“It should be understood, to be specific, that she, whom we may call Portia, as a present student and a prospective propagandist of domestic science, is about to receive her degree from that part of one of our metropolitan universities which conducts research in education and trains teachers both of the ancient liberal arts and of such modern practical sciences as Portia’s own. After several years devoted to the usual college subjects, her attention is now concentrated upon educational principles and procedures in general, and on the practice and presentation of her chosen subject in particular. For a considerable period she has overflowed with such interesting information concerning the chemistry and biology, the production and manufacture, and the preparation and the assimilation of foods, that I was more than delighted one day to be invited to partake of a breakfast prepared by her and an associate, as one of the numerous practical tests of knowledge and efficiency demanded by her curriculum.
“On my arrival, the Princess Ida who presided over this department of the modern Athenaeum exhibited the equipment for the study and practice of her science,—a technical library of many volumes; elaborate collections of current reports and monographs; photographs, charts, and records of investigations; especially equipped offices and lecture and conference rooms,—and then presented me to the half-dozen instructors under her direction. The laboratories for the biological and chemical study of food materials were not unlike others that I had seen; but those devoted especially to food preparation uniquely combined the facilities of an elaborate club kitchen with the scientific immaculateness of a surgery. The whole I was told, by the way, was merely preparatory to a really perfect set of laboratories which were building.
“A tile-topped laboratory table, with a skeleton gas-stove above, and various drawers and cupboards beneath, stood in the centre of the room for the demonstrator. About this, arranged on three sides, like a banquet table, were perhaps thirty similar but connected desks at which the students sat in trained-nurse uniform, facing their instructor.
“The right hand drawer of each desk contained such familiar small utensils as knives, forks, and spoons, along with certain others that would have seemed strange to our grandmothers; all carefully listed, their condition and arrangement being subject to military inspection. Each drawer at the left contained flours, sugar, spices, and condiments in laboratory precision. The cupboard below each desk, closed by a sliding shutter, contained measuring-cups, bowls, platters, pans, and the like; each equipment being adequate for all ordinary cooking processes. Around the sides of the room were stoves and ranges of various designs heated by coal, charcoal, electricity, steam, gas, and oil, not forgetting the professor’s Aladdin oven, or the peasant’s hay-box cooker.
“Here were also immaculate porcelain sinks where uniformed maids cleaned the larger utensils. Each student kept her own equipment neat. Cases and frames held special implements and supplies drawn from a nearby stock-room, or from library or files. Here and there were bulletin boards displaying tables for computing dietaries, and newspaper clippings concerning the cost of living. In one corner, as an interesting reminder of the needs and possibilities of the simple life in the midst of this intentionally ideal equipment, stood an outfit that might be made and used in the remotest rural school—a cheap but good oil stove, mounted on the zinc-covered top of a packing-box, that included inexpensive examples of the fundamental implements, and had an upturned fruit crate for a seat. This entire outfit cost about four dollars.
“In one of these laboratories, students were making a comparative, experimental study of breads; halting occasionally to hear from the demonstrator and ponder the doctrine of the progression of batters and doughs from corn bread, through waffles, to twin mountain muffins—‘which are the beginning of cake.’ In another room, fruits were being preserved separately and in combinations, and in all mediums from distilled water to heavy syrups. In a third, the visitor was given, as specimens of material for distribution, a mimeographed recipe; a blue-print diagram of the conventional cuts of beef, lamb, veal, and other meats; and a sheet of small photographs showing how typical cuts of good meat should look.
“Meanwhile, Portia and Nerissa had been busy with the breakfast in a separate kitchen and dining-room, as like as possible to those in ordinary homes, yet planned with the best wisdom and taste of the departmental staff. To this dining-room the pilgrim was now summoned by his young friend, costumed as a maid and appearing slightly anxious, for she and her ally were also to serve the meal that they had prepared. The Princess Ida’s premier acted as hostess, and a masculine professor and a feminine instructor joined to make a party, typical, the hostess announced, of sedentary men and of moderately active women—a statement that apprised me of the fact that I was considered not merely as a guest, but also as scientific data. The simple goodness of the linen and china, however, was only that of the discriminating home, and the growing plant on the table was there, I was told, for purely aesthetic reasons.
“But superior knowledge and skill entered with the food—stewed prunes and apricots, astonishing in size, delicious in flavor. Although I am unaccustomed to breakfasting at noon, and although years of housekeeping have been unable to blot out the remembrance of previous prunes, I fell to with avidity. My memory of the ensuing conversation is somewhat mingled with later talks with Portia, but then or afterward, I learned that our total consumption of this dish was only about four ounces, at a cost of approximately three cents for four persons. A home, of course, must also count the cost of all the food prepared, but not consumed.
“The delectable quality of the cereal that followed was due, along with its superior digestibility, I was informed, to its first having been briefly boiled in order to open the grains, by bursting, to the action of the gentler after-cooking. The cost of cereal, I was reminded, was small when compared with that of its accompaniments. We ate one cent’s worth of cereal, but the sugar upon it cost an equal amount, and the cream five times as much. But the professor justified the combination because of the constituent elements of the three; cream being largely fat, sugar largely carbon, cereal largely protein.
“When later I asked Portia what this protein was, she replied in a sort of chant, as though she were assisting at some mystic rite: ‘Next to water, protein is the largest ingredient in the human body, forming about eighteen per cent. It is similar to the white of egg, the lean of meat, the curd of milk, and the gluten of wheat.’ This and other intimations gave me to understand that protein is the sine qua non of dietetics.