Wash the sago and soak it for 1 hour. Put it in a saucepan with the lemon juice and stock, and stew for 1 hour.
14. TOMATO SOUP.
1 qt. water or white stock, 1 lb. tomatoes.
Slice the tomatoes, and simmer very gently in the water until tender. Rub through a sieve. Boil up and serve.
15. VEGETABLE STOCK.
To 4 qts. water allow 1 pint lentils, or rather less than 1 pint haricots. In addition allow 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 onion, and 1/4 head of celery. Clean apple peelings and cores, and any fresh vegetable cuttings may also be added with advantage. For white stock, use the white haricot beans, rice, or macaroni in place of lentils or brown haricots. Soak the pulse overnight, and simmer with the vegetables for 4 hours. Any stock not used should be emptied out of the stock pot, and boiled up afresh each day.
III.—SAVOURY DISHES.
The recipes following are intended to be used as substitutes for meat, fish, etc.
The body needs for its sustenance water, mineral salts, [Footnote: I allude to mineral salts as found in the vegetable kingdom, not to the manufactured salts, like the ordinary table salt, etc., which are simply poisons when taken as food.] fats and oils, carbo-hydrates (starch and sugar), and proteids (the flesh and muscle-forming elements). All vegetable foods (in their natural state) contain all these elements, and, at a pinch, human life might be supported on any one of them. I say "at a pinch" because if the nuts, cereals and pulses were ruled out of the dietary, it would, for most people, be deficient in fat and proteid. Wholewheat, according to a physiologist whose work is one of the standard books on the subject, is a perfectly-proportioned, complete food. Hence it is possible to live entirely on good bread and water.
Nuts are the best substitute for flesh meat. Next in order come the pulses. After these come wholewheat and unpolished rice. Both nuts and pulses contain, like flesh meat, a large quantity of proteid in a concentrated form. No one needs more than 1/4 lb. per day, at most, of either. (Eggs, of course, are a good meat substitute, so far as the percentage of proteid is concerned.)