Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1890 — COOKERY OF THE POOR. [ARTICLE]

COOKERY OF THE POOR.

Toothsome and Nutritious Dishes at a Minimum of Expense and Trouble. ▲ faculty of social science has, it is stated, been instituted at the University of Brussels, and Prof. Berger, a Belgian authority in chemistry, has given a course of lectures on alimentary chemistry. In the first of them he came to the ecanomic conclusion that it was possible to determine with precision the quantity of nutritive ele*ments indispensable for the reparation of the power of a workingman, and consequently the amount of money necessary for purchasing this quantity, and that, therefore, when the other primary wants of a workingman were determined in the same way, the minimum of salary could be fixed with scientific accuracy. Question* of taste, digestibility, and prejudice are, however, apt to be ignored in calculations of this kind; so that, although of value as a basis of information, they are far from having the practical use which their authors ascribe to them. The knowledge of the housewife and of the cook, and a familiar acquaintance with the habits and surroundings and tastes of the laboring clussss, are necessary to give reality to such calculations. An excellent example of may be done in this way is furnished in the able and interesting chapters on the subject in the popular little handbook of domestic economy largely used in boarding schools, entitled “The Making of the Home,’’written by Mrs. Barnett of St. Jude’s, Whitechapel. The same subject is treated with great technical knowledge and power of sympathetic feeling for the poor in her chapter on “Our National Defenses.” in the joint essays by herself and the Rev. S. A. Barnett, in she well-known collection of essays entitled • Practicable Socialism.” The subject is one in which medical men, skilled as they Are in the physiologv of food and accustomed to deal with the poor both in family life and public institutions, might give great aid. That which our working classes greatly need is instruction in the art of braising, or slowly stewing at a low heat, combinations of meat scraps and of vegetables. Anything more toothsome and nutritious than the vintagers’ pot au feu, which I lately tasted in tne Medoc during the gathering of the grapes, cannot well be imagined. It was so delicious that a supply was ordered into the ohateau tor midday lunch, and it was voted by acclamation wdfthy of a cordoa bleu. It was made wttb leg «f beef, onions, carrots, cabbage, and the like, and poured smoking into bowls ovef slices of thin bread. What a lesson is conveyed to our managers of soup-kitchens and what a meal for our harvesters!