Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 26, DeMotte, Jasper County, 19 January 1933 — Dinner Menus of Past and Present [ARTICLE]

Dinner Menus of Past and Present

In the yard next door a turkey gobbler paced hack and forth, complaining bittterly about our tiresome habit of feasting on holidays. Once he was a luxury which only the affluent could afford, but now he is out of luck, for turkeys cost less than they have in many years. Time was when turkeys feared for their lives only twice a year, but now they’re in constant danger because they have slipped from the luxury class. Back in 1850 Christmas dinner for a well-to-do American family would have consisted of 12 meat courses and only a couple of vegetables. To-

day the idea makes us shudder, for doctors tell us that so much meat is not good for us, and that the lowly vegetable once scorned by the rich is full of vitamins necessary to health. Calories have changed our eating habits a lot. Dr. Julius Klein, assistant secretary of commerce, says that historians have overlooked the influence that hunger has had upon history. Our stories of the past deal with crowned heads and pompous potentates, with wars and movements of peoples. “It would make a fascinating tale,” writes Doctor Klein, “and in some ways a far more important one in terms of recording human experience, if we undertook to learn more about a people from a study of its cookbooks.” For example, a cookbook published in the days of Columbus shows that a dinner in those days for anyone who really amounted to anything in Spanish society consisted of from 12 to 16 meat courses. No person of quality would have dared serve vegetables at his table, for in so doing

he would appear to be economizing at the expense of his guests. That was before it became smart to be thrifty, and it was thought that vegetables were humble fare fit only for peasants who couldn’t afford meat. Then, too, vegetables were scarce, since they grew best in tropical countries, and transportation was undeveloped. Besides they were perishable, and the refrigerator was un-known.--Indianapolis News.