GROUP 5.—Foods depended on for fat.
Butter and cream,
Lard, suet,
Salt pork and bacon,
Table and salad oils,
Vegetable, nut, and commercial cooking fats and oils.
If from each of these groups the housekeeper, when buying, chooses the lowest-cost food, she will provide the necessary nutriment for the least expenditure of money. In war time such marketing is essential.
Other causes of waste in food purchasing may be enumerated as follows: Ordering by telephone. This permits the butcher or grocer, who has no time to make selection of foods, to send what comes ready to hand; whereas if the housekeeper did her own selecting, she could take advantage of special prices or "leaders"—food sold at cost or nearly cost to attract patronage.
Buying out-of-season foods also makes marketing costly. Through lack of knowledge concerning the periods at which certain fruits and vegetables are seasonable, and therefore cheaper and in best flavor, housekeepers frequently pay exorbitant prices for poor flavored, inferior products.
Buying in localities where high rental and neighborhood standards compel the shopkeeper to charge high prices, the consumer pays not only for the rent and the plate glass windows, but for display of out-of-season delicacies, game and luxury-foods. Markets should be selected where food in season is sold; where cleanliness and careful attention prevail rather than showy display.
Many a dollar is foolishly spent for delicatessen foods. The retail cost of ready prepared foods includes a fraction of the salary of the cook and the fuel, as well as the regular percentage of profit. The food, also, is not so nourishing or flavorsome as if freshly cooked in the home kitchen.
Buying perishable foods in larger quantities than can be used immediately. Too frequently meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, milk and cream are purchased in quantities larger than needed for immediate consumption, and lack of knowledge of use of left-overs causes what is not eaten to be discarded.
Buying non-perishable foods in small quantities instead of in bulk. Food costs on an average 50 to 75 per cent. more when purchased in small quantities. Select a grocer who keeps his goods in sanitary condition and who will sell in bulk; then do your purchasing from him on a large scale and extend the sanitary care to your own storeroom.
Buying foods high in price but low in food value. Asparagus, canned or fresh, is not as nourishing, for instance, as canned corn or beans. Strawberries out of season do not compare with dates, figs or raisins which are to be had at all times.
Buying without planning menus. By this carelessness foods are often purchased which do not combine well, and therefore do not appeal to the appetite, and so are wasted. Unplanned meals also lead to an unconscious extravagance in buying and an unnecessary accumulation of left-overs.
Buying foreign brands when domestic brands are cheaper and often better.
Leaving the trimmings from meats and poultry at the butcher's. Bring these home and fry out the fatty portions for dripping; use all other parts for the stock pot.
Having purchased for nutriment and in sufficiently large quantities to secure bulk rates, careful storage is the next step in the prevention of waste. Flour, cereals and meals become wormy if they are not kept in clean, covered utensils and in a cool place. Milk becomes sour, especially in summer. This can be prevented by scalding it as soon as received, cooling quickly, and storing in a cold place in covered, well-scalded receptacles. Sour milk should not be thrown out. It is good in biscuits, gingerbread, salad dressings, cottage cheese, pancakes or waffles, and bread making.
Meats should not be left in their wrappings. Much juice soaks into the paper, which causes a loss of flavor and nutriment. Store all meat in a cool place and do not let flies come in contact with it.
Bread often molds, especially in warm, moist weather. Trim off moldy spots and heat through. Keep the bread box sweet by scalding and sunning once a week.
Cheese molds. Keep in a cool, dry place. If it becomes too dry for table use, grate for sauces or use in scalloped dishes.
Winter vegetables wilt and dry out. Store in a cool place. If cellar space permits, place in box of sand, sawdust or garden earth.
Potatoes and onions sprout. Cut off the sprouts as soon as they appear and use for soup. Soak, before using, vegetables which have sprouted.
Fruits must be stored carefully so as to keep the skins unbroken. Broken spots in the skin cause rapid decay. Do not permit good fruit to remain in contact with specked or rotted fruit. Stored fruit should be looked over frequently and all specked or rotted fruit removed. Sweet potatoes are an exception. Picking over, aggravates the trouble. See that these vegetables are carefully handled at all times; if rot develops, remove only those that can be reached without danger of bruising the sound roots. Sweet potatoes may also be stored like fruit by spreading over a large surface and separating the tubers so that they do not touch each other.
Berries should be picked over as soon as received and spread on a platter or a large surface to prevent crushing and to allow room for circulation of air.
Lettuce and greens wilt. Wash carefully as soon as received and use the coarse leaves for soup. Shake the water from the crisp portions and store in a paper bag in a cold refrigerator.
Lemons when cut often grow moldy before they are used. When lemons are spoiling, squeeze out the juice, make a syrup of one cup of sugar and one cup of water, boil ten minutes and add lemon juice in any amount up to one cup. Bring to boiling point and bottle for future use. This bottled juice may be used for puddings, beverages, etc. If only a small amount of juice is needed, prick one end of a lemon with a fork. Squeeze out the amount needed and store the lemon in the ice-box.
When we come to waste caused by careless preparation we may be reminded of the miracle of the loaves and fishes—how all the guests were fed and then twelve baskets were gathered up. Often after preparation that which is gathered up to be thrown away is as large in quantity and as high in food value as the portions used.
Vegetables are wasted in preparation by too thick paring, the discarding of coarse leaves such as are found on lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower, discarding wilted parts which can be saved by soaking, throwing away tips and roots of celery and the roots and ends of spinach and dandelions. All these waste products can be cooked tender, rubbed through a sieve and used with stock for vegetable soup, or with skimmed milk for cream soup. Such products are being conserved by the enemy, even to the onion skin, which is ground into bread-making material.
Throwing away the water in which vegetables have been cooked wastes their characteristic and valuable element—the mineral salts. Cooking them so much that they become watery; under-cooking so that they are hard and indigestible; cooking more than is required for a meal; failing to use left-over portions promptly as an entree or for cream soups or scalloped dishes—all these things mean an appalling waste of valuable food material. Good food material is also lost when the water in which rice or macaroni or other starchy food has been boiled is poured down the kitchen sink. Such water should be used for soup making.
Fruits are wasted by throwing away the cores and skins, which can be used for making sauces, jams and jellies, the latter being sweetened with corn syrup instead of sugar.
Rhubarb is wasted by removing the pink skin from young rhubarb, which should be retained to add flavor and color-attractiveness to the dish.
Raw food in quantity is frequently left in the mixing bowl, while by the use of a good flexible knife or spatula every particle can be saved. A large palette knife is as good in the kitchen as in the studio.
The next step in food preparation is cooking, and tons of valuable material are wasted through ignorance of the principles of cooking.
Bad cooking, which means under-cooking, over-cooking or flavorless cooking, renders food inedible, and inedible food contributes to world shortage. Fats are wasted in cooking by being burned and by not being carefully utilized as dripping and shortening. The water in which salt meat, fresh meat, or poultry has been boiled should be allowed to cool and the fat removed before soup is made of it. Such fat can be used, first of all, in cooking, and then any inedible portions can be used in soap making.
Tough odds and ends of meat not sightly enough to appear on the table are often wasted. They can be transformed by long cooking into savory stews, ragouts, croquettes and hashes, whereas, if carelessly and insufficiently cooked, they are unpalatable and indigestible. Scraps of left-over cooked meat should be ground in the food-chopper and made into appetizing meat balls, hashes or sandwich paste. If you happen to have a soft cooked egg left over, boil it hard at once. It can be used for garnishes, sauces, salads or sandwich paste.
Use all bits of bread, that cannot be used as toast, in puddings, croquettes, scalloped dishes or to thicken soup.
Don't throw away cold muffins and fancy breads. Split and toast them for next day's breakfast.
Foods that survive the earlier forms of waste are often lost at table by the serving of portions of like size to all members of the family. The individual food requirements differ according to age, sex, vocation and state of health. Each should be considered before the food is served, then there will be no waste on the plates when the meal is over. The following table, showing the daily requirement of calories for men and women in various lines of work, illustrates this point:
WOMEN CALORIES
Sedentary work ... 2,400
Active work ... 2,700
Hard manual labor ... 3,200
MEN CALORIES
Sedentary work ... 2,700
Active work ... 3,450
Hard manual labor ... 4,150
Although the serving of food should be carefully planned so as to prevent waste, care should be taken that growing children have ample food. It is a mistake to suppose that a growing child can be nourished on less than a sedentary adult. A boy of fourteen who wants to eat more than his father probably needs all that he asks for. We must not save on the children; but it will be well to give them plain food for the most part, which will not tempt them to overeat, and tactfully combat pernickety, overfastidious likes and dislikes.
The United States Food Administration is preaching the gospel of the clean plate, and this can be accomplished by serving smaller portions, insisting that all food accepted be eaten; by keeping down bread waste, cutting the bread at the table a slice at a time as needed; by cooking only sufficient to supply moderately the number to be fed, and no more. It is a false idea of good providing that platters must leave the table with a generous left-over. Waste of cooked food is a serious item in household economy, and no matter how skillfully leftovers are utilized, it is always less expensive and more appetizing to provide fresh-cooked foods at each meal.
One would think that with the various uses to which all kinds of foodstuffs may be put that there would be little left for the yawning garbage pail. But the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture is responsible for the statement that $750,000,000 worth of food has been wasted annually in the American kitchen. Undoubtedly a large part of this wastefulness was due to ignorance on the part of the housewife, and the rest of it to the lack of co-operation on the part of the employees who have handled the food but not paid the bills.
According to a well-known domestic scientist, the only things which should find their way to the garbage pail are:
Egg shells—after being used to clear coffee.
Potato skins—after having been cooked on the potato.
Banana skins—if there are no tan shoes to be cleaned.
Bones—after having been boiled in soup kettle.
Coffee grounds—if there is no garden where they can be used for fertilizer, or if they are not desired as filling for pincushions.
Tea leaves—after every tea-serving, if they are not needed for brightening carpets or rugs when swept.
Asparagus ends—after being cooked and drained for soup.
Spinach, etc.—decayed leaves and dirty ends of roots.
If more than this is now thrown away, you are wasting the family income and not fulfilling your part in the great world struggle. Your government says that it is your business to know what food your family needs to be efficient; that you must learn how to make the most of the foods you buy; that it is your duty to learn the nature and uses of various foods and to get the greatest possible nourishment out of every pound of food that comes to your home.
The art of utilizing left-overs is an important factor in this prevention of waste. The thrifty have always known it. The careless have always ignored it. But now as a measure of home economy as well as a patriotic service, the left-over must be handled intelligently.
The following recipes show how to make appetizing dishes from products that heretofore in many homes have found their way to the extravagant pail.
In these recipes, sauces are prominent because they are of great value in making foods of neutral flavor, especially the starchy winter vegetables, and rice, macaroni and hominy, as attractive as they are nutritious; salads are included, since these serve to combine odds and ends of meats and vegetables; gelatine dishes are provided because gelatine serves as a binder for all kinds of leftovers and is an extremely practical way of making the most rigid saving acceptable; desserts made of crumbs of bread and cake, or left-over cereals, are among the major economies if they are worked out in such a way that they do not involve the extravagant use of other foodstuffs. All the recipes in this economy cook-book have been thoughtfully adapted to the conditions of the time, and will show the practical housekeeper how to supply wholesome, flavorsome food for the least cost.