MARKETING

Making a wise menu does not by any means produce a meal. It is a first step in the process, the next is to buy the food which is required by the menu.

Many women like to shop, and even more like to have it thought that they know how to shop. For some unknown reason shopping for food does not usually excite the same interest nor is it so coveted an accomplishment. I wonder if it seems less interesting because the things shopped for are not "to keep." If this is the reason, one has but to remind oneself that they are "to keep," only they must first be transmuted into the flesh and bones, work and laughter of the family.

A large city market is a "sight" in the same sense that a museum or an aquarium or a menagerie is. It is also to some extent a "sight" in the way that an art gallery is. I would like to give as a reward to good housekeepers a visit to the market in Venice. It is spread in heaps and piles of colour on gray stones, and shaded with gay awnings. Women wearing fringed shawls and high heels and high combs go to it in gondolas, and the market-stuffs are brought to it in boats which glide up to the steps through thousand-coloured ripples.

Often, however, marketing is done in ugly little shops instead of in one big market. But though small shops are not so spectacular, they are often easier to market in, and the customer usually receives an amount of personal attention which is useful if one has many things to learn.

One of the best reasons for going to a market or to provision shops every day or two is that there is so much to be learned there. An incidental reason is that going to market takes the housewife out of doors more often than she might otherwise go. Another reason for going is that it helps in making varied menus; one sees things which would never have been thought of at home. The housewife who goes to market can also take advantage of special prices.

Wise marketing, like wise shopping, requires of us two moral qualities, judgment and self-restraint. One must ask oneself and answer wisely and truly:

Is this what I want?

Is its price reasonable for me to pay?

Is it good of its kind?

Is it in good condition?

Is it a suitable size or quantity?

If any of it is left to-day will it fit into my plans for to-morrow?

Is this what I want? That is, is it what I have reasonably planned to get or just something which momentarily appeals to me. On the other hand, is it perhaps better for my purpose than the thing I had planned to have?

"Reasonable," used in regard to a price, has two interpretations, and the housewife is concerned with both. She must consider whether the price of an article is "within her means" as people say, that is, whether she can buy this thing which she wants without sacrificing something equally or more important. She must also consider whether the price is a reasonable value for the nourishment and enjoyment which it represents and not a fictitious price caused by unseasonableness or an unusual demand.

Is it good of its kind? And is it in good condition? Are questions which may well be considered together. We can only learn to answer them by experiment and experience. Especially is this true in regard to meat. One cannot easily recognize the different pieces from another person's description, and it is often difficult to do so from pictures. Even the names of the pieces differ considerably in different localities, and a knowledge of the quality of meat is impossible to obtain except from actual experience. The best and easiest way to learn about meat is from a good butcher. Three or four minutes of his time appropriated by you every time that you go to his shop will make you into a skilful marketer. Do not hesitate to ask him questions nor be afraid of betraying your ignorance. For whether you know much or little, it is well to put a good deal of responsibility upon him in selecting meat, then if it is not satisfactory he can fairly be taken to task, but if you do the choosing without his help, a mistake is your own fault.

If the housewife is not sure of the names given to pieces of meat in the locality in which she is marketing, or not very sure of such names anywhere, she may easily explain her wishes by designating what she means to do with a piece of meat, as, "a piece of veal for roasting," "about a pound and a half of lamb for stewing," "a piece of beef for soup," and the like phrases.

Her receipt book will probably give her pictures and the names of pieces of meat, or she may again apply to her paternal government for Farmers' Bulletin No. 34: "Meats: Composition and Cooking," in which she will find placid animals divided into numbered sections, and considerable explanation of ways in which these sections may be used.

Because the names of pieces of meat and the methods of cutting them vary considerably, I shall give but a brief and general table here. This diagram of a side of beef will give some idea of the position of the several pieces.

1. Hind Shank 2. Lower Round 3. Round 4. Aitch Bone 5. Rump 6. Loin 7. Flank 8. Navel 9. Plate 10. Ribs 11. Brisket 12. Cross Ribs 13. Chuck 14. Neck 15. Shoulder 16. Fore Shank

Beef.—The neck, shin or shank and navel are usually used for soup stock.

A variety of pieces known by a variety of names, such as cross ribs, plate or Rattel rand, brisket, shoulder, rump, thick flank, aitch bone and the butt or vein, are used for boiling, braising, stewing, corned beef, pot roasts and spiced beef.

The upper round, occasionally called the buttock, is used for round steaks.

The lower round is good for beef-tea, hamburg-steak, meat pies and any purpose for which good chopped beef is needed.

The chuck ribs are those nearest the neck; they are frequently used for stews, chuck steaks and ragout. Sometimes the ribs are removed and the meat rolled and tied; this makes a tender and well-flavoured roast.

The prime ribs, of which some people say there are five and others six, are used for prime roasts. They are divided into first, second and third cuts; the last is considered least desirable.

From the part of the animal known as the loin are cut porterhouse, sirloin and short steaks; from this part also comes the tenderloin, sometimes called the fillet.

The parts of the loin and the prime ribs are the most expensive and are considered the most desirable parts of the animal. The housekeeper whose purse will not permit her to buy them may comfort herself, though, with the fact that they contain no more nourishment than some less popular pieces.

Other meats are divided into somewhat fewer cuts than beef. The more general divisions are given below.

Veal.—The loin is used for roasts and chops.

The fillet for roasts and cutlets.

The better parts of the neck and the breast are used for roasting and chops.

The less desirable parts for pies, pot roasts and stews.

The shank, which in veal is known as a "knuckle," is used for soup and broths.

Mutton or lamb.—The leg is used for roasting or boiling.

The shoulder for baking and roasting.

The loin for chops and roasts.

The ribs, which are often called the "rack," are used chiefly for chops.

The breast may be roasted, baked or stewed.

Pork.—Hams and shoulders, the back and front legs of the animal, are eaten either smoked or fresh.

The loin, ribs and sparerib are used for roasts, chops, stews and baked dishes.

Pieces used for salt pork and bacon are cut from the almost clear fat of the back and sides.

Almost all parts of the pig are used for food, but as they are usually known by names which indicate what they are, they give the housewife little trouble in remembering them.

The use of your eye, sometimes of your hand, is required in judging the condition of the food you are buying.

Meat which is without fat is probably tough. Fat of beef should be pale yellow and dry, the lean, bright red and firm. Mutton, veal and pork should have pure white fat, the lean of mutton should be bright red, of veal, pink, of pork, a somewhat more delicate pink.

Chickens should have soft, moist, yellow feet, smooth, thick legs, and tender skin. The end of the breastbone should be pliable. Plump, very bright yellow chickens are fat and are better for stews or pot-pie than for roasting.

Turkeys should have smooth, black legs and white, plump breasts. If the flesh of their legs is purplish they are probably old.

Geese and ducks should have soft feet, hard breasts and pinkish beaks.

Fish in good condition have bright eyes and scales, stiff fins and flesh so hard and firm that it will not retain the mark if pressed with a finger.

It is not a difficult matter to tell whether fruit and vegetables are fresh and good. When such things are wilted, withered, bruised or lacking in firmness, they are not good for food unless they are merely wilted as lettuce and asparagus sometimes are on a hot day, or when they have been carried through the sun.

I know of no way of judging butter except by tasting it. There is little also by which to judge eggs; their shells should not be shiny or very smooth and they should feel both light and heavy—if you can tell what I mean by that.

The last two questions on the marketing list are also usually considered together. Both are really questions concerning quantity.

Food so often comes in quantities too large for one meal that it is usually better to make menus for two days at one time and then revise the second day's menu when the second day comes.

Under these questions of quantity comes a class of articles a little different from those which we have just been mentioning: articles like sugar, flour, salt, coffee, tea and the like, which are bought in bulk. In what quantity it is wise to buy such things depends upon the size of the household, the place where these articles may be kept, the distance from the place where the supply can be renewed, the income of the family and whether the housewife or a reliable servant dispenses them for use. I think it is pretty generally admitted that households which are living on small means do better to buy food supplies in small quantities. The advantages of doing this are, that if the commodity is injured in any way, the loss is small; that no large outlay of money is required at any one time; that the smallness of the quantity possessed is a continual guard against its lavish use. These advantages usually amply offset the fact that it is a little cheaper and a little more comfortable to buy in large quantities.

Because it is easier, housewives sometimes fall into the way of dealing at just one or two shops. This is a good thing to do usually, a poor one to do invariably. To go occasionally to other shops gives one the chance to find better things and pleasanter conditions; it also makes your regular shopkeeper more anxious to please if he knows you go elsewhere when you are not pleased. An advantage in cities of going here and there, is that one can often take advantage of a difference in prices in different localities. This must be done, of course, with judgment; otherwise one makes oneself a fit subject for one of those jokes about women who save two cents on a head of lettuce and spend ten in carfare going to get it.

Women who take the same sort of trouble about marketing as they do about buying their clothes usually succeed well with it. It is really not a difficult form of shopping and interest in it grows as one learns.

XII
COOKING

OUR Brother the Sun gets up every morning to cook, cooks all day, and seems to enjoy cooking. The cooking processes which we engage in are many of them imitations of his. When we use water and heat to soften and break up starch cells, it is only a copy of the process by which the sun makes the dry starch laid up in a seed in the damp earth into food for the first little leaves of a plant. Long before we ever thought of cooking, the sun was changing starch into sugar by heating apples and pears and peaches through and through every day. One might even venture to say that he had warmed milk for all the mammal babies ever since the first one was born. Every once in a while, people appear who try to persuade us to "go back to nature" and eat our food uncooked, not realizing that they are asking us, not to go back to nature, but to our own first ignorance of what nature is doing.

Photograph by Helen W. Cooke

Cooking

The dictionary says that "to cook" is "to prepare food by subjecting it to heat"; a brief and simple definition including some thousands of processes ranging from the universal cooking done by the sun to that performed by an accomplished French chef.

The object of cooking is to make food more digestible and more attractive. For changes occur in food when it is subjected to heat which make it more easily used by the body and which make it more agreeable in flavour—more "appetizing." An incidental but important benefit from cooking is that great heat kills the animal organisms which food sometimes contains.