FoodNetArchive

Twentieth century home cook book

1905

Page 251

Presented as published in 1905. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Barley is not used for bread in the United States, but it is an important and valuable crop, immense quantities being used in the manufacture of ale and beer. Pearled barley is manufactured to a limited extent. In this process the barley is first hulled and then rounded by the attrition of machinery. California, New York and Wisconsin produce more than half the annual crop. The crop for 1882 was 45,000,000 bushels — an average of 23.5 bushels per acre, a greater yield than any previous year, except in 1880, when the yield was 45,165,346 bushels, with an average of 24.5 bushels per acre. The average price for the last eleven years is 73.2 cents per bushel; the average yearly price ranging from 58.9 to 92.1 cents per bushel. IV. Oats and Their Products. Oats are every year more and more used as food in the shape of oatmeal. The grain is kiln-dried, hulled, and then broken or granulated in a peculiar mill. The best oatmeal is that prepared by partial cooking, again dried, so that its preparation for puddings (mush) requires only ten to fifteen minutes. The yield of oats in the United States in 1862 was 480,000,000 bushels, the largest yield ever known. Illinois, Iowa, New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Kansas are the States of largest production. The average produce per acre for the last eleven years was 27.6 bushels per acre. Certain fields produced over one hun- dred bushels per acre. V. Maize and Its Products. This is the most important grain crop of the United States. As human food it ranks high, its various products thus used being meal, hominy, samp, hulled corn, farina and other preparations. Corn is also the great stock-feeding grain. The starch of commerce is manufactured from it. It is the principal agent in the production of alcohol, and many millions of bushels are now annually used in the manufacture of glucose (corn sugar). The Mississippi Valley is the great corn-producing region of the world, no other country seeming to have such combined capabilities of soil and climate. In 1882, the States north of Kentucky and west of Pennsylvania produced 1,250,000,000 of the total crop of 1,680,000,000 bushels. FOOD PRODUCTS OF COMMERCE. 439 VI. Beans and Peas and Their Products. Beans and peas in their fully ripened and dry state form no insignificant article of the world's commerce and food supply. Beans arc known commercially only in their natural state, the portion ground into beau-meal being insignificant. Peas, however, are found in a variety of forms, but principally as split peas (divested of the skin and halved), and as pea-meal. The trade in canned green peas is yearly assuming larger and larger proportions. The produc- tion of dried peas for shipment is con- fined entirely to the most northerly portions of the United States and to Canada, the ravages of the pea-beetle, or j^ea-weevil {Brucus pisi), incor- rectly called pea-bugs, in the regions south of the latitude named, i:>revent- ing the production of perfect ripened seeds. The great bulk of the split peas of commerce come from England and Scotland, whose climates are favor- able to the crop. Two cuts are given showing the germination of the bean and the pea, as companion pictures, and as a lesson in botany. In the case of beans, the two lobes of the seed, in germinating, are thrust above ground, thus forming the fii'st leaves of the plant, and upon which it is supported until the roots are enabled to draw nourishment from the earth. In the case of peas, the shoot is thrust upwards, forming true leaves at once, the seed remaining below the surface.