forgetting that odor no less than music hath occasions; each of the
materials has its own odor that the discriminating cook will try to
bring out in its best expression. Were we to be deprived of all these
exotic seasonings, undoubtedly cookery would be the gainer in the end;
nor could we so readily disguise materials that in themselves are not
fit to eat. There is a reason why "all foods taste alike," as we often
hear it said of the cooking in public places.
Moreover, we want everything that is out of season, necessitating great
attention to the arts of preserving and requiring still further
fabrication; and by this desire we also lessen the meaning of the
seasons when they come in their natural sequence, bringing their
treasure of materials that are adapted to the time and to the place. We
can understand, then, why it so happens that we neglect the cookery of
the common foods, as seeming to be not quite worth the while, and expend
ourselves with so much effort on the accessories and the frills. I have
been interested to observe some of the instruction in cooking,--how it
often begins with little desserts, and fudge, and a variety of dib-dabs.
This is much like the instruction in manual training that begins with
formal and meaningless model work or trivialities and neglects the
issues of life. It is much like some of the teaching in agriculture not
so many years ago, before we attacked very effectively the serious
problems of wheat and alfalfa and forests and markets. Mastery does not
lie in these pieces of play work, nor does the best intellectual
interest on the part of the student reside in them.
Result is that one finds the greatest difficulty in securing a really
good baked potato, a well-cooked steak, or a wholesome dish of
apple-sauce that is not strained and flavored beyond recognition. It is
nearly impossible for one to secure an egg fried hard and yet very
tender and that has not been "turned" or scorched on the edges,--this is
quite the test of the skill of the good cook. The notion that a hard
fried egg is dangerously indigestible is probably a fable of poor
cookery. One can secure many sophisticated and disguised egg dishes, but
I think skill in plainly cooking eggs is almost an unknown art, perhaps
a little-practised art.
Now, it is on these simple and essential things that I would start my
instruction in cookery; and this not only for the gain to good eating
but also for the advantage of vigor and good morals. I am afraid that
our cooking does not set a good example before the young three times
every day in the year; and how eager are the young and how amenable to
suggestion at these three blessed epochs every day in the year!
Some unsympathetic reader will say that I am drawing a long bow; yet
undoubtedly our cookery has prepared the public mind for the
adulteration. Knowing the elaboration of many of the foods and fancy
dishes, the use of flavoring and spice and other additions to disguise
unwholesome materials, the addition of coloring matter to make things
attractive, the mixtures, the elaborate designs and trimmings and
concoctions, and various deceptions, one wonders how far is the step
from some of the cookery to some of the adulteration and whether these
processes are really all of one piece. I will leave with my reader a
paragraph assembled from a statement made by a food chemist but a few
years ago, to let him compare adulteration with what is regarded as
legitimate food preparation and note the essential similarity of many of
the processes. I do not mean to enter the discussion of food
adulteration, and I do not know whether these sophistications are true
at the present day; but the statement describes a situation in which we
found ourselves and indicates what had become a staggering infidelity in
the use of the good raw materials.
Hamburg steak often contains sodium sulphite; bologna sausage and
similar meats until recently usually contained a large percentage of
added cereal. "Pancake flour" often contains little if any buckwheat;
wheat flour is bleached with nitric oxide to improve its appearance.
Fancy French peas are colored with sulphate of copper. Bottled ketchup
usually contains benzoate of soda as a preservative. Japanese tea is
colored with cyanide of potassium and iron. Prepared mustard usually
contains a large quantity of added starch and is colored with tumeric.
Ground coffee has recently been adulterated with roasted peas. So-called
non-alcoholic bottled beverages often contain alcohol or a
habit-forming drug and are usually colored with aniline. Candy is
commonly colored with aniline dye and often coated with paraffine to
prevent evaporation. Cheap candies contain such substances as glue and
soapstone. The higher-priced kinds of molasses usually contain
sulphites. Flavoring extracts seldom are made from pure products and
usually are artificially colored. Jams are made of apple jelly with the
addition of coloring matter and also of seeds to imitate berries from
which they are supposed to be made; the cheap apple jelly is itself
often imitated by a mixture of glucose, starch, aniline dye, and
flavoring. Lard nearly always contains added tallow. Bakeries in large
cities have used decomposed products, as decayed eggs. Cheap ice-cream
is often made of gelatin, glue, and starch. Cottonseed-oil is sold for
olive-oil. The poison saccharine is often used in place of sugar in
prepared sweetened products.
The attentive reader of the public prints in the recent years can
greatly extend this humiliating recital if he choose. It is our habit to
attach all the blame to the adulterators, and it is difficult to excuse
them; but we usually find that there are contributory causes and
certainly there must be reasons. Has our daily fare been honest?
_The admiration of good materials_
Not even yet am I done with this plain problem of the daily fare. The
very fact that it is daily--thrice daily--and that it enters so much
into the thought and effort of every one of us, makes it a subject of
the deepest concern from every point of view. The aspect of the case
that I am now to reassert is the effect of much of our food preparation
in removing us from a knowledge of the good raw materials that come out
of the abounding earth.
Let us stop to admire an apple. I see a committee of the old worthies in
some fruit-show going slowly and discriminatingly among the plates of
fruits, discussing the shapes and colors and sizes, catching the
fragrance, debating the origins and the histories, and testing them with
the utmost precaution and deliberation; and I follow to hear their
judgment.
This kind of apple is very perfect in spherical form, deeply cut at the
stem, well ridged at the shallow crater, beautifully splashed and
streaked with carmine-red on a yellowish green under-color, finely
flecked with dots, slightly russet on the shaded side, apparently a good
keeper; its texture is fine-grained and uniform, flavor mildly subacid,
the quality good to very good; if the tree is hardy and productive,
this variety is to be recommended to the amateur for further trial! The
next sample is somewhat elongated in form, rather below the average in
color, the stem very long and well set and indicating a fruit that does
not readily drop in windstorms, the texture exceedingly melting but the
flavor slightly lacking in character and therefore rendering it of
doubtful value for further test. Another sample lacks decidedly in
quality, as judged by the specimens on the table, and the exhibitor is
respectfully recommended to withdraw it from future exhibitions; another
kind has a very pronounced aromatic odor, which will commend it to
persons desiring to grow a choice collection of interesting fruits;
still another is of good size, very firm and solid, of uniform red
color, slightly oblate and therefore lending itself to easy packing,
quality fair to good, and if the tree bears such uniform samples as
those shown on the table it apparently gives promise of some usefulness
as a market sort. My older friends, if they have something of the
feeling of the pomologist, can construct the remainder of the picture.
In physical perfectness of form and texture and color, there is nothing
in all the world that exceeds a well-grown fruit. Let it lie in the palm
of your hand. Close your fingers slowly about it. Feel its firm or soft
and modelled surface. Put it against your cheek, and inhale its
fragrance. Trace its neutral under-colors, and follow its stripes and
mark its dots. If an apple, trace the eye that lies in a moulded basin.
Note its stem, how it stands firmly in its cavity, and let your
imagination run back to the tree from which, when finally mature, it
parted freely. This apple is not only the product of your labor, but it
holds the essence of the year and it is in itself a thing of exquisite
beauty. There is no other rondure and no other fragrance like this.
I am convinced that we need much to cultivate this appreciation of the
physical perfectness of the fruits that we grow. We cannot afford to
lose this note from our lives, for this may contribute a good part of
our satisfaction of being in the world. The discriminating appreciation
that one applies to a picture or a piece of sculpture may be equally
applied to any fruit that grows on the commonest tree or bush in our
field or to any animal that stands on a green pasture. It is no doubt a
mark of a well-tempered mind that it can understand the significance of
the forms in fruits and plants and animals and apply it in the work of
the day.
I sometimes think that the rise of the culinary arts is banishing this
fine old appreciation of fruits in their natural forms. There are so
many ways of canning and preserving and evaporating and extracting the
juices, so many disguises and so much fabrication, that the fruit is
lost in the process. The tin-can and the bottle seem to have put an
insuperable barrier between us and nature, and it is difficult for us to
get back to a good munch of real apples under a tree or by the fireside.
The difficulty is all the greater in our congested city life where
orchards and trees are only a vacant memory or stories told to the
young, and where the space in the larder is so small that apples must be
purchased by the quart. The eating of good apples out of hand seems to
be almost a lost art. Only the most indestructible kinds, along with
leather-skinned oranges and withered bananas, seem to be purchasable in
the market. The discriminating apple-eater in the Old World sends to a
grower for samples of the kinds that he grows; and after the inquirer
has tested them in the family, and discussed them, he orders his winter
supply. The American leaves the matter to the cook and she orders plain
apples; and she gets them.
I wonder whether in time the perfection of fabrication will not reach
such a point that some fruits will be known to the great public only by
the picture on the package or on the bottle. Every process that removes
us one step farther from the earth is a distinct loss to the people, and
yet we are rapidly coming into the habit of taking all things at second
hand. My objection to the wine of the grape is not so much a question of
abstinence as of the fact that I find no particular satisfaction in the
shape and texture of a bottle.
If one has a sensitive appreciation of the beauty in form and color and
modelling of the common fruits, he will find his interest gradually
extending to other products. Some time ago I visited Hood River Valley
in company with a rugged potato-grower from the Rocky Mountains. We were
amazed at the wonderful scenery, and captivated by the beauty of the
fruits. In one orchard the owner showed us with much satisfaction a
brace of apples of perfect form and glowing colors. When the grower had
properly expounded the marvels of Hood River apples, which he said were
the finest in the world, my friend thrust his hand into his pocket and
pulled out a potato, and said to the man: "Why is not that just as
handsome as a Hood River apple?" And sure enough it was. For twenty-five
years this grower had been raising and selecting the old Peachblow
potato, until he had a form much more perfect than the old Peachblow
ever was, with a uniform delicate pink skin, smooth surface, comely
shape, and medium size, and with eyes very small and scarcely sunken;
and my Hood River friend admitted that a potato as well as an apple may
be handsome and satisfying to the hand and to the eye, and well worth
carrying in one's pocket. But this was a high-bred potato, and not one
of the common lot.
This episode of the potato allows me another opportunity to enforce my
contention that we lose the fruit or the vegetable in the processes of
cookery. The customary practice of "mashing" potatoes takes all the
individuality out of the product, and the result is mostly so much
starch. There is an important dietary side to this. Cut a thin slice
across a potato and hold it to the light. Note the interior
undifferentiated mass, and then the thick band of rind surrounding it.
The potato flavor and a large part of the nutriment lie in this
exterior. We slice this part away and fry, boil, or otherwise fuss up
the remainder. When we mash it, we go still farther and break down the
potato texture; and in the modern method we squeeze and strain it till
we eliminate every part of the potato, leaving only a pasty mass, which,
in my estimation, is not fit to eat. The potato should be cooked with
the rind on, if it is a good potato, and if it is necessary to remove
the outer skin the process should be performed after the cooking. The
most toothsome part of the potato is in these outer portions, if the
tuber is well grown and handled. We have so sophisticated the potato in
the modern disguised cookery that we often practically ruin it as an
article of food, and we have bred a race of people that sees nothing to
admire in a good and well-grown potato tuber.
I now wish to take an excursion from the potato to the pumpkin. In all
the range of vegetable products, I doubt whether there is a more perfect
example of pleasing form, fine modelling, attractive texture and color,
and more bracing odor, than in a well-grown and ripe field pumpkin.
Place a pumpkin on your table; run your fingers down its smooth grooves;
trace the furrows to the poles; take note of its form; absorb its rich
color; get the tang of its fragrance. The roughness and ruggedness of
its leaves, the sharp-angled stem strongly set, make a foil that a
sculptor cannot improve. Then wonder how this marvellous thing was born
out of your garden soil through the medium of one small strand of a
succulent stem.
We all recognize the appeal of a bouquet of flowers, but we are unaware
that we may have a bouquet of fruits. We have given little attention to
arranging them, or any study of the kinds that consort well together,
nor have we receptacles in which effectively to display them. Yet,
apples and oranges and plums and grapes and nuts, and good melons and
cucumbers and peppers and carrots and onions, may be arranged into the
most artistic and satisfying combinations.
I would fall short of my obligation if I were to stop with the fruit of
the tree and say nothing about the tree or the plant itself. In our
haste for lawn trees of new kinds and from the uttermost parts, we
forget that a fruit-tree is ornamental and that it provides acceptable
shade. A full-grown apple-tree or pear-tree is one of the most
individual and picturesque of trees. The foliage is good, the blossoms
as handsome as those of fancy imported things, the fruits always
interesting, and the tree is reliable. Nothing is more interesting than
an orange tree, in the regions where it grows, with its shining and
evergreen leaves and its continuing flowers and fruits. The practice of
planting apples and pears and sweet cherries, and other fruit and nut
trees, for shade and adornment is much to be commended in certain
places.
But the point I wish specially to urge in this connection is the value
of many kinds of fruit-trees in real landscape work. We think of these
trees as single or separate specimens, but they may be used with good
result in mass planting, when it is desired to produce a given effect in
a large area or in one division of a property. I do not know that any
one has worked out full plans for the combining of fruit-trees, nuts,
and berry-bearing plants into good treatments, but it is much to be
desired that this shall be done. Any of you can picture a sweep of
countryside planted to these things that would be not only novel and
striking, but at the same time conformable to the best traditions of
artistic rendering.
I think it should be a fundamental purpose in our educational plans to
acquaint the people with the common resources of the region, and
particularly with those materials on which we subsist. If this is
accepted, then we cannot deprive our parks, highways, and school grounds
of the trees that bear the staple fruits. It is worth while to have an
intellectual interest in a fruit-tree. I know a fruit-grower who secures
many prizes for his apples and his pears; when he secures a blue ribbon,
he ties it on the tree that bore the fruit.
The admiration of a good domestic animal is much to be desired. It
develops a most responsible attitude in the man or the woman. I have
observed a peculiar charm in the breeders of these wonderful animals, a
certain poise and masterfulness and breadth of sympathy. To admire a
good horse and to know just why he admires him is a great resource to
any man, as also to feel the responsibility for the care and health of
any flock or herd. Fowls, pigs, sheep on their pastures, cows, mules,
all perfect of their kind, all sensitive, all of them marvellous in
their forms and powers,--verily these are good to know.
If the raw materials grow out of the holy earth, then a man should have
pride in producing them, and also in handling them. As a man thinketh of
his materials, so doth he profit in the use of them. He builds them into
himself. There is a wide-spread feeling that in some way these materials
reflect themselves in a man's bearing. One type of man grows out of the
handling of rocks, another out of the handling of fishes, another out of
the growing of the products from the good earth. All irreverence in the
handling of these materials that come out of the earth's bounty, and all
waste and poor workmanship, make for a low spiritual expression.
The farmer specially should be proud of his materials, he is so close to
the sources and so hard against the backgrounds. Moreover, he cannot
conceal his materials. He cannot lock up his farm or disguise his crops.
He lives on his farm, and visibly with his products. The architect does
not live in the houses and temples he builds. The engineer does not live
on his bridge. The miner does not live in his mine. Even the sailor has
his home away from his ship. But the farmer cannot separate himself from
his works. Every bushel of buckwheat and every barrel of apples and
every bale of cotton bears his name; the beef that he takes to market,
the sheep that he herds on his pastures, the horse that he
drives,--these are his products and they carry his name. He should have
the same pride in these--his productions--as another who builds a
machine, or another who writes a book about them. The admiration of a
field of hay, of a cow producing milk, of a shapely and fragrant head of
cabbage, is a great force for good.
It would mean much if we could celebrate the raw materials and the
products. Particularly is it good to celebrate the yearly bounty. The
Puritans recognized their immediate dependence on the products of the
ground, and their celebration was connected with religion. I should be
sorry if our celebrations were to be wholly secular.
We have been much given to the display of fabricated materials,--of the
products of looms, lathes, foundries, and many factories of skill. We
also exhibit the agricultural produce, but largely in a crass and rude
way to display bulk and to win prizes. We now begin to arrange our
exhibitions for color effect, comparison, and educational influence. But
we do not justly understand the natural products when we confine them to
formal exhibitions. They must be incorporated into many celebrations,
expressing therein the earth's bounty and our appreciation of it. The
usual and common products, domesticated and wild, should be gathered in
these occasions, and not for competition or for prize awards or even for
display, but for their intrinsic qualities. An apple day or an apple
sabbath would teach the people to express their gratitude for apples.
The moral obligation to grow good apples, to handle them honestly, to
treat the soil and the trees fairly and reverently, could be developed
as a living practical philosophy into the working-days of an
apple-growing people. The technical knowledge we now possess requires
the moral support of a stimulated public appreciation to make it a
thoroughly effective force.
Many of the products and crops lend themselves well to this kind of
admiration, and all of them should awaken gratitude and reverence.
Sermons and teaching may issue from them. Nor is it necessary that this
gratitude be expressed only in collected materials, or that all
preaching and all teaching shall be indoors. The best understanding of
our relations to the earth will be possible when we learn how to apply
our devotions in the open places.
_The keeping of the beautiful earth_
The proper care-taking of the earth lies not alone in maintaining its
fertility or in safeguarding its products. The lines of beauty that
appeal to the eye and the charm that satisfies the five senses are in
our keeping.
The natural landscape is always interesting and it is satisfying. The
physical universe is the source of art. We know no other form and color
than that which we see in nature or derive from it. If art is true to
its theme, it is one expression of morals. If it is a moral obligation
to express the art-sense in painting and sculpture and literature and
music, so is it an equal obligation to express it in good landscape.
Of the first importance is it that the race keep its artistic
backgrounds, and not alone for the few who may travel far and near and
who may pause deliberately, but also for those more numerous folk who
must remain with the daily toil and catch the far look only as they
labor. To put the best expression of any landscape into the
consciousness of one's day's work is more to be desired than much
riches. When we complete our conquest, there will be no unseemly
landscapes.
The abundance of violated landscapes is proof that we have not yet
mastered. The farmer does not have full command of his situation until
the landscape is a part of his farming. Farms may be units in
well-developed and pleasing landscapes, beautiful in their combinations
with other farms and appropriate to their setting as well as attractive
in themselves.
No one has a moral right to contribute unsightly factory premises or a
forbidding commercial establishment to any community. The lines of
utility and efficiency ought also to be the lines of beauty; and it is
due every worker to have a good landscape to look upon, even though its
area be very constricted. To produce bushels of wheat and marvels of
machinery, to maintain devastating military establishments, do not
comprise the sum of conquest. The backgrounds must be kept.
If moral strength comes from good and sufficient scenery, so does the
preservation of it become a social duty. It is much more than a civic
obligation. But the resources of the earth must be available to man for
his use and this necessarily means a modification of the original
scenery. Some pieces and kinds of scenery are above all economic use and
should be kept wholly in the natural state. Much of it may yield to
modification if he takes good care to preserve its essential features.
Unfortunately, the engineer seems not often to be trained in the values
of scenery and he is likely to despoil a landscape or at least to leave
it raw and unfinished.