In this way we learned the unbeatable succulence of Bermuda
onions roasted all the sweeter in their skins, beets too, with the
garden loam still clinging to them, wrapped in leaves and all the
outside earth and skin shelled off before eating. A whole rainbow of
both bananas and green corn, including green plantain and pink
popcorn. All sorts of potatoes, both sweet and Irish, and that tasti-
est of squash, the small one called acorn and nutmeg after its shape
and likewise from its flavor being improved by a sprinkling of nut-
meg. And the secret of the success of all these is the same as that
with which we are familiar in roasting murphies in their jackets —
the outside is instantly and hermetically sealed, so not one salubri-
ous drop of juice can escape.
At a Farmer-Labor get-together in Valparaiso, Chile, we sampled
roast sheep tails sizzling with their own fat, drank pomegranate-
flavored and -colored chicha from gay bull horns swung by broad
ribbons around our necks and found out next morning that it leaves
your head feeling as though it's been screwed up tight with a Still-
son wrench. In Petropolis, the summer capital of Brazil, we built a
clay oven of our own, the kind the Italians used to set up on vacant
lots in New York's East Side to roast kids, steaming portions of
which they wrapped up in fresh hearth bread to supply the early
sandwich trade. In this above-ground barbecue we roasted every-
thing from ducks to macuco, the local wild turkey, of which the
crackling back strip including Pope's Nose and jewels is the most
esteemed cut. Although monkeys chattered on the other side of the
ravine and roast monkey delights any Brazilian, we thought the
practice too cannibalistic.
XV
Marketing
There are lots of eye openers in the food market reports in finan-
cial sections of daily papers, not intended for consumers' eyes but
for the middle men and retailers who make money out of our uni-
versal need to eat. There are tips on the best buys, what is in the
height of the season and coming in so fast that there is too much
even to go into cold storage — somebody slipped somewhere and
the crop was not kept down to keep the price up. Here is published
the illuminating lowdown on everything the housewife buys for
her kitchen. It may not seem so interesting at first, because the
information is condensed and is hard to remember. But those who
profit by the market's ups and downs remember it well enough,
you bet, and they are not faced with the problem of stretching
the weekly income and keeping a family healthy and happy
too. These vital statistics make good reading; it is best to take
one food at a time to start, and then with the ranges of that one
in mind, branch out and soon you'll find more diversion than in
following the funnies. Poultry is especially illuminating. A neigh-
bor of ours, in the only countrified district left within the limits
of New York City, had forty hand-petted chickens, hatched this
last Spring, all well-fed and of a kind and size most suitable for
broiling and frying. She could no longer keep them and sent for
a poultry dealer, who offered her 8 cents a pound and went off
"5
Il6 MOST-FOR-YOUR-MONEY COOK BOOK
Page 62
Presented as published in 1938. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
In this way we learned the unbeatable succulence of Bermuda onions roasted all the sweeter in their skins, beets too, with the garden loam still clinging to them, wrapped in leaves and all the outside earth and skin shelled off before eating. A whole rainbow of both bananas and green corn, including green plantain and pink popcorn. All sorts of potatoes, both sweet and Irish, and that tastiest of squash, the small one called acorn and nutmeg after its shape and likewise from its flavor being improved by a sprinkling of nutmeg. And the secret of the success of all these is the same as that with which we are familiar in roasting murphies in their jackets — the outside is instantly and hermetically sealed, so not one salubrious drop of juice can escape.
At a Farmer-Labor get-together in Valparaiso, Chile, we sampled roast sheep tails sizzling with their own fat, drank pomegranate-flavored and -colored chicha from gay bull horns swung by broad ribbons around our necks and found out next morning that it leaves your head feeling as though it's been screwed up tight with a Stillson wrench. In Petropolis, the summer capital of Brazil, we built a clay oven of our own, the kind the Italians used to set up on vacant lots in New York's East Side to roast kids, steaming portions of which they wrapped up in fresh hearth bread to supply the early sandwich trade. In this above-ground barbecue we roasted everything from ducks to macuco, the local wild turkey, of which the crackling back strip including Pope's Nose and jewels is the most esteemed cut. Although monkeys chattered on the other side of the ravine and roast monkey delights any Brazilian, we thought the practice too cannibalistic.
Marketing
There are lots of eye openers in the food market reports in financial sections of daily papers, not intended for consumers' eyes but for the middle men and retailers who make money out of our universal need to eat. There are tips on the best buys, what is in the height of the season and coming in so fast that there is too much even to go into cold storage — somebody slipped somewhere and the crop was not kept down to keep the price up. Here is published the illuminating lowdown on everything the housewife buys for her kitchen. It may not seem so interesting at first, because the information is condensed and is hard to remember. But those who profit by the market's ups and downs remember it well enough, you bet, and they are not faced with the problem of stretching the weekly income and keeping a family healthy and happy too. These vital statistics make good reading; it is best to take one food at a time to start, and then with the ranges of that one in mind, branch out and soon you'll find more diversion than in following the funnies. Poultry is especially illuminating. A neighbor of ours, in the only countrified district left within the limits of New York City, had forty hand-petted chickens, hatched this last Spring, all well-fed and of a kind and size most suitable for broiling and frying. She could no longer keep them and sent for a poultry dealer, who offered her 8 cents a pound and went off
"5