FOOD AND FEEDING. 393 



Vienna, is unrivaled for delicacy, texture, and color. Whole meal 

 may be bought ; but mills are now cheaply made for home use, and 

 wheat may be ground to any degree of coarseness desired. 



Here illustration by recipe must cease ; although it would be an 

 easy task to fill a volume with matter of this kind, illustrating the 

 ample means which exist for diminishing somewhat the present waste- 

 ful use of " butcher's, meats " with positive advantage to the consumer. 

 Many facts in support of this position will appear as we proceed. But 

 another important object in furnishing the foregoing details is to point 

 out how combinations of the nitrogenous, starchy, fatty, and mineral 

 elements may be made, in well-proportioned mixtures, so as to produce 

 what I have termed a " perfect " dish perfect, that is, so far as the 

 chief indication is concerned, viz., one which supplies every demand of 

 the body, without containing any one element in undue proportion. 

 For it is obvious that one or two of these elements may exist in injuri- 

 ous excess, especially for delicate stomachs, the varied peculiarities of 

 which, as before insisted on, must sometimes render necessary a modi- 

 fication of all rules. Thus it is easy to make the fatty constituent too 

 large, and thereby derange digestion, a result frequently experienced 

 by persons of sedentary habits, to whom a little pastry, a morsel of 

 foie gras, or a rich cream is a source of great discomfort, or of a " bil- 

 ious attack " ; while the laborer, who requires much fatty fuel for his 

 work, would have no difficulty in consuming a large quantity of such 

 compounds with advantage. Nitrogenous matter also is commonly 

 supplied beyond the eater's wants ; and, if more is consumed than can 

 be used for the purposes which such aliment subserves, it must be 

 eliminated in some way from the system. This process of elimination, 

 it suffices to say here, is undoubtedly a prolific cause of disease, such 

 as gout and its allies, as well as other affections of a serious character, 

 which would in all probability exist to a very small extent, were it 

 not the habit of those who, being able to obtain the strong or butch- 

 er's meats, eat them daily year after year, in larger quantity than the 

 constitution can assimilate. 



Quitting the subject of wheat and the leguminous seeds, it will be 

 interesting to review briefly the combinations of rice, which furnishes 

 so large a portion of the world with a vegetable staple of diet. Re- 

 membering that it contains chiefly starch, with nitrogen in small pro- 

 portion, and almost no fat or mineral elements, and just sufficing 

 perhaps to meet the wants of an inactive population in a tropical cli- 

 mate, the first addition necessary for people beyond this limit will be 

 fat, and, after that, more nitrogen. Hence the first effort to make a 

 dish of rice " complete " is the addition of butter and a little Parmesan 

 cheese, in the simple risotto, from which, as a starting-point, improve- 

 ment, both for nutritive purposes and for the demands of the palate, 

 may be carried to any extent. Fresh additions are made in the shape 

 of marrow, of morsels of liver, etc., of meat broth with onion and spice, 



