Our breakfasts, more than other meals, are made delectable by diverse
corn dishes. Corn flakes, properly made are more flavorful than any
others, and of all the varieties of griddle cakes, so dear to the
American palate, none quite equals those made of corn. If these are at
present seen less frequently on bills of fare than are wheat, rice, or
buckwheat cakes, it is because of the way in which cornmeal is usually
deprived of what most appeals to the palate.
Griddle cakes made of wheat are widely known as flannel cakes. I have
never eaten any woolen stuff, but I imagine it might taste a good deal
like the average "flannel" cake, though it would be much lighter. The
French and German pancakes are far superior to our wheat cakes; but
even to these I prefer the American corn griddle cakes, for which the
whites of egg have been beaten stiff and added gradually; and I bask in
the proud consciousness that my preference is thoroughly patriotic.
The liking for buckwheat cakes is to me a mystery and always has
been, although as a boy I used to eat them with rich sausage gravy,
which made them palatable. Buckwheat cakes are not eaten so much as
they used to be, so maybe I am not alone in disliking them. For the
gratification of those who do like them I quote from the New York "Sun"
a characteristically American communication from "Middle Aged":
I saw in a store window to-day a sign "New Buckwheat," so I
know people still eat buckwheat; but I doubt if it is as much
eaten as it was in years back, say in the days when I was a
youngster.
We always had buckwheat cakes for breakfast. Mother, sometimes
father, used to stir the batter the night before in a curious
tall, round, straight sided, brown earthenware pot with a
handle on it, which was sacredly reserved for that purpose.
I have never seen anywhere at any time another pot just like
that one; and then it was set in just the right spot by the
kitchen stove, for the batter to rise through the night.
In the morning they thinned this batter out just a little
with water and then they fried the cakes; in our house on a
long double griddle that covered two stove holes and on which
you could cook two or three cakes at a time.
Every morning in winter we had those buckwheat cakes, light
as a feather, and with them we always had sausages or pork
chops; and such sausages and pork chops I have never seen
since. Sausages, not as you see them nowadays as big around
as a cigar and filled with some sort of pasty material, but
big sausages stuffed with meat chopped coarse and that burst
open when you fried them as if anxious to reveal to you their
delightful, savory richness--I hope it is given to you to be
able to recall such sausages; and pork chops from pigs country
raised on nearby farms, a delight to the taste and always
tender.
Whichever we had that morning, whether sausages or pork chops,
we ate the sausage or the pork chop gravy on the cakes. Really
the recollection moves me. My smiling mother--Heaven bless
her!--never stinted me on the cakes; she gave me all I could
eat. My father when I asked him for another sausage would
sometimes ask me good-naturedly if I didn't think I had had
enough; but he always handed over the sausage. And now, if
you won't think I am quite a pig, I would like to say that
I used to eat the last plate not with gravy but with butter
and molasses on them; later we came to have syrup. And this
sort of breakfast never did me any harm. There is a popular
delusion that the ostrich has the hardiest of all stomachs,
but really his would not for a moment bear comparison with
that of the growing, outdoors boy.
The serving of sausages and pork chops with griddle cakes is not
so customary as it used to be; usually the cakes, whether wheat,
buckwheat, rice, or corn, are now eaten with some kind of syrup.
The syrup served with our griddle cakes is as characteristically
American as the cakes themselves, or as the endless variety of cereal
breakfast foods, one or the other of which nearly every American
eats daily, with cream and sugar, and which foreigners know nothing
about.[20]
Strictly speaking, a syrup is "the direct product of the evaporation
of the juice of a sugar-yielding plant or tree without the removal of
any of the sugar," whereas molasses is "the saccharine product which
is separated from sugar in the process of manufacture." Commercial
"syrup" is usually a mixture of syrup, molasses (of which there are
many grades) and other things. Much of it is injurious to health, and
housewives who wish to see nothing unwholesome on their breakfast
tables should read what Dr. Wiley has to say on this subject, on pp.
472-482 of his "Foods and Their Adulteration."
The sap of sugar cane and sorghum is usually good and safe, besides
being American. Even more so is the sap of the maple.
George Washington and Bret Harte were not more thoroughly and
exclusively American than is the _Acer saccharinum_, or sugar maple
tree. Europe nor any other continent has aught to match it. The sugar
made from its sap is one of the delicacies discovered by the American
Indian. The early white settlers learned from him how to make it,
and for many years it was the only sugar they had. It was "dark and
ill-tasting" compared with the best modern product.
In their appeal to the sense of taste all sweet syrups are alike. It
is their fragrance, their Flavor, that makes us prefer some kinds
to others. The Flavor of maple syrup has been much improved, and is
still being improved, by perfecting the methods of tapping the tree,
gathering the sap, boiling it, and storing the sweet product.
Uncle Sam has not neglected this important branch of national
gastronomic industry. His chemists have been at work to ascertain the
causes of the souring of the sap under certain conditions, and to
explain why the later runs do not have so pleasant a Flavor as the
earlier ones. They have found it in the action of micro-organisms.
While I was writing this chapter I received from Washington Farmers'
Bulletin 516, a brochure of 46 pages in which the making of maple syrup
and sugar is fully discussed, with detailed directions for securing the
best-flavored product.[21] As in the making of butter, many things have
to be done and many avoided to get the best results, but they are worth
the trouble.
The demand for genuine maple sugar is great, and would be much greater
still if adulteration were not so much practised. In 1910, according
to the U. S. Census Reports, the maple syrup production of the country
was 4,106,418 gallons, and in addition to this there were made over
14,000,000 pounds of maple sugar.
In that year Ohio led all the States in the production of maple syrup,
followed by New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. In many other States it can be made in
paying quantities. Farmers are advised to attend to this industry as
a source of extra income. In the Bulletin just referred to, attention
is called to two important economic considerations: "The season of
production comes at a time of the year when little or no other work can
be done on the farm, thus allowing the aid of the family and farm help
for the boiling and manufacture. Moreover, since the sugar bushes as a
general rule are situated on hilly country that would not be suitable
for any other crop, these two items could hardly be placed at a high
value in a table of costs."
Every farmer who lives in a State and region where the sugar maple
prospers should secure Bulletin 516 through his representative in
Washington. By attending strictly to the matter of delicate Flavor,
not only can the industry be enormously increased at home but foreign
markets can easily be won. Adulteration must, however, be severely
curbed. Under present conditions American epicures do not put their
faith in grocers but get their annual supplies early every year direct
from the producer. It is best when freshly made, and unless put in cans
and sealed while still hot it gradually loses its Flavor. Syrup made of
dissolved maple sugar is often used, but it is less delicately flavored
than that which is made at once from the sap.
[Illustration: The sugar bush.]
Many a time have I thanked Heaven that I was brought up in the country.
How I pity those persons who, in the days of their youth, had no chance
to kneel before an _Acer saccharinum_, as I did in my Missouri days
(only a few miles from Mark Twain's birthplace, by the way) and drink
in the nectar as it trickled through the spout into my mouth. It was
more glorious even than it was some years later to suck fresh Oregon
cider from a barrel through a straw.