The caterer will readily see that vegetable candy offers itself in countless ways in connection with place cards. The new candy can not only be used as the holder for daintily designed cards, but the design itself may be painted directly upon the object modeled from potato fondant or potato paste. The first method is likely to be rather more easy in its process and attractive in its results, on the whole, but the second has the distinction of novelty. It surely is an interesting thing for the guests to be able to eat their place cards, decoration, design, and all!
For Easter, yellow is a particularly good color. For ices, cups and cases can be made of white and yellow fondant modeled in the form of jonquils or daffodils. Carrot rings, served with the salad course, would add a touch of variety. As is suggested in the chapter concerning decorative candies, potato fondant can be made to serve the table decorator especially well for special times and functions. Insignia can easily be formed of fondant, either as separate forms to be wired and used as place cards or as place cards attached to the little cases—paper or fondant. A Masonic dinner, for instance, would use the square and compass in different ways, and one for the Odd Fellows would make use of their three links. For college banquets, the appropriate Greek letter insignia could be used. In this case, however, the caterer must make sure that he is not violating any of the rules of the societies to which his guests belong.
For any decoration that is flat instead of modeled, the potato paste can be substituted for the potato fondant. Thus, in the case last cited above, many of the insignia can be cut from paste more easily than they can be modeled from fondant. A tinsmith can easily make a cutter that will save time if a number of the same design are desired.
The paste can be used with the fondant, either in the same object or separately for the same occasion.
Vegetable candy can be made by the skillful amateur as readily as by the manufacturer. No large plant or complicated machinery is required. As a result, the girl or woman with a skill that is great, but a bank account that is small, may find vegetable candy the road to a profitable catering trade. If in a small town, she can—if she is sufficiently skillful—fashion decorations for food that will rival the products of the art of the city caterer. Moreover, inasmuch as she is put to comparatively little expense, and is using comparatively cheap ingredients, she can undersell her urban competitor. And her fellow townswomen who buy her wares will have the distinct satisfaction of knowing that her product is free from harmful ingredients.
XXIII
FOR THE TEACHER
The discovery of vegetable candy has been of great pedagogic value. Teachers of household arts and all art are beginning to find that the new bases are of great service to them in their class work. Before this discovery, there was no medium which was of use for both cooking and the modeling classes. Now cooking classes and modeling classes can be correlated in such a way that much is promised both.