TABLE TOPICS.
"The wanton taste no flesh nor fowl can choose,
For which the grape or melon it would lose,
Though all th' inhabitants of earth and air
Be listed in the glutton's bill of fare."—Cowley.
Jean Jacques Rousseau holds that intemperate habits are mostly acquired in early boyhood, when blind deference to social precedents is apt to overcome our natural antipathies, and that those who have passed that period in safety, have generally escaped the danger of temptation. The same holds good of other dietetic abuses. If a child's natural aversion to vice has never been wilfully perverted, the time will come when his welfare may be intrusted to the safe-keeping of his protective instincts. You need not fear that he will swerve from the path of health when his simple habits, sanctioned by nature and inclination, have acquired the additional strength of long practice. When the age of blind deference is past, vice is generally too unattractive to be very dangerous.—Oswald.
That a child inherits certain likes and dislikes in the matter of food cannot be questioned, and does not in the least forbid the training of the child's taste toward that which is healthful and upbuilding; it merely adds an element to be considered in the training.—Sel.
Prevention is better than cure. It is worth a life effort to lift a man from degradation. To prevent his fall is better.—Gough.
A cynical French writer of the last century intending a satire upon the principles of vegetarianism adopted by Phillippe Hecquet, puts into the mouth of one of the characters in his book what, in the grossly voluptuous life of that country and time, the author no doubt imagined to be the greatest absurdities conceivable in reference to diet, but which, in the light of present civilization are but the merest hygienic truths. A doctor had been called to a gouty and fever-stricken patient. "Pray what is your ordinary diet?" asked the physician.
"My usual food," replied the patient, "is broth and juicy meat."
"Broth and juicy meat!" cried the doctor, alarmed. "I do not wonder to find you sick; such dishes are poisoned pleasures and snares that luxury spreads for mankind, so as to ruin them the more effectually.... How old are you, pray?"
"I am in my sixty-ninth year," replied the patient.
"Exactly," ... said the physician; "if you had drunk nothing else than pure water all your life, and had been satisfied with simple nourishment,—such as boiled apples for example,—you would not now be tormented with the gout, and all your limbs would perform their functions with ease."
Dr. Horace Bushnell says: "The child is taken when his training begins in a state of naturalness as respects all the bodily tastes and tempers, and the endeavour should be to keep him in that key, to let no stimulation of excess or delicacy disturb the simplicity of nature, and no sensual pleasure in the name of food become a want or expectation of his appetite. Any artificial appetite begun is the beginning of distemper, disease, and a general disturbance of natural proportion. Nine tenths of the intemperate drinking begins, not in grief and destitution, as we so often hear, but in vicious feeding."
Always let the food be simply for nourishment—never more, never less. Never should food be taken for its own sake, but for the sake of promoting bodily and mental activity. Still less should the peculiarities of food, its taste or delicacy ever become an object in themselves, but only a means to make it good, pure, wholesome nourishment; else in both cases the food destroys health.—Froebel.
Since what need mortals, save twain things alone,
Crushed grain (heaven's gift), and steaming water-draught?
Food nigh at hand, and Nature's aliment—
Of which no glut contents us.
Pampered taste hunts out device of other eatables.—Euripides.
FRAGMENTS & LEFT-OVER FOODS
conomy, one of the cardinal principles of success in the details of housekeeping, as in all other occupations in life, consists not alone in making advantageous use of fresh material, but in carefully preserving and utilizing the "left-over" fragments and bits of food which accrue in every household. Few cooks can make such perfect calculation respecting the desires and needs of their families as to provide just enough and no more, and the improvident waste of the surplus thus prepared, is in many homes fully equal to one half the first cost of the meal. Scarcely anything need ever be wasted—certainly nothing which was at first well cooked. There are ways of utilizing almost every kind of cooked food so that it will be quite as appetizing and nutritious as when first prepared.
All left-over foods, as grains, vegetables, or others of a moist character, should be removed to clean dishes before putting away. Unless this precaution is observed, the thin smears and tiny bits about the edges of the dish, which become sour or moldy much sooner than the larger mass, are apt to spoil the whole. They should also be set on ice or be kept in a cool, dry place until needed. Left-over foods of any kind, to be suitable again for use, must be well preserved. Sour or moldy fragments are not fit for food.
Uses of Stale Bread.—If properly made from wholesome and nutritious material and well preserved, there are few other foods that can be combined into more varied and palatable dishes than left-over bread. To insure the perfect preservation of the fragments, the loaf itself should receive good care. Perfectly sweet, light, well-baked bread has not the same propensity to mold as a poorer loaf; but the best of bread is likely to become musty if its surroundings are not entirely wholesome. The receptacle used for keeping the loaves should be frequently washed, scalded, and well dried. Crumbs and fragments should be kept in a separate receptacle and as thoroughly cared for. It is well in cutting bread not to slice more than will be needed, and to use one loaf before beginning on another. Bread grows stale much faster after being cut.
Whole or half slices of bread which have become too dry to be palatable may be utilized for making zwieback, directions for the use and preparation of which are given on [page 289].
Broken pieces of bread not suitable for zwieback, crusts, and trimmings of the loaf make excellent croutons, a most palatable accompaniment for soups, gruels, hot milk, etc. To prepare the croutons cut the fragments as nearly uniform in size as possible,—half-inch cubes are convenient,—and place them on tins in a warming oven to dry. Let them become crisply dry, and lightly browned, but not scorched. They are preferable to crackers for use in soups, and require so little work to prepare, and are so economical withal, that one who has once tried them will be likely to keep a supply on hand. The crumbs and still smaller fragments may be utilized for thickening soups and for various dressings and puddings, recipes for many of which are given in preceding chapters.
If crumbs and small bits of bread accumulate more rapidly than they can be used, they may be carefully dried, not browned, in a warming oven, after which put them in a mortar and pound them, or spread them upon an old bread board, fold in a clean cloth and roll them with a rolling pin until fine. Prepared thus, stored in glass fruit cans and put away in a dry place, they will keep almost indefinitely, and can be used when needed. For preparing escalloped vegetables of all kinds, these prepared crumbs are excellent; they give a fine, nutty flavor to the dish, which fresh crumbs do not possess.
Left-over Grains.—Left-over grains, if well kept, may be reheated in a double boiler without the addition of water, so as to be quite as palatable as when freshly cooked. Small quantities of left-over grains can be utilized for preparing various kinds of desserts, where the ingredients require previous cooking. Rice, barley, pearl wheat, and other whole grains can be satisfactorily used in soups in which a whole grain is required; oatmeal, rolled oats, corn meal, grits, etc., with the addition of a little milk and cream, may be made into delicious gruels; they may also be used advantageously in the preparation of vegetable soups, many of which are even improved by the addition of a few spoonfuls of well-kept cooked oatmeal or rolled oats. The left-over grains may also be utilized in a variety of breads, directions for the preparation of which are given in the chapter on Bread.
Left-over Vegetables.—Left-over portions of most varieties of vegetables can be best utilized for soups as stated on [page 275]. Cold mashed potato may be made into potato cakes as directed on [page 237] of the chapter on Vegetables, where will also be found many other recipes, suited to the use of these left-over foods.
Left-over Meats.—Most cook books offer numerous recipes for croquettes, hashes, and fried dishes prepared from remnants of meat and fish, which, although they serve the purpose of using up the fragments, are not truly economical, because they are generally far from wholesome. Most fragments of this character are more digestible served cold as a relish, or utilized for soups and stews, than compounded into fancy dishes requiring to be fried and highly seasoned or served with rich sauces.
Left-over Milk.—Small quantities of unsterilized milk or cream left over should always be carefully scalded, then cooled at once to a temperature of 60,° and put in a cool place, in order to keep it sweet and fresh until the next meal.