39 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and they are numerous in this form. The same principle, it may 

 be observed, has, although empirically, produced the well-known dishes 

 of beans and bacon, ham and green peas, boiled pork and pease-pud- 

 ding, all of them old and popular but scientific combinations. Thus 

 also the French, serving petits pois as a separate dish, add butter freely 

 and a dash of sugar, the former making the compound physiologically 

 complete, the latter agreeably heightening the natural sweetness of the 

 vegetable. 



Let me recall, at the close of these few hints about the haricot, the 

 fact that there is no product of the vegetable kingdom so nutritious ; 

 holding its own in this respect, as it well can, even against the beef 

 and mutton of the animal kingdom. The haricot ranks just above 

 lentils, which have been so much praised of late, and rightly, the hari- 

 cot being also to most palates more agreeable. By most stomachs, too, 

 haricots are niore easily digested than meat is ; and, consuming weight 

 for weight, the eater feels lighter and less oppressed, as a rule, after 

 the leguminous dish ; while the comparative cost is very greatly in 

 favor of the latter. I do not of course overlook in the dish of simple 

 haricots the absence of savory odors proper to well-cooked meat ; but 

 nothing is easier than to combine one part of meat with two parts of 

 haricots, adding vegetables and garden herbs, so as to produce a stew 

 which shall be more nutritious, wholesome, and palatable than a stew 

 of all meat with vegetables, and no haricots. Moreover, the cost of 

 the latter will be more than double that of the former. 



I have just adverted to the bread of the laborer, and recommended 

 that it should be made from entire wheat meal ; but it should not be 

 so coarsely ground as that commonly sold in London as " whole meal." 

 The coarseness of " whole meal " is a condition designed to exert a 

 specific effect on the digestion for those who need it, and, useful as it 

 is in its place, is not desirable for the average population referred to. 

 It is worth observing, in relation to this coarse meal, that it will not 

 produce light agreeable bread in the form of loaves : they usually have 

 either hard, flinty crusts, or soft, dough-like interiors ; but the follow- 

 ing treatment, after a trial or two, will be found to produce excellent 

 and most palatable bread : To two pounds of whole meal add half a 

 pound of fine flour and a sufficient quantity of baking-powder and salt; 

 when these are well mixed, rub in about two ounces of butter, and 

 make into dough with half milk and water, or with all milk if pre- 

 ferred. Make rapidly into flat cakes like " tea-cakes," and bake in a 

 quick oven, leaving them afterward to finish thoroughly at a lower 

 temperature. The butter and milk supply fatty matter in which the 

 wheat is somewhat deficient ; all the saline and mineral matters of the 

 husk are retained ; and thus a more nutritive form of bread can not be 

 made. Moreover, it retains the natural flavor of the wheat, in place of 

 the insipidity which is characteristic of fine flour, although it is indis- 

 putable that bread produced from the latter, especially at Paris and 



