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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



(barley and rye) as in the preparation 

 of the various kinds of war bread shown 

 in the exhibit. 



Our first task as a nation is to see 

 that these minimum needs of the allied 

 countries, and particularly of France, 

 are fully and promptly met. To this 

 end it behooves us to strain every nerve 

 to increase production and — what is of 

 almost equal importance — to diminish 

 needless waste. 



It is estimated by Dr. C. F. Lang- 

 worthy, of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, that one tenth of 

 all the food that comes into the home 

 is wasted in the kitchen. This to- 

 tals for the nation an annual loss of 

 $700,000,000. In the exhibit are shown 

 methods of economy that should be 

 practised in the use of left-over meat, 

 fish, and vegetables for hash or soup, 

 sour milk for puddings, and tiie utiliza- 

 tion of dry bread in various ways. At 

 the table smaller portions should be 

 served, so as to prevent food being left 

 on the plates and wasted. In cooking, 

 material saving may be obtained in 

 time and labor by the use of a fireless 

 cooker, of which an inexpensive form, 

 easily constructed in the home, is 

 shown. The purchasing of goods in 

 bulk rather than in package is an im- 

 portant factor in household economy, 

 as are the buying of the cheaper cuts of 

 meat and the substitution for meat as a 

 protein-supplying element in the diet, of 

 such foods asmilk, beans, fish, and cheese. 



Our diet is largely based on habit. 

 All around is an abundance of poten- 

 tial unutilized foods, which are ours 

 for the using. Along our coasts acres 

 of mussels, tons of seaweed, and bushels 

 of periwinkles go to waste every year. 

 Certain kinds of shark have been found 

 to be delicious, and the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries is promoting the 

 canning of grayfish. Skate is used at 



present principally for "scallops," but 

 deserves a wider use. Along the shores 

 of the Hudson wild rice goes unutilized 

 except by the wild ducks. The Indians 

 about the Great Lakes gather wild rice 

 and trade it with the ammunition com- 

 panies from whom it is purchased by 

 hotels. The wild rice exhibited was 

 cooked in the kitchen of the Waldorf 

 Astoria, New York City. The Chinese 

 make extensive use of the soy bean, 

 easily cultivated in the United States, 

 in the form of sauces, cheeses, and 

 dressings. There are likewise shown, 

 through the courtesy of Dr. Yamei Kin, 

 some preserved duck eggs that are 

 claimed to keep for one hundred years. 

 All of these unutilized foods are shown 

 in the exhibit in Memorial Hall, the 

 specimens of sea foods being contrib- 

 uted by the departments of ichthyology 

 and invertebrate zoology of the Mu- 

 seum. 



We may learn some things pertinent 

 to the present food crisis even from our 

 predecessors, the native Indian inhab- 

 itants of the American continent. The 

 department of anthropology has con- 

 tributed to the exhibit a series of speci- 

 mens and models illustrating the skill 

 of the Indians of the Southwest in 

 utilizing the cactus and other local 

 plants as sources of food supply— even 

 making bread out of acorns after ex- 

 tracting their acrid elements by pro- 

 longed boiling. 



In the past, famine and pestilence 

 have always followed in the wake of 

 war. The danger of epidemic disease 

 has been almost eliminated during the 

 present conflict through the advances 

 in the science of public health. The 

 menace of famine, too, is certain to 

 yield to the application of scientific 

 knowledge as fast as it can be effec- 

 tively diffused through the medium of 

 public education. 



