In many people's minds the word "sausage" is just naturally followed by the words "buckwheat cakes." Is there sanction for this? From the food table we learn that sausage has a fair percentage of protein, almost no carbohydrates, and is almost half fat. Buckwheat cakes have in them, beside buckwheat flour, a little milk and often some wheat flour or corn meal. This table will, perhaps, represent the matter better than an explanation.
| Protein. | Fat. | Carbohydrates. | |
| Sausage | 13.0 | 44.2 | 1.1 |
| Buckwheat flour | 6.4 | 1.2 | 77.9 |
| Milk | 3.3 | 4.0 | 5.0 |
The table says to the eye, too much fat. One cannot remedy the defect by increasing the protein and carbohydrates to match the fat, for we should then have as much food at one meal as we should need for three. The real remedy is to balance this meal with others during the day in which the percentage of fat is very low. Another remedy is to serve meals with a large percentage of fat on very cold days; in that case the weather will help to balance the excess of heat production.
Pursuing this matter of tradition, why are peas served with lamb, and why is pork so often accompanied with "greens" of some sort? The percentage of protein in lamb is low enough to allow, perhaps require, some supplement from the vegetables. The excess of fat in pork is offset by the excess of water in greens, and also by certain medicinal qualities they possess which are represented in the percentage of "Ash." One might almost say that the combination known as "hog's jowl and turnip greens" is providential. I am sure it has saved bodily suffering and even lives in certain pig-raising localities.
One can see from looking thoughtfully at this food table that the dinner at which we have lamb, veal, poultry, or fish is the occasion upon which to have a substantial vegetable, such as macaroni, lima beans, parsnips or sweet potatoes, or an especially substantial dessert such as a boiled pudding or a pie. It is also evident that when we have beef, mutton or pork it is healthful to combine them with vegetables like spinach, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and turnips, which contain a large percentage of water. The dessert for such occasions may well be a jelly or fruit in some form—something light and cool.
The day on which we have roast pork is not the occasion to have apple dumpling or any dessert with a percentage of fat; the meal at which we serve beef steak and mushrooms is not the one to complete with mince pie, for we should then have more protein than we should know what to do with. On the contrary, the day on which the main dish at dinner is made from yesterday's meat, or is fish, is not the time for a watery or a fluffy dessert, unless we are purposely planning a day of abstinence. If it happens that the family diet includes little meat, care must be taken that protein is supplied from other sources, otherwise we shall be running an engine at full speed in a building which is never decently repaired and which will one day fall round our ears.
There are several questions which frequently arise in the mind of a person who begins to study food values. One is, why are articles included in the menu of almost every meal which have almost no value as nourishment? In many cases such articles are appetizing and refreshing; such are lettuce, celery, muskmelons, cucumbers and many soups and desserts. They also contain much water, of which the body has great and constant need. They also give bulk to our food, which is a necessity because some of the processes of digestion do not begin until the organs to which they belong are expanded.
A housewife who is bewildered or disheartened will sometimes ask why we cannot take our food in capsules, or why an ideal dietary cannot be made and used over and over again. She will not be the first person who has thought of these expedients, but it has been fairly well proved that highly condensed food, as also "predigested" foods, not only lack this element of bulk of which we have been speaking, but have an even worse defect. They give us something for nothing, which is always bad for us. That is, they furnish us with nourishment without requiring any effort to speak of from the digestive organs. As a result the digestive organs grow flabby and useless from having nothing to do. A child in school who is never given anything difficult to do grows flabby in mind and character and soon can't do anything difficult; so it is with a digestion.
The objection to the use of an ideal dietary is, in the first place, that such a dietary has not been discovered. People claim to have discovered it, but that is different from really doing so. But the chief objection to the use of such a thing is that the body requires a variety of food, that a variety of food has been provided for it on the earth and that the part of us which is not body will not stand eating the same thing every day or even every week. Have you ever lived in a boarding house or in an institution where there was an invariable week's menu. It is a mechanical contrivance which soon stirs up rebellion, and rightly.
Probably a word more needs to be said on this subject of variety, for it is a saving grace in menu making. If one can give one's household real variety of food, not merely that which is made by different methods of serving and cooking, but that which is actually a difference in constituents, mistakes in selection will then never get very long or thoroughly established. If one cannot be right all the time, by means of variety one can be fairly sure of being right some of the time. Variety is also made necessary by changes in season, in occupation, in state of health, and I think I may add without making a loop-hole for pampering people unduly, that it is made necessary at times by change of mood.