The Prevalence of Good Recipes for All Save Meat Dishes—Increased Cost of Meat Makes These Desirable—No Need to Save Expense by Giving Up Meat—The "Government Cook Book"—Value of Meat as Food—Relative Values and Prices of the Cuts of Meat.
We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
("OWEN MEREDITH")—Lucile.
All the other duties of the housewife are subsidiary to the great subject of preparing food for the household. The care of the home, the care of health, etc., all either bear upon this work or require ability to perform it.
With decks cleared for action, therefore, we will proceed to discuss the fundamental principles of cookery, the application of which, in the form of specific recipes, will follow in a separate chapter.
In the limited space which can be here devoted to the subject, it will be assumed that the housewife is a cook, and can follow plain directions, and that she is familiar with the methods of preparing the ordinary meals that are universal throughout the country. It will be also taken for granted that she has one or more general cook books containing a wide variety of recipes for the making of bread in its various forms, cakes, pies, omelettes, salads, desserts, etc., and the discussion will be confined to meats, wherein, owing to advancing prices, new economical methods of preparation are coming into practice, based upon a scientific knowledge of food values.
Vegetarianism and fruitarianism are being adopted by many households, less as a matter of principle than as a recourse from what are considered the present prohibitive prices of meats. Now the proper way to solve a problem is not to evade it, but to face it and conquer it, and this is eminently true of the meat problem. Granted that the proportion of family income devoted to food cannot be increased, it is a fact that, by an intelligent study of the food value of the different kinds of meat, and of economic ways of preparing them, the expense of living may be maintained at the former rate, if not, indeed, materially lessened, with a great increase in both the nutritive value and the palatability of the family meals.
The "new nationalism" of America, which, after all, is only the turning to newer needs of the old nationalism that gave homesteads to the people and supplied them with improved methods of agriculture, is rightly taking the lead in the scientific education of the housekeeper in this household economy.
With special regard to the requirements of the people in these days of rising prices, especially of meats, the United States Department of Agriculture has issued a booklet, prepared by C.F. Langworthy, Ph.D., and Caroline L. Hunt, A.B., experts in nutrition connected with the Department, which gives authoritative information about the cheaper cuts of meat and the preparation of inexpensive meat dishes. This has become generally known as "The Government Cook Book." By the permission of the Department we here present portions of the information it contains, together with those recipes which best illustrate the principles of meat cookery for the home table.
VALUE OF MEAT AS FOOD
Considering the fact that meat forms such an important part of the diet, and the further fact that the price of meat, as of other foods, has advanced in recent years, it is natural for housekeepers to seek more economical methods of preparing meat for the table, and to turn their thoughts toward the less expensive cuts and ask what economy is involved in their use, how they may be prepared, and whether the less expensive dishes are as nutritious and as thoroughly and easily digested as the costlier ones.