Foods Free for the Picking. Even city dwellers have access
to suburban fields and forests where there are herbs, nuts, mush-
rooms, wild berries, fruits and even edible flowers free for the
picking. It pays to learn about the good mushrooms, for instance,
and gather a sack or two of these neglected foods on a holiday.
You can have a feed or two of the fresh ones and then dry the rest
by stringing them like necklaces and hanging in a dry place. Be-
cause of their light weight when dried these cost a dollar and more
a pound in the markets that stock them, and there's nothing so
tasty in stews and soups. So if you don't want to trouble to gather
and dry them yourself, you can buy a dime's worth, soak them over-
night and give that old mushroom flavor to a whole gallon of soup.
Pork and Mutton. As with oysters, the "R" months are best
for eating both pork and mutton which are really in their prime
only in October and November.
HANDY HINTS 1 65
Ripe Olives. Oily black olives are a gift to any cook who'll
learn to use them. They cost very little in foreign neighborhood
markets and are bursting with rich flavor which imparts piquance
to many a stew and salad.
Spaghetti. On English menus Italian paste products, spaghetti,
macaroni and vermicelli are listed under "vegetables"; and while
we do not think of them in this way, it's good to remember, espe-
cially in winter, that if you haven't any vegetables at hand to give
a lift to a meat stew, sometimes lightly cooked Italian pastes,
especially if made of good hard wheat, take the place of vegetables.
Juniper Berries. These peppy dried berries which we think of
mostly for flavoring gin do just as cheerful a job when they're
crushed and sprinkled over stews and hash.
Popcorn. Buy the seed by the pound, pop it yourself in one of
those mosquito-wire poppers and season with salt and melted
butter, or do it cheaper by popping in lard in an iron kettle and
then salting. It's the finest garnish we know for cream soups, where
a few crunchy, buttery, snowy kernels scattered on at the finish
make all the diflference in the world. It's great to eat by the handful
with a glass of milk or to use as a cereal at a fraction of the cost of
puffed grains put up by the breakfast food racketeers, or pack-
ageers. Try it in a bowl of milk in place of bread, and savor every-
thing by crumbling in bits of fine old store cheese. Makes a great
snack at anytime and is just suited to the palate of this cornfed
country.
Peanuts. Cheap and handy for making anything from peanut
soup to candy. In fact. Dr. George W. Carver of Tuskegee Insti-
tute not only extracted sweet milk and rich cream equal to the
cow's from this lowly nut that's chockful of food value, but he
gave a five-course luncheon to food experts, consisting of 14 dishes
in every one of which the chief ingredient was peanuts. And then
he compiled 105 peanut recipes, ranging from peanut bread, rolls,
cookies, wafers, muffins, doughnuts, to cake, salad and candy bars.
Peanut Butter. Many commercial peanut butters are ruined in
flavor by draining off^ the peanut oil to sell for a good price and
then substituting cottonseed oil. If you don't know where to get
honest peanut butter, which is the handiest sort of thing for help-
l66 MOST-FOR-YOUR-MONEY COOK BOOK
Page 91
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
Foods Free for the Picking. Even city dwellers have access to suburban fields and forests where there are herbs, nuts, mushrooms, wild berries, fruits and even edible flowers free for the picking. It pays to learn about the good mushrooms, for instance, and gather a sack or two of these neglected foods on a holiday. You can have a feed or two of the fresh ones and then dry the rest by stringing them like necklaces and hanging in a dry place. Because of their light weight when dried these cost a dollar and more a pound in the markets that stock them, and there's nothing so tasty in stews and soups. So if you don't want to trouble to gather and dry them yourself, you can buy a dime's worth, soak them overnight and give that old mushroom flavor to a whole gallon of soup.
Pork and Mutton. As with oysters, the "R" months are best for eating both pork and mutton which are really in their prime only in October and November.
Ripe Olives. Oily black olives are a gift to any cook who'll learn to use them. They cost very little in foreign neighborhood markets and are bursting with rich flavor which imparts piquance to many a stew and salad.
Spaghetti. On English menus Italian paste products, spaghetti, macaroni and vermicelli are listed under "vegetables"; and while we do not think of them in this way, it's good to remember, especially in winter, that if you haven't any vegetables at hand to give a lift to a meat stew, sometimes lightly cooked Italian pastes, especially if made of good hard wheat, take the place of vegetables.
Juniper Berries. These peppy dried berries which we think of mostly for flavoring gin do just as cheerful a job when they're crushed and sprinkled over stews and hash.
Popcorn. Buy the seed by the pound, pop it yourself in one of those mosquito-wire poppers and season with salt and melted butter, or do it cheaper by popping in lard in an iron kettle and then salting. It's the finest garnish we know for cream soups, where a few crunchy, buttery, snowy kernels scattered on at the finish make all the difference in the world. It's great to eat by the handful with a glass of milk or to use as a cereal at a fraction of the cost of puffed grains put up by the breakfast food racketeers, or packagers. Try it in a bowl of milk in place of bread, and savor everything by crumbling in bits of fine old store cheese. Makes a great snack at anytime and is just suited to the palate of this cornfed country.
Peanuts. Cheap and handy for making anything from peanut soup to candy. In fact. Dr. George W. Carver of Tuskegee Institute not only extracted sweet milk and rich cream equal to the cow's from this lowly nut that's chockful of food value, but he gave a five-course luncheon to food experts, consisting of 14 dishes in every one of which the chief ingredient was peanuts. And then he compiled 105 peanut recipes, ranging from peanut bread, rolls, cookies, wafers, muffins, doughnuts, to cake, salad and candy bars.
Peanut Butter. Many commercial peanut butters are ruined in flavor by draining off^ the peanut oil to sell for a good price and then substituting cottonseed oil. If you don't know where to get honest peanut butter, which is the handiest sort of thing for help-