PRACTICAL
COOKERY
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE OMAHA BEE
H'<M»fri|h(, Iftt)
EDITORIALS
Easter Greetings
NyEXT Sunday, April 20, we commem
* orate “the Day of Days- Easter.”
It is the day that marks the beginning of
the Christian era, when that wonderful
lesson—“Peace on Earth, Good Will
Toward Men”—started on its journey
L round the world, and making of us all
^ ‘better men and nobler women.”
Let us fittingly celebrate and commem
orate Easter.
V _
\ Care of Food
PROPER care of food in the home is nec
essary to healthful, economical living.
It is wasteful to allow food to lose its at
tractive flavor or appearance; moreover,
spoiled or infected food may be actually
dangerous to health or even to life.
Beginning with this issue, we are pub
lishing an article in four installments, en
titled Care of Food in the Home. Every
housewife should read this article.
To Be or Not to Be
TO BE, or not to be, abreast
of all new culinary ideas
) and inventions, that is the
question.
Whether ’tis better to plod
along in the same old rut,
“like mother used to make,"
whose gastronomical virtue is
based on guess-work; or,
whether it shall behoove us
to embrace the new idea—
The Home Economics Idea—
which rests on oaken timbers
of scientific fact. That is the
question to ponder. Practical
Cookery’s mission is to keep you posted
on the newest things out.
Practical Cookery is chuckful of edi
fying things. ’Twouldn’t be a bad scheme
to lay aside each number and later have
them bound into a reference volume.
The adventures of Spunky Dan will be
gin with our May issue. Their primary ob
ject is to amuse, but are also intended for
instructive purposes.
While in the main they are pure fiction,
they are based on historical facts and cor
rect geographical data, so that the reader,
while being entertained, can’t help but get
an educational lesson. You must read these
^tales and read them to the children.
The Wherefore of
Cooking
WHY do we cook a large part of our
food before we eat it?
The question may seem ridiculous, but
it isn’t. It is important, and the more so
because it is never considered by most
housewives. You serve some foods raw
and some cooked, but have you ever con
sidered carefully just what parts raw food
and cooked food play in a well selected
diet?
It is well to remember, in the first place,
that man, in one stage of his development,
lived entirely on raw food. Raw food is
his natural food, and any human with good
teeth and good digestion can live on raw
food—a thing which has repeatedly been
proved.
Why then do we cook? If we look into
the chemistry of cooking, we find that it
really has a detrimental effect on many
foods. The essential elements of food are
proteins, carbohydrates, fats, mineral salts,
vitamines and cellulose or roughage. The
doctors all seem agreed that both proteins
and fats are more digestible raw than
cooked. Sugars are not changed at all by
cooking. Mineral salts are leached out by
boiling, and some of the vitamines are de
stroyed and others are impaired bv cook
ing.
So far the case seems all against cooking.
But starch is made more digestible by
cooking, so that it is really desirable to
cook all starchy foods. Moreover, many
foods are too hard for civilized teeth unless
cooked. The cereals, which form such a
large part of our sustenance, such as corn
and wheat, must be softened by cooking
before we can eat them. Lastly, cooking
makes food more palatable.
Cooking then is necessary, but so is a
certain amount of raw food necessary if
we are to remain in health. It is necessary
in order that we may get a sufficient sup
ply of the mineral salts we need, such as
lime and icon, and of vitamiries, and in
order that our teeth may get some good
hard work to do.
It is probable that most of us get enough
raw food in the summer time, when fruits
and vegetables are cheap and abundant,
but in winter many of us almost cease eat
ing raw food. This is a mistake. Nor should
high prices for fresh fruits and vegetables
be a deterrent. There are dried fruits which
supply many of the elements which we
need. Dates, for instance, obtainable all
winter long, are rich in lime and iron, con
tain both protein and fat in small quanti
ties and an abundance of highly digestible
sugar. They also supply cellulose or rough
age. Dates and milk make an ideal diet,
and if a few oranges be added to supply
fresh fruit juices, all requirements are met.
Figs are another dried fruit which sup
plies the things that our refined and cook
ed foods lack. Nuts should not be forgotten
either, not excluding cocoanuts. Nuts are
an excellent raw food, and one on which
man once depended largely. Date and nut
salads are excellent things for the winter
dinner table.
Eat some raw food every day.
Save the Left-over
MANY fortunes are thrown away via the
garbage-can route; because many
housewives haven’t learned that the con
version of left-overs into delectable and
nourishing dishes puts many a dime into
the savings bank.
Food and nourishment are two vastly
different things. Because children are
plump or fat indicates nothing. They mav
be fat yet undernourished. See to it that
your children’s foods are of the proper
nutritive content. That insures their health.
Practical Cookery solves all these prob
lems for you. _
Do you like Practical Cookery? All
right! Why not write and tell us so? Also,
how we can improve it. Let’s co-operate
for the betterment of your family’s wel
fare and ours. Address Editor. Practical
Cookery. _
How far the candle throws its beams.
Just so shines a new appetizing dish in a
world of jaded appetites.
Now that spring’s about to burst abloom,
bringing all the health-giving greens and
roots, let’s partake of them, mainly for
their mineral salts and other medicinal
properties. _
We don’t wish to dictate, but rather sug
gest. Good things are always to be found
in Practical Cookery. If you have been in
the habit of reading the useful information
given in these pages, pass ’em along to your
friends. They will appreciate it
Popular at Once
Usually, to gam
popularity, is a long
and weary process.
And so. when any
man. or thing, jumps in
to the limelight of pop
ularity—over night as it ,
were—it must be due to
some extraordinary
ability or circumstance.
This is the ease with
the Baby and Junior
Section of this publica
tion on pages 8 and 9.
With its first appearance it seems to
have ingratiated itself with our mother
readers—that is, if the many calls and com
pliments we receive pertaining thereto
mean anything.
The articles of Dr. Elizabeth Lyman ap
pearing in this section are interesting and
instructive, written with a view towards
prevention of sickness, in lieu of remedial
enterprise. Mothers would do well to bear
in mind their salient features.
Madame Dahl’s dissertations on proper
clothing for baby are highly interesting
and of vast importance to mothers and
mothers-to-be.
Our readers arc invited to correspond
with both of these writers, in care or this
publication, and to ask any questions anent
the articles at issue. Answers will appear
in the next number of Practical Cookery.
