Septkmkkr, 1919 



GLEANINGS T N BEE CULTURE 



589 



C 



POSSIBLY 

 some of my 

 oe ekcep ill ji' 

 friends feel that 

 Our Food Page 

 has not been ful- 

 filling its mis- 

 sion because of 

 late it has given 

 so few recipes 

 calling for honey, and when honey is one of 

 the ingiedients ' in a recipe only a small 

 amount is called for and the balance of the 

 sweetening is sugar. Sometimes too in pub- 

 lishing a honey recipe I have mentioned an 

 alternative sweet. Don 't imagine for a min- 

 ute that I am losing interest in promoting 

 the use of honey as a food, but it seems ab- 

 surd to advocate the use of much honey in 

 cookery at the present prices. And I might 

 as well confess that secretly I have always 

 had about honey a little of the feeling that 

 a certain man I know expresses about ap- 

 ples. He says, ' ' Why spoil a good apple by 

 j)utting it in a pie?" I have no objection 

 to the use of honey which is off color or 

 flavor for baking, just as we cook imper- 

 fect or spotted apples, but when the price 

 of even second- or third-grade honey keeps 

 it in the luxury class I do not believe much 

 is gained by pushing the use of honey in 

 cookery. 



It is rumored that even the large baking- 

 companies, that formerly used immense quan- 

 tities of inferior grades of honey, are sub- 

 stituting invert sugar. Incidentally I hope 

 Uncle Sam will see to it that cakes and 

 jumbles sweetened with invert sugar are not 

 called honey cakes or jumbles, for we bee- 

 keepers know that baked goods sweetened 

 with honey substitutes do not have the 

 moisture-retaining properties that are pe- 

 culiar to honey products. 



Here is a question which is often heard: 

 "Is honey likely to lose its popularity be- 

 cause of the high prices?" Time alone will 

 tell, but I believe if we educate the public 

 to regard it as a fine confection of nature 

 instead of little better than a cooking syrup 

 we need have no fear. In the past few 

 years I have often been amazed at the way 

 most of my friends spend a couple of dollars 

 on a box of candy. Now I will leave it to 

 anyone of artistic tastes to say whether 

 a choice section of honey is not as beautiful 

 and fragrant as a flower, and vastly more so 

 than a box of chocolates made by man. We 

 must never lose sight of the fact that na- 

 ture, set at work by the Creator, has never 

 been equaled by man. 



It is interesting and amusing to read of 

 the number of things which are supposed to 

 be substitutes for the drink habit. We are 

 assured that the moving pictures provide a 

 diversion for the man who is accustomed to 

 spend an hour in the neighborhood saloon; 

 coffee houses, tea houses, and recreation cen- 

 ters are proposed; we are told that the sale 

 of candy will be enormously increased now 

 that the country has gone dry. I have no 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stanq' Puerden 



1 



doubt that there 

 is ti'utli in all 

 these prophecies 

 and that in ad- 

 dition nearly all 

 other legitimate 

 business will 

 show a decided 

 increase. And 

 here is where 

 Mr. Beekeeper should get busy; for if sugar 

 and candy help to allay the craving for 

 beer, or something stronger, honey will do 

 the work still better. There, I shall not call 

 honey a beer substitute, but if beer drinkers 

 could have honey every day I believe the 

 craving for beer would be much less, pro- 

 vided of course that the rest of the ration 

 was well balanced. At this point someone 

 may catch me by saying that a man fed a 

 well-balanced ration is not going to crave 

 beer anyway. I am willing to concede that 

 the drink habit is not likely to be formed if 

 the man has always been fed a balanced ra- 

 tion; but after the pernicious habit has been 

 acquired his system craves something which 

 yields energy quickly, and what could be 

 better than honey, which, in addition to be- 

 ing a quick source of energy, is rich in solu- 

 ble minerals and has not been deprived of 

 its vitamines by so-called refining processes? 

 Lest you think me over-enthusiastic, let 

 me tell you that for years back it has been 

 recognized that the steel workers in and 

 around Pittsburg have been great users of 

 honey. They have used it to such an extent 

 that Pittsburg is known as one of the best 

 honey markets in the country. A man who 

 is in a position to know informs me that 

 the managers of the steel corporations have 

 done all possible to encourage the generous 

 use of honey among their employes, beliex - 

 ing that it lessened the cra^'ing for strong 

 drinks. And this was long before country- 

 wide prohibition was regai'ded as anything 

 but a remote possibility. 



Honey as a Breakfast Food. 



As honey in the Puerden household is re- 

 garded as indispensable to the ideal break- 

 fast, as much a breakfast food as grapefruit, 

 cereals, toast, or bacon and eggs, I have been 

 glad to see how many other people are be- 

 ginning to agree with us. In the first place, 

 you may have noticed how often dietitians 

 include honey in their breakfast menus. In 

 a daily paper of a near-by city, which has 

 been conducting a menu contest for some 

 years back, about half the breakfast menus 

 include honey. And prominent food adver- 

 tisers are wont to advise the use of honey 

 with their particular product, especially if 

 the food they are advertising is known as 

 a breakfast food. Even a small amount of 

 honey for breakfast helps to overcome that 

 disagreeable feeling of faintness and ex- 

 haustion with which so many are afflicted 

 in the latter part of the morning. Such peo- 

 ple are apt to have little appetite early in 

 the morning and are therefore not apt to 



