"SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE"
"Do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats!" So cried the miscreant
son of Hati when his attempt to rescue his father's live-stock from utter
destruction resulted (at least according to Lamb) in adding one more
delicacy to the table of civilized man. That the "burnt pig" commended
itself instantly to the taste of other men is attested by the recklessness
with which they ignited their own houses to secure the new sensation
again.
Not all flavors make an immediate appeal. Many persons can mark the time
when they learned to like olives, or tomatoes, or tea. The taste for some
foods was acquired so early that there is no consciousness of any time
when they were not enjoyed, and the impression prevails that the liking
for such foods is instinctive. Sometimes that is the case, but quite as
often not. Children have to be taught by patient repetition to like most
of the common foods which make the staples of the diet, and likings thus
acquired are as strong as those which seem more natural.
However taste be accounted for, we have to recognize the fact that food is
chosen for flavor more than for ultimate benefit. It is one thing to say
that oatmeal is more nutritious than bread and coffee; it is quite another
to induce a man to give up the latter for the former! And yet the
distinguishing characteristic of man is that he can subjugate his
immediate impulses for his future benefit, or find a course that will
harmonize the two--take coffee with his oatmeal for instance, or find some
way to flavor it, perhaps with sugar.
Probably no one flavor is so universally enjoyed as sweetness. "Sweeter
than the honey in the honey comb" is an ancient symbol of appreciation.
When the sugar bowl is empty how many things lose zest! Tea, coffee,
cocoa, breakfast cereals, fruit, might still be acceptable, but cake, pie,
and ice cream are unthinkable without sweetness; the soda fountain, the
bakery, and the candy shop bear further testimony to our love of sweets.
Four million tons of sugar a year for the American people--eighty-five
pounds apiece, nearly a quarter of a pound apiece daily--this is no
inconsiderable amount of flavoring!
But is not sugar good food? Most assuredly. Three lumps of sugar would
furnish the extra energy needed to walk a mile; a quarter of a pound
represents about one-sixth of a man's daily fuel requirement. But one
baked potato would furnish the same energy as the three lumps of sugar; a
quarter of a pound of cornstarch would supply the same fuel as the quarter
pound of sugar. Nutritionally starch and sugar are interchangeable, the
advantage as far as digestion is concerned being with the starch rather
than the sugar. And yet we put sugar on starch! So much for instinct being
a guide to scientific food combinations!
The problem of doing without sugar is primarily a problem of flavor--a
problem of finding something else which is sweet. Hence we turn our
cornstarch into glucose (make corn syrup, for example) outside the body
instead of inside it, so that we can taste the sweetness as it goes down.
The main trouble with this kind of sugar is that it is not sweet enough to
satisfy us and we are apt to use too much, thus endangering our digestions
by sheer concentration of what would be, in smaller quantities, most
wholesome. Once more we see that nutrition is largely a question of _how
much_; how much glucose or other sugar our stomachs can stand we find out
by experience; few stomachs can stand when empty the quantity represented
by a lollipop, and yet we frequently see children allowed to suck these
between meals. The same amount of sugar diluted with water, as in a glass
of lemonade, would do less harm; it might be combined with flour in a
cooky with more impunity; better yet, it might be made a part of a whole
meal, taking it in several dishes (sauce, dessert, etc.), or, if we must
have it as candy, at the end of the meal. Used in this way, the advantages
of sugar as a food may be had with relatively little disadvantage.
Honey, "the distilled sweetness of the flower," commands a price
commensurate with the exquisiteness of its production, but is not quite as
easy of digestion as some other forms of sugar. Because of its intense
sweetness it may be combined with advantage with less sweet syrups, such
as corn syrup. The cook estimates that by measure it will take one and a
half times as much corn syrup as cane sugar to get the customary effects
in sweet dishes. By using one part of honey to three of corn syrup a
sweeter product is obtained, which is free from several of the
disadvantages of honey in cookery.
Maple syrup and sugar are not only prized for their sweetness, due to the
presence of ordinary cane sugar, but for the delicate "maple" flavor so
difficult to duplicate. Nutritionally a tablespoon of maple sugar is
equivalent in fuel value to about four-fifths of a tablespoon of cane
sugar, while equal volumes of cane molasses, corn syrup, and maple syrup
are interchangeable as fuel, though not of equal sweetening power.
Molasses is a less one-sided food than cane sugar or corn syrup. The
latter furnish nothing but fuel, and if used too freely not only disturb
digestion but tend to crowd out foods which yield mineral salts. Molasses
is quite rich in calcium, one tablespoonful yielding as much as five
ounces of milk, and is for this reason a better sweet for growing children
than ordinary sugar or corn syrup when the amount of milk which they can
have is limited, or when fruits and vegetables are hard to get. Molasses
ginger snaps make, therefore, an excellent sweet for children, much better
than candy, but of course to be eaten only at meal time.
The aim of good home cooking should be to please the family with what they
ought to eat. The chef in a big hotel may have to prove the superiority of
his art over that of a rival chef, and vie with him in novelty and
elaboration, but the home cooking may be ever so simple provided the
result is a happy, well-nourished family. A chocolate layer cake that
takes two hours out of a day is no more nourishing than the same materials
served as poached eggs, bread and butter, and a cup of chocolate. It is
worth while to train a family to enjoy the flavor of simply prepared
foods, and to realize that the food is the thing which counts and not the
way it is dressed up. On the other hand, if one has to use a few food
materials over and over, as one must in many places when the money that
can be spent for food is very little, it is by slight changes in their
form and flavor that one keeps them from palling on the appetite. If one
has to use beans every day, it is a good thing to know a dozen different
ways of preparing beans. One may have the plain bean flavor, properly
toned up by a suitable amount of salt; the added flavor of onions, of
tomatoes, of fat pork, of molasses, or a combination of two or three. One
may have plain oatmeal for breakfast (the flavor developed by thorough
cooking, at least three or four hours in a double boiler or over night in
a fireless cooker); oatmeal flavored with apples in a pudding for dinner;
or oatmeal flavored with onions and tomatoes in a soup for supper; the
same food but quite different impressions on the palate.
Herbs and spices have from time immemorial given flavor to man's diet.
"Leeks and garlic," "anise and cumin," "salt and pepper," "curry and bean
cheese," are built into the very life of a people. The more variety of
natural foods we have the less dependent we are upon such things. Our
modern cooks, confronted in the present crisis with restrictions in the
number of foods which they may use, may find in bay leaves, nutmeg,
allspice, and all their kind, ways of making acceptable the cereals which
make a diet economical, the peas and beans which replace at least a part
of the meat, and dried fruits and vegetables which save transportation of
fresh or canned goods.
Tea and coffee are both flavors and stimulants. They are used literally by
thousands to give flavor to bread or rice. Dependence on a single flavor
is apt to result in a desire to have it stronger and stronger, and hence
less and less wholesome. This is a good reason for some variety of flavor;
better tea one meal and coffee another than the same one all the time. Too
freely used, and made too strong, tea and coffee may have a bad effect
upon the nervous as well as the digestive system. They should never be
given to children. It is better for adults to get their flavor from
something without such effects. Because the combination of bread and
coffee tastes good, one may be deceived into thinking himself well
nourished on a diet consisting of little else. And yet this is a very
inadequate diet for anybody, and disastrous to the normal development of
children. One must be on guard, then, lest one's desire for flavor be
satisfied without the body's real needs being met.
The wise cook saves her best flavors for the foods which would be least
acceptable without them and does not add them to foods which are good
enough by themselves. The latter course marks the insidious beginning of
luxury. "Once give your family luxuries and you are lost as far as
satisfying them economically is concerned," remarked a clever housewife.
"Even a rat will not taste bread when bacon is nigh," observed a sage
physiologist. The demand for flavor grows and grows with pampering, till
nothing but humming-birds' tongues and miniature geese floating in a sea
of aspic jelly will satisfy the palate of him who eats solely for
flavor--who never knows the sauce of hunger, or the deliciousness of a
plain crust of bread. We must be on guard, saying, like the little
daughter of a classical professor, "If Scylla doesn't get me Charybdis
will." Flavor we must have, but not too much, not too many kinds at once,
and not applied indiscriminately to foods which need them and foods which
do not. The wise cook uses her arts to secure the proper nourishment of
the family and not for her fame as "a good cook."