A Friend in the Kitchen; Or, What to Cook and How to Cook It. / Sixteenth Edition

by Anna L. Colcord

The vines with bounty spring.

“Every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Gen. 1:29.

If families could be induced to substitute the apple—sound, ripe, and luscious—for pies, cakes, candies, and other sweetmeats with which children are too often stuffed, there would be a diminution of doctor’s bills, sufficient in a single year to lay in a stock of this delicious fruit for a season’s use.—Professor Faraday.

There is much false economy; those who are too poor to have seasonable fruits and vegetables, will yet have pie and pickles all the year. They can not afford oranges, yet can afford tea and coffee daily.—Health Calendar.

Fruits are a natural food. They form no inconsiderable part of those products of the earth given by the Creator to our first parents as food. “Behold, I have given you,” he says, “every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Gen. 1:29.

Fruits are not only delightful to the eye, pleasing to the smell, and satisfying to the taste, but they contain elements which are necessary for the best maintenance of the system; hence the natural craving for them when the system is in a normal condition.

While not containing a large amount of nutrition compared to their size, they are, nevertheless, valuable on account of their juices, and also because of their giving bulk to our food,—a very necessary thing to be considered.

Containing as they do from seventy-five to ninety per cent of water, their use naturally allays thirst. If their use were more general, there would doubtless be less desire for unnatural drinks.

As a rule fruits, especially acid and sub-acid fruits, are cooling to the blood, and most kinds also act as a laxative to the system, tending to keep it free and open. They should, therefore, be freely used in the daily bill of fare, though in proper combinations. Fruits go well with grains and milk, but not so well with vegetables, especially acid fruits.