RECIPES.
Picnic Biscuit.—Prepare a dough as for Raised Biscuit, [page 145], and when thoroughly kneaded the last time, divide, and roll both portions to about one fourth of an inch in thickness. Spread one portion with stoned dates, or figs that have been chopped or cut fine with scissors, cover with the second portion, and cut into fancy shapes. Let the biscuits rise until very light, and bake. Wash the tops with milk to glace before baking.
Fig Wafers.—Rub together equal quantities of Graham meal, and figs that have been chopped very fine. Make into a dough with cold sweet cream. Roll thin, cut in shape, and bake.
If provision can be made for the reheating of foods, a soup, or grain, macaroni with tomato sauce, or with egg or cream sauce, or some similar article which can be cooked at home, transported in sealed fruit cans, and reheated in a few moments on the grounds, is a desirable addition to the picnic bill of fare.
Recipes for suitable beverages for such occasions will be found in the chapter on Beverages.
SCHOOL LUNCHES.
Mothers whose children are obliged to go long distances to school, are often greatly perplexed to know what to put up for the noonday lunch which shall be both appetizing and wholesome. The conventional school lunch of white bread and butter, sandwiches, pickles, mince or other rich pie, with a variety of cake and cookies, is scarcely better than none at all; since on the one hand there is a deficiency of food material which can be used for the upbuilding of brains, muscles, and nerves; while on the other hand it contains an abundance of material calculated to induce dyspepsia, headache, dullness of intellect, and other morbid conditions. Left in an ante-room, during the school session, until, in cold weather, it becomes nearly frozen, and then partaken of hurriedly, that there may be more time for play, is it to be wondered at that the after-dinner session drags so wearily, and that the pupils feel sleepy, dull, and uninterested? Our brains are nourished by blood made from the food we eat; and if it be formed of improper or unwholesome food, the result will be a disordered organ, incapable of first-class work.
Again, the extra work imposed upon the digestive organs and the liver in getting rid of the excess of fats and sugar in rich, unwholesome foods, continually overtaxes these organs.
It can hardly be doubted that a large majority of the cases of so-called overwork from which school children suffer, are caused by violation of hygienic laws regarding food and diet rather than by an excess of brain work; or in other words, had the brain been properly nourished by an abundance of good, wholesome food, the same amount of work could have been easily accomplished with no detriment whatever.