Steamed Barley
is perhaps the most valuable food of any, and dyspeptics who experience difficulty in getting any kind of food to agree would do well to go on a course of this—not for one day or two, but for weeks and months together. Wash well in cold water a teacupful of pot barley. Put on in clean lined saucepan with plenty of cold water, bring to boil slowly, and if there is the least suspicion of mustiness, drain and cover with clean water. When it comes a boil again, turn into a pudding basin or double boiler, cover and steam for at least six hours. Twelve hours is much better, and it is safest to put on one day, what is wanted for the next. Onions, celery, tomatoes, &c., may be added at discretion. When to be used, this barley should turn out firm enough to chew, and may be eaten with thin dry toast or "Triscuits."
Besides these home-made preparations, there are many valuable foods to be had ready for use, or requiring but little preparation, thus affording change and variety, not only to the patient, but to the nurse or cook, who must often be heartily tired of making up the same gruels and mushes for weeks or months together. The Barley Mint, Patriarch Biscuits, and Barley Malt Biscuits to be had from the Wallace Bakery, 465 Battersea Park Road, London, S.W., come in very handy. The Barley Malt Meal can be made into a gruel or porridge, while Barley Malt itself may be added to any ordinary preparation to aid digestion. Barley Malt Meal Gruel has been found a sovereign remedy for constipation, obstinate cases yielding to it when all other treatment had failed. Make in usual way and add one or two large spoonfuls treacle or honey. The biscuits may be grated and made into a mush with hot milk, &c., or they may be soaked over night in as much hot water, milk, or diluted Extract as they will absorb, and then be put in the oven to warm through. Gluten Meal is another among many valuable Invalid Foods which there is space only to mention here; while the value of Robinson's Patent Groats for gruel is widely appreciated.
For diabetic and anaemic patients there are one or two other valuable foods now on the market specially prepared to nourish and enrich the blood, while at the same time starving the disease. Barley Malt Meal is specially good, also a recent "Wallaceite" product, "Stamina Food."
The "Manhu" Diabetic Foods
are well known and highly recommended. The following
"Manhu" Diabetic Savoury
will be welcome to those whose dietary is of necessity so restricted. 1/2 pint Savoury Tea (p. 90) or diluted "Extract," 1 egg, 1 tablespoonful "Manhu" Diabetic Food, 1/2 oz. butter, salt and pepper.
Melt butter in saucepan, add the food, and mix over slow fire till butter is absorbed. Add the savoury liquid, cook for a few minutes, add seasoning, beat in yolk of egg, then the white stiffly beaten. Mix lightly. Pour into pie-dish, and bake in quick oven for 15 minutes.
* * * * *