SOME EXPERIMENTAL FOODS
FIFTY-EIGHT years ago Abraham Lincoln said "Population must increase
rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most
valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving subsistence from
the smallest area of soil. No community whose every member possesses
this art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms.
Such community will alike be independent of crowned kings, money
kings, and land kings."
The future, it seems, has many strange dishes in store for the
American stomach. Whether you are rich or one of the plain people
that have to work, whether the idea of new fantastic food appeals to
your palate or to your pocketbook, you will be attracted by the
array of foreign viands with curious names which have already been
successfully introduced and are now beginning to be marketed in this
country. Mr. William N. Taft, in the Technical World Magazine,
presents the following wild menu for the dinner table:
Jujube Soup
Brisket of Antelope
Boiled Petsai
Dasheen au Gratin
Creamed Udo
Soy Bean and Lichee Nut Salad
Yang Taw Pie
Mangoes
Kaki
Sake.
This, he assures us, is not the bill of fare of a Chinese eating
house, nor yet of a Japanese restaurant, it is the daily meal of an
American family two decades hence, if the Department of Agriculture
succeeds in its attempt to introduce a large number of new foods to
this country for the dual purpose of supplying new dainties and
reducing the cost of living. Uncle Sam has determined to decrease
the price of food as much as possible, and, for this purpose,
delegated Dr. David S. Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer in charge of
the Foreign Plant Section of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in
particular, to see what can be done about it.
More than 30,000 fruits and vegetables have been tested by Uncle
Sam's experts and, according to Dr. Fairchild, a goodly portion of
the foodstuffs which have been regarded as staples since the days of
the first settler are doomed. Consider for example "Jujube Soup!"
Mention that to the average person and he will answer:
"But I thought the jujube was a fruit, like an apple. How can you
make soup of it?" The average person is right. The jujube is a
fruit--but a most remarkable one.
"It is about the size and appearance of a crab apple, but contains
only a single seed. It grows on a spiny tree, long and bare of
trunk, with its foliage cropping out at the very top like a royal
palm of the tropics. The jujube itself has been used for years to
flavor candies and other confections. But the essence is very
expensive and comparatively rare, despite the profusion with which
the fruit grows in its native habitat.
"Dr. Fairchild, however, imported several specimens for the
Department's gardens in California, where they are bearing
prolifically. The arid sands of the southwest, where nothing but
cactus and sage-brush formerly would grow, have been found to be
excellent soil for the jujube, and it is the hope of Uncle Sam's
food experts to see the entire Arizona and New Mexico deserts dotted
with jujube orchards, with income to their owners. The jujube is
delicious eaten raw, but it may be cooked in any manner in which
apples are prepared, used as a sauce or for pie, preserved or dried.
Finally, its juice may be used as a delicious and highly nutritive
fruit broth."
Petsai, or, as the Chinese have it, Pe-tsai, is a substitute for the
cabbage. In appearance it is as different from cabbage as can be
imagined. It is tall and cylindrical and its leaves are narrow,
delicately curled, with frilled edges. The petsai can, however, be
grown on any soil where the ordinary cabbage could be cultivated and
in many sections where the native vegetable would languish. We are
told it is no uncommon thing for a petsai to reach sixty pounds in
weight. Department of Agriculture officials, however, advise that it
be plucked when about eight pounds in weight, its flavor being then
the most delicate and appealing.
This new importation, Uncle Sam's experts hope, will cause a drop in
the price of dinners. Cabbage long ago ceased to be a cheap dish.
But petsai requires none of the care which has to be lavished on
cabbage and will thrive in almost any climate and any soil.
The soy bean, once started, grows wild and yields several crops a
season. It can be prepared in a multitude of ways, from baking to a
delicious salad. According to Doctor Yamei Kin, the head of the
Women's Medical School near Pekin, milk can be made from it to cost
about six cents a quart and equal to cows' milk. It would be a
blessing if we could get rid of the sacred but unclean cow. One of
the state dairy inspectors told me, "We consider milk a filthy
product."
It may be remembered that, only twenty years ago, almost all the
dates consumed here came from the oases of Arabia and the valley of
the Euphrates. To-day there are more than a hundred varieties
successfully produced in California and Arizona. The wonders of
today are the commonplaces of to-morrow, and there is no telling to
what apparently impossible lengths science will go to relieve people
of the burden they now bear in the price of food. It has scoured the
ends of the earth for new delicacies and now experts will do their
best to teach the people to use them.
Have you ever heard of _"Whitloof"_ or _"Belgian Chicory"_ or have
you ever dined in one of the better restaurants of large city where
they have served during the winter months a salad composed of golden
blanched oblong leaves about 2 inches wide and 5 inches long, only
the outer edges showing a faint green? It is as delicate as the
perfume of roses, as crisp as young lettuce, as delicious as
asparagus, and as ornamental upon the table as the freshest fruit.
In former years this salad had to be imported and you had to pay
dear for a portion of it, a good reason why so few people know it. A
Belgian farmer located near New York has grown many thousands of
these plants this past summer.
How would you like to grow this dainty salad right in your living
room and cut several crops from a single planting lasting nearly
three months? Secure an 8-inch pot and plant in it 12 roots packed
in light sandy soil or pure sand. Invert another but empty 8-inch
pot over this to keep out the light, place in a heated room, water
daily, and in from three to four weeks you will find full-grown
crowns, beautifully blanched ready for cutting. Six of such crowns
make a large portion, sufficient for an entire family.
In cutting, do not cut too close to the root, for another growth is
made directly after the cutting, which matures in from three to four
weeks, and still two other crops can be grown in this way, so that
from a single planting four full crops can be had. Considering,
then, that eight such treats can be had for the cost of a single
dozen roots, we can all now enjoy what was formerly a luxury. This
method is most interesting, for you can watch the daily progress of
the growth of the roots, fascinating to young and old, and with
three weekly plantings of a pot each this treat can be enjoyed twice
a week from the 1st of February until May.
For those who wish to enjoy it more often or in larger quantities,
we suggest the following:
Prepare a bed of soil 12 inches deep in your cellar in a dark place
where the temperature is always above freezing. Plant the roots as
close as their size will permit and cover the crowns with at least 3
inches of soil. On top of this put straw so that when the crowns
come through the soil they will not strike the light. When ready to
cut, remove the soil as far back as the original root so that you
can intelligently cut the growth to produce the crops to follow.
As a substitute for the potato of commerce the "Dasheen" long ago
passed the experimental stage. It has been served at a number of
banquets in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York.
While the tops of potatoes are useless as food, the tops of the
dasheen make delicious greens, and tests indicate that good growers
can depend on a crop of from four hundred to four hundred and fifty
bushels per acre.
The Udo is the plant intended by the Department of Agriculture as a
substitute for asparagus, a delicacy which it closely resembles. It
is more prolific than asparagus, grows in the same soil, and
requires less attention.
Not only plants but animals are experimented with by Uncle Sam's
experts. Officials of the Bureau of Animal Industry claim that
before long we will partake of antelope steak. For the antelope has
been found to be particularly adapted to the more arid western
sections of the country. And beyond that the gastronomist of the
future will have to reckon with loin of hippopotamus!
The lower valley of the Mississippi is admirably suited to these
huge beasts, the flesh of one of which equals a score of cattle.
African traveled epicures maintain that hippopotamus steak is as
tender and inviting as the choicest beef. "For those who like that
sort of thing, it is just the sort of thing they would like."
It seems a bit remote to urge hippopotamus on us who do not yet know
enough to eat sharks, tortoises, painted turtles, or even English
sparrows. Anyhow the small gardener is more likely to succeed
raising pheasants than to muss with a hippopotamus, at least in the
suburbs. Pigs are more practical and make prettier pets.
Our population bids fair to approximate two hundred million within
the next fifty years, and, because of the exigencies of business, an
increasing number of people will be engaged in non-food-producing
vocations. These people, however, are all consumers and must be fed
and clothed, and even now America offers the greatest market for the
produce of the farm that any farmer in any country has ever had in
all history.
One of the coming ways of feeding them is the discovery and use of
new foods. As in other things, after the war, whether we live in a
better world or not, we shall live in an entirely different world,
new ways, strange thoughts, and other foods. For the most of the
following, _Business America_ and _Current Opinion_ are responsible.
For the creation of new crop varieties or the improvement of those
now in use we must depend upon the practical scientists who are
engaged in plant breeding. The work of one of these, Professor
Buffum, has been accomplished in a region that is apparently sterile
and where plants grow only by coaxing through artificial moisture.
His plant-breeding farms near Worland in the Big Horn Basin of
Northern Wyoming lie at an elevation of 4000 feet, in a region of
almost total natural aridity.
After twenty years' work in Western agricultural colleges and
Government Experiment Stations, Professor Buffum chose his present
location because nowhere in the United States could he find
conditions of soil and climate that induce to such a remarkable
degree the breaking up of species, and mutation or "sporting" of
plants.
When the modern plant breeder seeks to produce something new by
cross-fertilization a problem is encountered. For many years we were
ignorant of the principle upon which nature operated in these
hybrids or crosses. Finally a Bohemian priest named Mendel
discovered the law. The central principle is that when the seed
produced from a cross between two different species is planted, the
progeny breaks up into well-defined groups. A certain percentage of
the plants resemble one of the parents, a smaller percentage are
like the other parent, and the rest seem to be a blend of both
parents. These intermediates will not breed true to themselves,
however; if seed from them is planted the progeny will split up into
groups, showing the same percentages as the first generation to
which they belonged. This has been generally accepted by scientists.
In many of his productions Professor Buffum apparently has set the
Mendelian law at defiance, for, by cross-fertilization, he has
evolved plants which breed true to themselves, and their progeny
does not break up into groups, according to the accepted theory.
They show specimens resembling each parent, with the third composed
of seemingly, but not really, blended specimens.
These results are particularly vital in the development of plants
adapted by selection for semi-arid agriculture. The Professor
believes that the great areas of high plain country to be found from
Canada to Mexico can be made more productive through planting crop
varieties that have been bred to withstand the existing conditions
which produce meagre returns from the vast expanse of territory
under the present methods.
In place of corn, which is difficult to mature even at moderate
elevations, Professor Buffum has introduced improved emmers and the
various hybrids resulting from crosses with other grains.
Emmer itself is not a new grain, having been grown for centuries in
Russia and southern Europe, and it is believed to have been the corn
of Pliny, which he said was used by the Latins for several centuries
before they knew how to make bread.
Several years ago emmer began receiving attention as a stock food.
The first planting of the grain at Worland resulted in some
exceptional "sports," seemingly of a different type, with coarse
straw and very large heads. With this as a basis, the seed was
replanted and subjected to many experiments to increase its drouth
and winter resisting qualities. Continued selections have shown, a
yield of from a third more to twice as much as corn, that it is
thirty per cent more valuable than oats for feeding horses, and that
for stock fattening it is equal to corn, pound for pound. It is the
most drouth-resistant and prolific of small grains, has been
successfully raised from Montana to Mexico, and is being planted in
Louisiana to replace oats because it is not affected by rust.
Some of the yields recorded are enormous, varying from 40 to 104
bushels per acre under dry farming, and as high as 152 bushels under
irrigation.
One stalk of Turkey red wheat was noticed as differing in many ways
from all varieties, principally that the head was over eight inches
in length, whereas the ordinary Turkey red wheat commonly used in
the West has a head of only four or five inches.
From this one stalk has been developed the Buffum No. 17 Winter
wheat. The heavy beards were eliminated and the grains or kernels in
each spikelet increased from the normal number of three to five,
seven, and even nine. The hardiness of the new variety, together
with its remarkably large head, means that when it is placed on the
market the farmers who sow it need not fear winter killing and will
have a splendid flouring grain, which will produce nearly double the
average crop per acre.
It is said that if a single kernel could be added to each head of
wheat, the increase in annual production of this country would
amount to over fifteen million bushels.
If fodder crops can be substituted for a part of the corn now used
for stock, it will be a great gain.
In his alfalfa-breeding garden, Professor Buffum is raising over
seventy different kinds, gathered from all parts of the world,
showing that the plant is capable of wide variations. One hybrid has
been obtained by crossing sweet clover with alfalfa; the clover
grows wild in every state in the Union.
There seems to be no limit to man's ingenuity and skill in plant
improvement. Perhaps sometime we will try it with our children.
In thirty years an exceptional ear of dent corn, through continued
planting and careful selection each succeeding season, resulted in a
few days' shortening of the growing period and an increased
resistance to the cool nights of the higher elevation where it was
under improvement; to-day, this corn matures about the middle of
August at an altitude of 4000 feet, and has been yielding forty to
sixty bushels per acre.