Arr.rsT, 1918 



GLEANINGS IN B E E CULTURE 



477 



c 



LJ 



F(^ R y c a r s 

 t li e r f li a s 

 befii no mo- 

 lasses i 11 t li 

 I'liciden ]>aiitry. 

 W'lu'ii I wishetl 

 to test a recipe 

 oailiiig for mo- 

 lasses I pried off 

 tlie top of my 



teii-[>oiai(l lioiiey i)ail, wliieli always 

 occupies a jiromiiieiit [jositioii in my 

 pantry, meatnired out tlie amount 

 of molasses called for in thick, 

 yoldei: lioney, and compouudtMl my 

 recipe to my own satisfaction and 

 that of my family. Of course I al- 

 ways adjusted the amount of soda 

 to suit the eliange in the reeii)e. 



iiut recently 1 have been working out 

 eouservation recipes for a local publication, 

 as there has been such a demand for wheat- 

 substitute recipes, and with the price of 

 honey what it now is, I decided to order 

 molasses for experimenting on those recipes. 

 I therefore asked my grocer to send me the 

 best molasses he had in stock. If what he 

 sent me is the best, I wonder what the worst 

 would be. T tried it first in a barley-fiour 

 s])ice cake. The cake was quite spicy and 

 contained a cup of fruit, but when I tasted 

 it I thought my barley flour must have been 

 kept too long. There was a strong and dis- 

 agreeable flavor to the cake. 



I next used some of the molasses in a 

 steamed cornmeal and barley-Hour bread, a 

 recipe for which appeared in this depart- 

 ment for June. The Puerden family are 

 fond of that particular kind of brown 

 bread, and we use it very often to save 

 wheat. But that made with molasses, altho 

 it was soft and looked tempting, had a 

 flavor that was jironounced and unpleasant. 

 The next time I made that brown bread the 

 head of the Puerden family looked at it su^- 

 ]i!ciously and inquired if there was any mo- 

 lasses in it. He did not want to even taste 

 it if there was. 



You may think this is a case of prejudice 

 un the })art of a beekeeper's family, but I 

 find other housekeej)ers have had the same 

 experience. I have gone about the country 

 a number of times in the past few months, 

 giving informal talks in the interests of 

 food conservation, with demonstrations of 

 wheatless foods. In several cases, when I 

 have been giving recipes calling for mola:s- 

 ses, housekeepers have said: 



"What can we use in place of molasses.^ 

 Vi'e do not like the molasses nowadays." 



The fact of the matter is, molasses is not 

 what it used to be. As made at present, 

 there is very little sugar left in it. Mod- 

 ern methods of refining sugar tend to re- 

 move more and more of the sucrose from 

 the remaining molasses, and the molasses 

 itself is so concentrated that the resulting 

 product is altogether too strong in fla\'oi- 

 to be attractive as a human food. And 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stancy Puerden 



1 



r^^^^^^5^ 



TLJ 



many dietitians 

 (j u e s t i n its 

 wholesom eness, 

 as now made. 



Dr. Harvey W. 

 Wiley says, ' ' I 

 legret to s a y 

 that ill so far as 

 I know the do- 

 mestic molasses 

 on sale in this country is practically 

 saturated with sulfur dioxid and is, 

 in my ojiinion, not wholesome. * * 

 'Karo' contains no sulfur fumes.'' 

 Southerners have told me I should 

 taste the old-fashioned kettleren- 

 dt'ied cane syrup, which is the pure 

 juice of the cane boiled down, noth- 

 ing added to it and nothing taken 

 from it. I believe this may still be ob- 

 tained in certain localities in the South-. 



If you have ever travelled in a country 

 where there is sugar cane, you have proba- 

 bly seen the natives chewing a section of 

 the cane as the Northerners eat candy. No 

 doubt we shoul.d all be better off if we ate 

 our sugar more nearly as nature gives it to 

 us, instead of the refined, concentrated, 

 granulated sugar, deprived of its valuable 

 soluble minerals in the process of manufac- 

 ture. A recent medical journal goes so far 

 as to call granulated sugar "a vampire 

 which robs the human system of the valua- 

 ble minerals which it lacks itself." The 

 danger arising from a large proportion of 

 refined sugar in the diet is not because it 

 contains anything harmful but because of 

 its lack of constituents essential to the 

 building and maintenance of the tissues. 



Now, we beekeepers pride ourselves on 

 the fact that honey is nature's own and 

 only concentrated sweet, the only sweet 

 known to antiquity, and that it has not 

 been robbed by man of its valuable soluble 

 minerals, that it contains the class of vita- 

 mines known as "water soluble B, " that it 

 is iiartially predigested, and that its aroma 

 is the fragrance of the flowers. 



But, and this is an almost insurmountable 

 ' but " ' to me, how are we going to induce 

 the public to give to honey its rightful place 

 in the daily diet at its present price F Be- 

 fore the war I had been hoping that the 

 time was coming soon when Americans 

 would appreciate honey as much as Euro- 

 peans do. From my standpoint, it looks 

 as if we were now educating Americans to 

 believe that honey is a luxury, something 

 quite beyond the means of the ordiiiary 

 fainily. "When this unprecedented demand 

 for honey to be shipped abroad stops, where 

 will our honey market be? 



I am going to say something else, even if 

 I have a husband who has several small bee- 

 vards. I cannot endure to think th.it bee- 

 keepers are among those who are making 

 (excessive profits because of this terrible 

 "s\ar. Don't misunderstand me. I believe 

 honey should be higher in price than sugar 

 for the reason that it is a better food. But, 



