Food and health

Old-fashioned meat soup. Everybody says that Grandmother Stark can make the best soup in Pleasant Valley : and she has not any rule ! You will find recipes for making soup in all the cook books, but this is Grandmother Stark's method. She uses meat bones or chicken bones and any pieces of cold meat that are left. She cuts up the larger pieces of meat and puts them to one side. She breaks up the bones, puts them in a kettle, and covers them with cold water. The kettle stands on the stove all day long, simmering gently, and from time to time Mrs. Stark adds a little more hot water. When the soup has simmered until the bones are bare, they are removed. Then Mrs. Stark looks in the pantry and refrigerator, and adds any cooked vegetable that is left, and a little stewed fruit, if it is not too sweet. When she is asked what she uses, she says, " Just whatever I find." Sometimes she adds a teaspoonful or so of dried herbs or a few cloves. If the soup is a little thin, it is thickened with flour, but when cold mashed potato or beans are added, no other thickening is needed. Just before serving, the larger pieces of meat are added and, if there are not enough of these, cooked vegetables like carrots, turnips, beets, or whole peas and beans. Served with bread this makes a good dinner or supper for any cold day in winter. It is not a summer dish because it needs a long, slow cooking. It can be made in an Atkinson cooker, but not so well in a fireless cooker. You may think that you would not like it ; but try it some time and see. 1. Why is meat a more expensive food than beans ? 2. Why is it better to eat meat only once or twice a day ? 3. Make a list of the cost of different cuts of meat in your own home place. Study cost of canned meats (page 298). 4. What is a meat substitute? Make a list of those that you can use at home. Write recipes for tough and tender fowl. Lesson 24 fresh vegetables How may we have fresh vegetables and use them to best advantage i It is always a happy moment with Marjorie Allen and her brothers and sisters when the first crisp heads of lettuce, tender green peas, and succulent sweet corn are ready for the table. The home garden. Mrs. Allen, Marjorie, and the children * plant their own garden, and with a hand machine keep it well cultivated. It is fenced in by wire netting and laid out in convenient beds with narrow paths between, and with bright annual flowers making a gay border. Mr. Allen has the garden plot plowed and harrowed in the spring, and runs the cultivator through a few times in the course of the season. For fertilizer they use sweepings from the henhouse and wood ashes, except with the potatoes. Besides, Mr. Allen gives them a share of his acid phosphate. They also work into the soil decayed leaves and vegetables, which give the material that most soil needs so much. Watering the garden. This is the problem in dry seasons and soils. Remember to keep a blanket of dry earth around the plants by cultivation. If you have running water and a hose, you are indeed fortunate. But sometimes it pays to carry water. Use a pail on a wheelbarrow, and, if the water supply is low, take slops from the house, diluted Courtesy of New York State College of Aifrtcidture at Cornell University. Fig. 97, — Mrs. Allen's garden has a border of rudbeckia. with clean water if the slops are strong with soap and washing powder. One bright girl, a member of a canning club, put an empty tin can with holes in the lower part in the ground near the roots of each tomato plant, and kept each can full of water. She was amply paid for her trouble by the large crop of