Cold water, 1/2 cup
    Walnuts, 1/8 pound (1/4 cup)
    Oranges, 2
    Corn syrup, 1/3 cup

Wash and cut plums in pieces: add chopped raisins, orange pulp and peel,
cut very fine; corn syrup and water; boil until it is of the consistency
of marmalade (about one and one-half hours of slow cooking). Add walnuts
five minutes before removing from fire.




SUBSTANTIAL HOT DISHES



Baked Barley (4)

    Barley, 1/2 cup
    Boiling water, 3 cups
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Left over gravy, 3/4 cup

Soak barley over night. Drain. Cook in boiling salted water until tender.
Drain. Add left over gravy and bake for 20 minutes in a moderate oven. If
one has a meat bone, or left over bits of meat, these may be boiled with
the barley to give it flavor.



Beef and Bean Stew (6)

    Beef, lower round, 1 pound
    Red kidney beans, 1 cup
    Onion, 1
    Canned tomatoes, 1 cup, or 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes
    Salt pork, 2 ounces

Wash the beans and soak them over night. Cut the pork into small pieces
and try out the fat. Cut the beef into small pieces and brown it in the
pork fat, then add the vegetables with water enough to cover. Cook just
below the boiling point for about three hours.



Cheese Fondue (2)

    Milk (hot), 1-1/3 cups
    Bread crumbs, 1-1/3 cups
    Butter, 1 tablespoon
    Eggs, 4
    Cheese, 1/3 pound (1-1/3 cups grated or 1 cup cut in pieces)
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon

Mix the water, bread crumbs, salt, and cheese; add the yolks thoroughly
beaten; into this mixture cut and fold the whites of eggs beaten until
stiff. Pour into a buttered dish and cook 30 minutes in a moderate oven.
Serve at once.



Corned Beef Hash with Vegetables (4)

    Corned beef (cold, left over), 1-1/2 cups
    Dice potatoes (cooked), 2-1/4 cups
    Turnips (cooked), 1 cup
    Onion, chopped fine, 1 small
    Carrots (cooked), 1/2 cup
    Water, 3/4 cup
    Fat, 3 tablespoons

Cut the meat into small pieces. Add cooked vegetables cut into small
cubes, onion and water. Put fat into hot frying pan, add hash and cook for
about 20 minutes, allowing the hash to brown. Other left over meat may be
added to corned beef, or used instead of corned beef.



Corn Meal Scrapple (3)

    Shin of beef, 2 pounds
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Onion, 1 medium
    Pepper, 1/8 teaspoon
    Cold water, 2 quarts
    Corn meal, 1 cup

Cook onion thinly sliced in beef marrow or suet. Add to water with meat
and bone and cook until meat is tender. Let cool, skim off fat, and remove
bone. To liquid remaining, add enough water to make one quart. Add corn
meal and salt and cook one hour. Turn into a mold, cool, cut in slices,
and fry in pork fat until brown. Serve with or without gravy.



Corn Chowder (4)

    Corn, 1/4 can
    Salt pork, 1-1/2 inch cube
    Potato cut in slices, 1 medium
    Milk, 2 cups
    Boiling water, 1-1/2 cups
    Butter, 2 tablespoons
    Sliced onion, 1/8
    Sugar, 1/4 teaspoon
    Salt and pepper

Cut the pork into small pieces and try it out. Add the onion and cook for
about five minutes. Strain the fat into a stew pan. Cook the potatoes for
about five minutes in boiling salted water. Drain, and add the potatoes to
the fat. Add the boiling water and cook until the potatoes are soft. Then
add corn and milk and heat to the boiling point. Add the salt, pepper,
sugar, and butter. Serve immediately after adding butter.



Cottage Cheese and Nut Loaf (12)

    Cottage cheese, 1 cup
    Nut meats (use those locally grown), 1 cup
    Stale bread crumbs, 1 cup
    Juice of 1/2 lemon
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Pepper, 1/4 teaspoon
    Chopped onion, 2 tablespoons
    Oleomargarine, meat drippings or vegetable oils, 1 tablespoon

Mix the cheese, ground nuts, crumbs, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Cook
the onion in the fat and a little water until tender. Add to the first
mixture the onion and sufficient water or meat stock to moisten. Mix well,
pour into a baking dish, and brown in the oven.



Dried Fish Chowder (7)

    Salt fish, 1/2 pound
    Potatoes, cut in small pieces, 4 cups
    Salt pork, 2 ounces
    Small onion, chopped, 1
    Skim milk, 4 cups
    Crackers, 4 ounces

Salt codfish, smoked halibut, or other dried fish may be used in this
chowder. Pick over and shred the fish, holding it under lukewarm water.
Let it soak while the other ingredients of the dish are being prepared.
Cut the pork into small pieces and fry it with the onion until both are a
delicate brown; add the potatoes, cover with water, and cook until the
potatoes are soft. Add the milk and fish and reheat. Salt, if necessary.
It is well to allow the crackers to soak in the milk while the potatoes
are being cooked, then remove them, and finally add to the chowder just
before serving.



Gevech (Roumanian Recipe) (9)

    Shredded cabbage, 1-1/4 cups
    Chopped onion, 1/4 cup
    Rice, 1/4 cup
    Diced potatoes, 3/4 cup
    1/2 green pepper cut into strips
    Fish, 3/4 pound
    Canned tomato, 3/4 cup
    Water, 3 tablespoons
    Salt, 3/4 teaspoon
    Paprika, 1/4 teaspoon
    Pepper, 1/8 teaspoon

Parboil cabbage, onion, rice, potatoes, and green pepper together in
salted water for 20 minutes. Drain. Clean fish, cut into small pieces, and
mix with parboiled vegetables, canned tomatoes, water, and seasonings.
Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes. Baste occasionally while
cooking. Serve with a garnish of sliced lemon.



Kidney Bean Stew (3)

    Kidney beans, 1 cup
    Onion, 1 small
    Rice, 2 tablespoons
    Canned tomatoes, 2 cups
    Fat or drippings, 2 tablespoons
    Flour, 2 tablespoons
    Salt and pepper to taste

Soak beans over night in cold water to cover. In the morning place beans
over fire, adding water to cover if necessary. Add onion, rice and
tomatoes and cook slowly until beans are soft. If too thick, add water.
Mix flour and fat, and use to thicken stew.



Baked Oatmeal with Cheese (9)

    Cooked oatmeal, 4 cups
    Grated cheese, 1 cup
    Salt and pepper
    Soft bread crumbs, 1/4 cup
    Fat, 1 teaspoon

Put into an oiled baking dish a layer of left over oatmeal, then a
sprinkling of grated cheese, pepper and salt, another layer of oatmeal,
then cheese and seasonings; continue until the dish is full. Melt the fat
and mix with this the bread crumbs. Sprinkle over the top of the dish.
Bake in a moderate oven until the crumbs are golden brown.



Green Pea Loaf with White Sauce (9)

    Dried green peas, 1 cup
    Cold water, 4 cups
    Boiling water, 2 quarts
    Soft, stale bread crumbs, 1-1/2 cups
    Milk, 1-1/2 cups
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Pepper, 1/8 teaspoon
    Paprika, 1/2 teaspoon
    Grated onion, 1/2 teaspoon
    Egg, 1
    Fat, 3 tablespoons

Soak peas in cold water over night. Cook in boiling water until soft. Rub
through a sieve. To one cup of this pea pulp add bread crumbs, milk,
seasoning, egg (slightly beaten), and melted fat. Turn mixture into a
small, oiled bread pan. Set pan into a second pan, containing water. Bake
mixture 40 minutes or until firm. Remove loaf from pan. Serve with white
sauce. One-half cup of cheese may be added to one and one-half cups of the
sauce.



Mock Sausage (8)

    Lima beans, dried, 1/2 cup
    Bread crumbs, 1/3 cup
    Butter, 3 tablespoons
    Egg, 1
    Pepper, few grains
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Sage, 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon

Pick over and wash beans, cover with water, and let soak over night.
Drain; cook in boiling salted water until tender, about one and one-half
hours. Force through a strainer, add remaining ingredients. Shape into
form of sausages, roll in crumbs, egg, and crumbs again. Sauté in fat
until brown. It requires about two-thirds cup crumbs and one-half egg for
dipping sausage. May be garnished with fried apples.



Baked Soy or Togo Beans (6)

Soy beans, known in the retail market as togo beans, resemble navy beans
in some ways. They contain, however, a considerable amount of fat. For
this reason neither pork nor other fat is used in cooking them unless it
is wanted for flavor. They are considerably richer in protein also.

Wash and pick over one quart of soy beans. Cover with boiling water, boil
for 10 minutes, and soak over night in the same water. In the morning pour
off and save the water. Pour cold water over the beans and rub them
between the hands to remove the skins, which will float off in the water.
Removing the skins in this way takes only two or three minutes and greatly
improves the quality of the dish. If a few skins are left on, they will do
no harm, unless the dish is being prepared for a person of poor digestion.
Drain the beans, pour over them the water in which they were soaked, and
cook until tender at a temperature just below the boiling point. Pour off
the water, put the beans into a bean pot, cover with cold water, add one
and one-half tablespoonfuls of salt, and bake four or five hours in a
covered dish. Remove the cover and bake one hour more.



Peanut Loaf (10)

    Chopped peanuts, 1 cup
    Bread crumbs, 2 cups
    Egg, 1
    Milk, 1 cup
    Salt, 1-1/2 teaspoons
    Paprika, 1/4 teaspoon
    Melted fat, 1 tablespoon

Mix dry ingredients, add beaten egg and milk. Put into a greased pan, pour
the melted fat on top, bake. Turn on a hot platter and serve with sauce.


Sauce for Loaf

    Hot water, 1 cup
    Beef cube, 1
    Juice 1 lemon
    Fat, 2 tablespoons
    Flour, 2 tablespoons
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Paprika, 1/8 teaspoon
    Few grains nutmeg

Melt fat, add flour with seasoning, add hot water in which beef cube has
been dissolved. Just before serving add lemon juice.

This nut loaf with its accompanying sauce is a highly nutritious dish and
is excellent for lunch or supper. Serve no meat or potatoes with it.



Peanut Butter Bean Loaf (10)

    Peanut butter, 1/2 cup
    Cooked beans, 1 cup
    Soft bread crumbs (toasted), 1 cup
    Milk, 1 cup
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Pepper, 1/2 teaspoon

The beans should be soaked over night and cooked in fresh water until
tender. Press through a sieve, add other ingredients, mix well. Shape into
a loaf, place in pan, and bake about two hours, basting with melted fat
and hot water.



Peanut Butter Cream Soup (10)

    Milk, 1 quart
    Onion (grated), 1 small
    Flour, 1 tablespoon
    Melted fat, 1 tablespoon
    Peanut butter, 1 cup
    Bay leaf, 1
    Celery (chopped) 3 stalks
    Celery salt, 1 saltspoon
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    A little white pepper
    Dash of paprika

Heat milk in a double boiler, add peanut butter, onion, bay leaf, chopped
celery, and other seasoning. While the milk is heating, melt fat in a
separate sauce pan, stirring in flour as for cream sauce. When smooth add
the hot milk, after straining through a sieve. Serve at once with croutons
or tiny squares of bread browned till crisp.



Peanut Fondue (8)

    Peanuts, shelled, 1 cup
    Bread crumbs (soft), 1 cup
    Milk, 1-2/3 cups
    Egg, 1
    Salt, 1-1/2 teaspoons
    Cayenne

Grind peanuts in a meat grinder. Mix all ingredients except the white of
the egg. Beat the egg white stiff and fold in. Turn into a buttered
pudding dish and bake in a moderate oven 30 to 35 minutes.



Peanut Soup (10)

    Blanched shelled peanuts, 2 cups
    Onion, 1/4 cup
    Celery, 1/4 cup
    Carrot, 1/4 cup
    Water, 2-1/2 cups
    Fat, 1/4 cup
    Flour, 2 tablespoons
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Paprika, 1/2 teaspoon
    Milk, 2 cups

Chop and crush the nuts until very fine; add the vegetables and water;
simmer 20 minutes. Make a white sauce of the other ingredients, mix the
two mixtures thoroughly and serve.



Potato Soup with Carrots (4)

    Potatoes, 3 medium
    Water, 2 cups
    Flour, 4 tablespoons
    Soup greens
    Onion, 2 slices
    Sprigs of parsley
    Milk, 1-1/2 cups
    Carrot, 1
    Fat, 1-1/2 tablespoons
    Salt and pepper
    Stalk of celery

Wash and pare potatoes. Cook in boiling salted water until they are soft.
Rub through colander. Use water in which potatoes were cooked to make up
the two cups of water for the soup. Cook carrot cut in cubes in boiling
water until soft; drain. Scald milk with onion, celery, and parsley. Add
milk and water to potatoes. Melt fat in sauce pan, add flour, and cook for
three minutes. Slowly add soup, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute,
season with salt and pepper. Add cubes of carrots and serve.



Salmon en Casserole (1)

Cook one cup of rice. When cold line baking dish. Take one can of salmon
and flake. Beat two eggs, one-third cup of milk, one tablespoon of butter,
pinch of salt, dash of paprika. Stir into the salmon lightly, cover
lightly with rice. Steam one hour, serve with white sauce. (This may also
be made with barley instead of rice.)



Scalloped Salmon (1)

    Salmon, 1 can
    Egg, 1
    Milk, 1 pint
    Flour, 2 rounding tablespoons
    Butter, 1-1/2 tablespoons

Put the milk on stove in double boiler, keeping out one-half cup. Mix
butter and flour to a smooth paste, and add the egg well beaten, then the
one-half cup of cold milk. Mix well and then stir into the milk, which
should be scalding. Stir until smooth and thick like gravy. Season with
salt and pepper and set aside to cool. Butter a baking dish and fill with
alternate layers of flaked salmon and the cream dressing. The top layer
should be of the dressing. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs and bake one-half
hour in moderate oven.



Salmon Loaf (1)

    Salmon, 1 small can
    Egg, 1
    Cracker crumbs, 1 cup
    Sweet milk, 2 tablespoons
    Paprika
    Nutmeg
    Salt

Remove bones from salmon; break into small pieces, add well beaten egg,
seasoning, and cracker crumbs; bake in a well buttered dish for 15
minutes; serve hot for lunch.



Tamale Pie (12)

    Corn meal, 2 cups
    Salt, 2 1/2 teaspoons
    Boiling water, 6 cups
    Onion, 1
    Fat, 1 tablespoon
    Hamburger steak, 1 pound
    Tomatoes, 2 cups
    Cayenne pepper, 1/2 teaspoon,
      or
    Chopped sweet pepper, 1 small
    Salt, 1 teaspoon

Make a mush by stirring the corn meal and one and one-half teaspoons salt
into boiling water. Cook in a double boiler or over water for 45 minutes.
Brown the onion in the fat, add the Hamburger steak, and stir until the
red color disappears. Add the tomatoes, pepper, and salt. Grease a
baking-dish, put in a layer of corn meal mush, add the seasoned meat, and
cover with mush. Bake 30 minutes. Serves six.



Turkish Pilaf (3)

    Washed rice, 1 cup
    Raw lean beef or lamb, 1 pound
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Boiling water, 2 cups
    Small onion or garlic, 2 cloves
    Tomatoes, 2 cups
    Olive oil or any fat, 2 tablespoons

Fry onion cut in small pieces or the garlic in the fat until slightly
brown; add rice, seasonings, water, tomatoes, meat, and cook in a covered
dish until the rice is soft. The meat may be omitted, the rice cooked in
the tomatoes and water, and the whole covered with grated cheese and baked
until cheese is melted.



Vegetable Stew

    Beef, 1/2 pound
    Mutton, 1/2 pound
    Carrots, diced, 1/2 cup
    Potatoes, diced, 2 cups
    Tomatoes, canned, 3/4 cup
    Fat, 2 tablespoons
    Carrot, 1 whole
    Onion, sliced, 3 tablespoons
    Cabbage, chopped, 1 cup
    Flour, 1/4 cup
    Bay leaf, 1/2 leaf
    Cloves, 6
    Peppercorns, 6
    Parsley, chopped, 2 tablespoons
    Salt, 2 teaspoons
    Thyme, 1 sprig
    Water, 7 cups

Cut meat in small pieces, brown with onion in fat, add water, one carrot
in which cloves have been imbedded, and other vegetables. Tie bay leaf,
thyme, and peppercorns together in a piece of cheesecloth and cook with
stew about two hours (till vegetables are done). Remove bag of seasonings,
thicken stew with flour. Add more salt if needed.




PUDDINGS



Apricot Tapioca Pudding (4)

    Apricots, 6
    Sugar, 1/2 cup
    Pearl tapioca, 1 cup
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Boiling water, 3 cups

Cover the tapioca with cold water and soak for one hour. Drain off the
cold water, add the boiling water and salt, and cook over water (in a
double boiler if you have one) until the tapioca is transparent, and no
hard center portion remains. This will require about 30 minutes. Place the
apricots in a buttered baking dish. Add sugar to the tapioca, pour this
over the apricots, add apricot juice, and bake in a moderate oven for
about 20 minutes. Cool and serve. If dried apricots are to be used, they
should be soaked over night or several hours in cold water sufficient to
cover them. Cook in the water in which they have soaked until they are
tender.



Cereal Pudding (8)

    Left over cereal, 3-1/2 cups
    Apple sauce, 1/2 cup or
    Apple, 1
    Sugar, 1 tablespoon
    Butter, 1 tablespoon
    Bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons

Put a layer of cereal in the bottom of a buttered baking dish, then a
layer of apples or sauce, then sugar if the sauce has not been sweetened.
Then put in another layer of cereal, cover with buttered crumbs. Bake 30
minutes if it has apple sauce in it, one hour if raw apples are used.
Serve with cream.



Cereal Date Pudding (11)

    Cereal (half corn meal and half farina), 3/4 cup
    Boiling water, 3 cups
    Salt, 3/4 teaspoon
    Chopped dates, 1 cup
    Oleomargarine, 1 tablespoon
    Corn syrup (light), 1/2 cup
    Egg, 1

Stir the cereal mixture gradually into the boiling water, to which the
salt has been added. Cook directly over the flame for about five minutes,
stirring constantly, and then cook over water for one and one-half hours.
Add oleomargarine, syrup, egg, well beaten, and chopped dates. Turn into a
greased baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven
(360-390° F.).



Chocolate Bread Pudding (11)

    Bread, broken in small pieces, 2 1/2 cups
    Corn syrup (dark), 1/2 cup
    Brown sugar, 1/4 cup
    Egg, 1
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Chocolate, 2 squares
    Milk, 1 1/2 cups
    Hot water, 1 1/2 cups
    Vanilla, 3/4 teaspoon

Soak bread in milk; add syrup, brown sugar, egg, well beaten, and salt.
Melt chocolate in water; add gradually to bread mixture. Add vanilla. Bake
in custard cups, set in hot water, in a moderate oven.



Eggless Steamed Pudding (11)

    Flour, 1 2/3 cups
    Soda, 1/2 teaspoon
    Salt, 1/4 teaspoon
    Cloves, 1/4 teaspoon
    Allspice, 1/4 teaspoon
    Nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
    Hardened vegetable fat, 3 tablespoons
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Raisins (seeded and cut in pieces), 1 cup

Sift together the flour, soda, salt, and spices; add the raisins. To milk
add molasses and melted fat; add liquid mixture gradually to dry
ingredients. Stir thoroughly. Turn into greased molds, filling them a
little over half full; cover and steam for about two and one-half hours.
Serve with pudding sauce or milk. (Baking powder cans are satisfactory
molds for steamed puddings.)



Honey Pudding (5)

    Honey, 1/2 cup
    Bread crumbs, 6 ounces
    Milk, 1/2 cup
    Rind of half a lemon
    Ginger, 1/2 teaspoon
    Eggs, 2
    Butter, 2 tablespoons

Mix the honey and the bread crumbs and add the milk, seasonings, and yolks
of the eggs. Beat the mixture thoroughly and then add the butter and the
whites of the eggs well beaten. Steam for about two hours in a pudding
mold which is not more than three-quarters full.



Indian Pudding (3)

    Milk, 1 quart
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Corn meal, 1/3 cup
    Ginger, 2 teaspoons
    Salt, 1 teaspoon
    Cold milk, 1 cup

Pour milk, scalded, over meal, and cook 20 minutes; add salt, ginger, and
molasses. Cook slowly in a buttered baking dish two hours. When half done,
add the cold milk and finish cooking.



Baked Indian and Apple Pudding (8)

    Corn meal, 1/4 cup
    Milk, 2 cups
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Ginger, 1/2 teaspoon
    Molasses, 1/4 cup
    Apple, 1

Sift corn meal slowly into the scalded milk, stirring constantly. Cook in
double boiler 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt, ginger, and
molasses. Put into greased baking dish and bake one hour in a slow oven,
stirring occasionally. Slice apple and stir into pudding. Bake until apple
is tender.



Prune Brown Betty (11)

    Cooked prunes, stoned and cut into halves, 2-1/2 cups
    Bread crumbs (dry), 1/2 cup
    Corn syrup (dark), 1/4 cup
    Lemon juice, 3 tablespoons
    Grated rind of 1/4 lemon
    Cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Oleomargarine, 1 tablespoon
    Prune juice, 1/2 cup

Mix together heated prune juice, fat, salt, corn syrup, lemon juice, lemon
rind, and cinnamon. Moisten bread crumbs with part of this mixture. Into a
greased baking dish put alternate layers of bread crumbs and prunes,
pouring part of liquid mixture over each layer of prunes. Bake in a
moderate oven about 45 minutes.



Rice Pudding (11)

    Rice, 1/4 cup
    Milk, 3/4 cup
    Corn syrup (light), 2 tablespoons
    Nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon
    Raisins, 3/4 cup

Cook the rice in boiling salted water, until soft. Pour off water, add
milk, syrup, nutmeg, and raisins. Bake in a moderate oven (370-380° F.)
for 40 minutes.



Spiced Pudding (11)

    Browned crusts of bread, 1 cup
    Scalded milk, 2 cups
    Molasses, 1/2 cup
    Raisins, 1/2 cup
    Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
    Nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon
    Cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon
    Cloves, 1/4 teaspoon

Soak the crusts in the milk until soft. Add molasses, salt, spices, and
raisins. Bake in a moderate oven (360-380° F.), stirring occasionally at
first. Serve with milk or cream.




       *       *       *       *       *

The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or
on kindred subjects.



FEEDING THE FAMILY

BY MARY SWARTZ ROSE

Illustrated, $2.10


This is a clear and concise account in simple every-day terms of the ways
in which modern knowledge of the science of nutrition may be applied in
ordinary life. The food needs of the different members of the typical
family group--men, women, infants, children of various ages--are discussed
in separate chapters, and many concrete illustrations in the form of food
plans and dietaries are included. The problems of the housewife in trying
to reconcile the needs of different ages and tastes at the same table are
also taken up, as are the cost of food and the construction of menus. A
final chapter deals with feeding the sick.

"The volume is so simply and entertainingly written that it cannot but be
enjoyed by anyone interested in the planning or preparation of household
meals, and it would be difficult to imagine a more helpful book to put
into the hands of a reader desiring information along such
lines."--_Trained Nurse_.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

    Publishers    64-66 Fifth Avenue    New York

       *       *       *       *       *

A LABORATORY HAND-BOOK FOR DIETETICS

BY MARY SWARTZ ROSE, PH.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia
University

Cloth, 8vo, $1.10


Investigations into the quantitative requirements of the human body have
progressed so far as to make dietetics to a certain extent an exact
science, and to emphasize the importance of a quantitative study of food
materials. This little book explains the problems involved in the
calculation of food values and food requirements, and the construction of
dietaries, and furnishes reference tables which will minimize the labor
involved in such work without limiting dietary study to a few food
materials.

Only brief statements of the conditions affecting food requirements have
been made, the reader being referred to general textbooks on the subject
of nutrition for fuller information, but such data have been included as
seem most useful in determining the amount of food for any normal
individual under varying conditions of age and activity.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART I

    FOOD VALUES AND FOOD REQUIREMENTS

      THE COMPOSITION OF FOOD MATERIALS.

      THE FUNCTIONS OF FOOD.
        Food as a Source of Energy.
        Food as Building Material.
        Food in the Regulation of Body Processes.

      FOOD REQUIREMENT.
        The Energy Requirement of Normal Adults.
        The Energy Requirement of Children.
        The Energy Requirement of the Aged.
        The Protein Requirement.
        The Fat and Carbohydrate Requirement.
        The Ash Requirement.

  PART II

    PROBLEMS IN DIETARY CALCULATIONS
      Studies in Weight, Measure, and Cost of Some Common Food Materials.
      Relation between Percentage Composition and Weight.
      Calculation of the Fuel Value of a Single Food Material.
      Calculation of the Weight of a Standard or 100-Calorie Portion.
      Food Value of a Combination of Food Materials.
      Distribution of Foodstuffs in a Standard Portion of a Single Food
          Material.
      Calculation of a Standard Portion of a Combination of Food Materials.
      Analysis of a Recipe.
      Modification of Cow's Milk to a Required Formula.
      Calculation of the Percentage Composition of a Food Mixture.
      The Calculation of a Complete Dietary.
      Scoring of the Dietary.

   REFERENCE TABLES
      Refuse in Food Materials.
      Conversion Tables--Grams to Ounces.
      Conversion Tables--Ounces to Grams.
      Conversion Tables--Pounds to Grams.
      Food Values in Terms of Standard Units of Weight.
      Ash Constituents in Percentages of the Edible Portion.
      Ash Constituents in Standard or 100-Calorie Portions.

  APPENDIX
    The Equipment of a Dietetics Laboratory.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

    Publishers    64-66 Fifth Avenue    New York

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FOOD PROBLEM

BY VERNON KELLOGG AND ALONZO E. TAYLOR. $1.25


    "Food is always more or less of a problem in every phase of its
    production, handling and consumption. It is a problem with every
    farmer, every transporter and seller, every householder. It is a
    problem with every town, state and nation. And now very
    conspicuously, it is a problem with three great groups, namely the
    Allies, The Central Empires and The Neutrals; in a word it is a
    great international problem."

These sentences from the introduction indicate the scope of _The Food
Problem_ by Vernon Kellogg and Alonzo E. Taylor.

Both authors are members of the United States Food Administration. Dr.
Kellogg is also connected with the Commission for relief in Belgium and
professor in Stanford University. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Exports
Administrative Board and professor in the University of Pennsylvania. The
preface is by Herbert Hoover, United States Food Administrator and
Chairman for the Commission of Relief in Belgium.

The food problem of today, of our nation, therefore, has as its most
conspicuous phase an international character. Some of the questions which
the book considers are:

What is the Problem in detail?

What are the general conditions of its solution?

What are the immediate and particulars which concern us, and are within
our power to affect?

And finally, what are we actually doing to meet our problem?


TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction: The International Problem.

  Part I. The Problem and the Solution.

  Chapter I. The Food Situation of the Western Allies and the United
             States.
         II. Food Administration.
        III. How England, France and Italy are Controlling and Saving Food.
         IV. Food Control in Germany and Its Lessons.

  Part II. The Technology of Food Use.

  Chapter V. The Physiology of Nutrition.
          VI. The Sociology of Nutrition.
         VII. The Sociology of Nutrition (Continued).
        VIII. Grain and Alcohol.

  Conclusion: Patriotism and Food.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

    Publishers    64-66 Fifth Avenue    New York

       *       *       *       *       *

TWO TEXTBOOKS OF THE HOUSEHOLD ARTS


BY HELEN KINNE, Professor, AND ANNA M. COOLEY, Associate Professor of
Household Arts Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Cloth, 12mo, ill. $1.10


FOODS AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT

Treats specifically of foods, their production, sanitation, cost,
nutritive value, preparation, and serving, these topics being closely
interwoven with the practical aspects of household management; and they
are followed by a study of the household budget and accounts, methods of
buying, housewifery, and laundering. It includes about 160 carefully
selected and tested recipes, together with a large number of cooking
exercises of a more experimental nature designed to develop initiative and
resourcefulness.

The book is new, practical, and economical. It is well illustrated and
attractively bound.


SHELTER AND CLOTHING

This book takes up fully, but with careful balance, every phase of
home-making: location, structure, plan, sanitation, heating, lighting,
decorating, and furnishing. The second part is devoted to textiles,
sewing, and dressmaking. Sewing, drafting, designing, fitting, and cutting
are treated in considerable detail as is also the making of the personal
budget for clothing.

The authors hold that harmony will be the keynote of the home in
proportion as the makers of the home regard the plan, the sanitation, the
decoration of the house itself, and as they exercise economy and wisdom in
the provision of clothing.



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

    Publishers    64-66 Fifth Avenue    New York