True food values and their low costs

German Potato Salad Take five or six medium-sized boiled potatoes, slice thin one-quarter of an onion ; chop all fine. Pour over this two tablespoons olive oil, three of vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste. Add a little chopped parsley or celery salt. Mix all together; let stand one hour before serving. Cabbage Salad Take medium-sized head of white cabbage, cut in shreds or fine strips, add salt, set in a cool place. 6 tablespoons vinegar 1 teaspoon made mustard 2 teaspoons sugar 2 eggs Butter size of an egg CHAPTER XX A Word about Potatoes The potato is a starchy food that contains enough moisture in its composition to cook the starch. This moisture is in the form of a watery juice, in which is dissolved the nitrogenous matter, the various salts, sugar, gum, etc. The starch cells are surrounded and penetrated by this watery bath. In cooking, the nitrogenous juice is coagulated, in part at least, by the heat, the starch granules swe!l and burst, and the starch absorbs the watery part of the juice. When this stage is reached, if the moisture has been in the right proportion, all parts of the potato will present a light, dry, glistening appearance. Every one concedes that such a potato will not cause digestive disturbance. However, the moisture is not always in the right proportion. Ripe potatoes and potatoes grown on a well-drained or sandy soil will, as a rule, be dry and mealy if properly cooked. Potatoes grown in a wet season or in a heavy, damp soil as a rule contain too large a proportion of moisture for the starch. Old potatoes that are efficiency in diet, the use of salads is especially important in adding bulk to a meal that has a main dish of concentrated nourishment. By concentrated nourishment we mean a meal or food the whole of which is practically digestible, without reference to the amount of nourishment it actually contains. For instance, a loaf of brown bread contains more heat value than a pound of eggs, but it contains a large amount of indigestible material, while the entire egg may be said to be digestible. Another valuable use of the salad is that it furnishes mineral salts and an acid to the system, making it a real aid to digestion. Nature is a wise physician in furnishing the actual organic compounds of such minerals as the system requires, and seems to be the only chemist that can make them. Any green salad plant that is in season may be used. They are all rich in the mineral salts and vegetable acids that the system craves, and are in just the form required. io6 potatoes, that is, potatoes that are kept into the spring and early summer, are better for being soaked in cold water and peeled before cooking. Boiled Potatoes The method and time for boiling potatoes are the same whether the potato be peeled, partially peeled, or left with the skin intact. If a dozen or two ordinary sized potatoes are put on the fire in a large stewpan, and are covered generously with boiling water and a cover is immediately put on the stewpan, they will be cooked to the proper point in thirty minutes from the time the cover was put on the stewpan. Small potatoes will cook in two minutes less time, and very large potatoes will require about thirty-five minutes' cooking. If the potatoes are to be boiled in their skins, wash them until clean and then with a sharp knife cut a narrow band of the skin from the center of the potato. Cut a little bit of skin from each end of the potato. If the potatoes are to be peeled, use a very sharp knife and remove the thinnest possible layer. The skins may be scraped off, if preferred. There are special knives for this purpose. Let the potatoes boil fifteen minutes, then add one tablespoon of salt for every dozen potatoes. When the potatoes have been cooking tiiir^