.Tune, 1918 



G L E A N 1 N (.4 S IN H K E CULTURE 



Wa 



c 



ur 



■HAT ])()()k 

 do y o u 

 a u p p » e 

 was one of the 

 best sellers last 

 year? Indeed, 

 I nni not sure 

 but it was the 

 very best seller, 

 excepting the 



Bible. That book was Farmers' Bul- 

 letin, No. S39. Perhaps I should 

 not call it exactly a best seller, as 

 it is free to everyone. Its sub.iect is 

 Home Canning by the One-Period 

 Cold-Pack Method. Now you may 

 have heard stories of women who 

 spent hours in the hot kitchen can- 

 ning vegetables, only to find them 

 spoiled and their time wasted a few months 

 later. I have taken pains to investigate 

 stories of that sort which came to me, and 

 in every case I found that the methods work- 

 ed out by experts in the Department of Ag- 

 riculture had not been implicitly followed. 

 And I have heard of hundreds of other wom- 

 en who successfully canned vegetables suf- 

 fieifent to supply their families all winter. 

 This is the type of remark I so often hear, 

 ' ' We never lived so well as we have this 

 winter in spite of high prices, the sugar 

 shortage, and the necessity of conserving so 

 many foods. Our canned vegetables made it 

 seem like having a garden all winter, and 

 how it did reduce the food bills." It is 

 certain no commercial canned vegetables 

 have the delicate flavor of the home prod- 

 uct. 



You have all read of the boys' and girls' 

 canning clubs. Did you ever hear of these 

 clubs having trouble with their product 

 spoiling? Sometimes I am inclined to think 

 it is the very young people who succeed 

 best in the cold-pack canning. The|v take 

 up the work, realizing that they know noth- 

 ing about it, and they are willing to implicit- 

 ly follow instructions. Capable housekeep- 

 ers, who have canned fruit successfully for 

 years by the old methods, are apt to believe 

 that such care at every step in canning vege- 

 tables is unnecessary, and omit one part of 

 the process, or shorten the period of sterili- 

 zation. Don 't do it. Under favorable cir- 

 cumstances your vegetables may keep, even 

 if you are a little careless about obeying di- 

 rections; but there is just one safe way, and 

 that is to follow every step in the process 

 from the cleaning, blanching, cold dip, and 

 sterilizing to the final tightening of the 

 covers and inverting the can to make sure it 

 holds. 



Perhaps some of you noticed an article, 

 which went the rounds of the press last win- 

 ter, to the effect that there was great danger 

 of f)oisoning from eating cold-pack canned 

 products, due to a certain wicked bacillus 

 with a hard name. One of those articles 

 gave a list of deaths in various parts of the 

 country said to be due to that cause. The 

 dates at whicli tln^se deaths occuired were 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stancy Puerden 



1 



u 



351 



spread o v e r a 

 jicriod of some 

 thirty years, 

 and, with two or 

 three exceptions, 

 all occurred be- 

 fore the modern 

 one-period, cold- 

 l)ack method 

 was in general 

 use. I could not help wondering if 

 the origin of that story was not 

 another instance of German propa- 

 ganda. Just to make sure of killing 

 any such undesirable bacillus in your 

 canned foods, turn out the contents 

 of the can, bring to a boil, and keep 

 it at the boiling point several min- 

 utes. It can be cooled before using, 

 if it is desired in a salad. 



Being of an investigative turn of mind 

 and also having great confidence in bulletin 

 8.39, I tasted the contents of every can of 

 vegetables I opened this winter before heat- 

 ing them, and I am still very much alive. 



Begin your canning early and thus make 

 sure of a varied assortment. Even if you 

 liave time for only two or three cans of 

 each vegetable as it comes, it will be a won- 

 derful help to winter-menu planning. Can- 

 ning is a form of food hoarding to which 

 Uncle Sam gives his cordial approval. 



For bulletin, No. 839, send to Division of 

 Publications, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Those Interesting Vitamines Again. 

 Do you know to be stylish and up-to-date, 

 I should say, "so called vitamines." Cer- 

 tain tiresome scientific ( ?) investigators seem 

 to have a grudge against the word "vita- 

 mines." Why they dislike such an inno- 

 cent looking, serviceable word I cannot see, 

 unless it is because they had nothing to do 

 with the christening. As the history of ' ' so 

 called vitamines ' ' is still in the making, re- 

 search along this line being pursued by "a 

 number of independent investigators, I can 

 see the editors have a feeling that Stancy 

 is "rushing in where angels fear to tread." 

 Calm yourselves, gentlemen, I do not mean 

 to say one thing about "so called vitamines " 

 that is not culled from the highest authori- 

 ties. But I am going to say this much: I 

 believe those scientific investigatoi's are go- 

 ing to have their work cut out for them 

 when they try to take that word "vita- 

 mine" away from the public. The public 

 has adopted it joyfully, various advertisers 

 are calling attention to the fact that vita- 

 mines are in their products, and people 

 everywhere are asking food writers and 

 teachers to tell them more about vitamines. 

 It may turn out like some slang words which 

 we have been obliged to incorporate in the 

 English language. 



You may remember, in the April number, 

 in the little that I wrote about vitamines 

 I said there were two well recognized types, 

 and some believed there were even more. 

 As one of these types is soluble in certain 



