Corn, the most abundant substitute. Indian corn is native to the United States. Since it carried the Pilgrims through their year of famine, it has always been considered our national grain. Other countries have adopted it to some extent, but more than three quarters of the world's corn is grown here. In 1917 our corn crop was 3,000,000,000 bushels, four times as large as our wheat crop. Most of the crop has always been used as a feed-grain, with only a small percentage for human food. The South has always used much more corn than the North, actually eating more corn than wheat.
The foods from corn and the ways of using them are more numerous than is often appreciated. Corn meal and corn flour are the most important. We are making almost as much corn meal as wheat flour. The yellow and white corn meals, milled from different kinds of corn, are practically the same in composition, though slightly different in flavor. The method of milling corn meal makes more difference in the composition than the kind of corn used. The old "water-ground" meal was simply crushed between millstones and only the coarsest particles of bran bolted out. This ranks with Graham as a product of 100 per cent extraction and like Graham, it may not keep well, because the germ is left in. The new process, more like modern flour-milling, removes some of the bran and germ. The product is a granulated corn meal which keeps better than the other, and has practically the same composition, though to some people a less desirable flavor.
If corn meal is further ground and bolted, we have corn flour. Some of this has been put on the market lately and is proving a good substitute for wheat flour; but the amount available is only a small fraction of the amount of corn meal. Other important corn products are hominy of different kinds, hulled corn, and popcorn. The latter, usually eaten as an "extra," is really a valuable part of the diet.
Corn is the same satisfactory food whether it is eaten as mush in New England, polenta in Italy, or tamales in Mexico. Many of the people of Mexico and Central America live on corn and beans to a surprising extent. In portions of Italy the rural population have adopted the grain as their main food. Our corn-meal mush is their polenta, which is served sometimes with cheese, sometimes with tomato sauce or meat gravy.
Oats. An Englishman once taunted a Scotchman with the fact that while England used oats only for her horses, Scotland fed it to her men. "Ah!" said Sandy; "but where will you find such horses as you raise in England and such men as in Scotland!"
The United States, more like England than Scotland, has used oats mostly for feed. The crop is second only to the corn-crop. Oats are eaten in the form of oatmeal, which is a finely granulated meal, and as the common rolled oats which have been steamed and put through rollers. There is little oat flour on the market at present. A successful and palatable home-made flour may be prepared by putting rolled oats through a food-chopper. Any of the forms of oats can be used in breads of all kinds, but the more finely ground flour can be substituted in larger proportion. The demand for oat products has grown so rapidly the last year that mills are running to their limit. Special machinery is required for its manufacture, so that a great increase in the supply is not feasible in a short time.
Barley and Rye. In using barley and rye for bread we are only going back to the methods of our forefathers. Barley is supposed to be one of the first cereals used by man. Good barley flour is a very acceptable substitute for wheat, but if too large a proportion of the kernel is included, it may be bitter in flavor.
Rye, of all the cereals, makes bread nearest like wheat, though the rye bread formerly made usually contained from 20 per cent to 80 per cent wheat flour. The supply is far below what we could well use. For this reason it is not included among the cereals which the housekeeper is allowed to buy on the 50-50 plan, and since March 31, 1918, bakers have not been allowed to use it as a substitute in baking on the same basis as the other substitutes.
Rice. Rice forms the chief food of hundreds of millions of people, and in many oriental countries is the staple cereal, like wheat with us. As a wheat substitute we may use it cooked whole or ground into a flour. The rice flour may be mixed with other cereals in making bread and cakes. The rice polish, which is a by-product secured by rubbing off with brushes the outside coating of the brown rice, is much cheaper. It has been sold chiefly for stock-feed, but it has possibilities as a flour substitute.
The rice-growers of the South are doing their best to supply the country with rice in quantity and to make known the possibilities of this cereal. The rice flour supply, though not large now, will doubtless be much increased by next year. One Louisiana mill, for example, is increasing its output from 150 to 1,200 barrels a day.