368 BILLS OF FARE. 



they must taste good, and there must be plenty of variety from day to 

 day; and last, and this is the hardest point of all, we are to do 

 this for the sum of thirteen cents per person daily. 



" I am going to consider myself as talking to- the mother of a family 

 who has six mouths to feed, and no more money than this to do it with. 

 Perhaps this woman has never kept accurate account, and does not know 

 whether she spends more or less than this sum. She very likely has her 



* flush ' days and her * poor ' days, according to the varying amount of 

 the family earnings; and it may be a comfort to her to know that if 

 she could average these days and plan a little better she can feed her 

 family nicely on this sum. 



" A few facts as to what the writer knows to have been done in this 

 line will not be amiss. I knew a family of six belonging to one of the 

 professional classes, half grown people and half children, that lived for 

 a year on an average of eleven cents per person daily, and no one would 

 have said that they did not live well enough ; and they had meat about 

 four days out of the seven ; there was always cake on the supper table, 

 and they used plenty of fruit. 



"Here is an average bill of fare: Breakfast milk toast, fried 

 potatoes, coffee ; dinner soup made of shank of beef, fried liver, rice 

 w r ith potatoes ; supper bread and butter, fried mush, stewed pears, 

 and cake. Next day there was pressed beef made from the soup meat 

 chopped and flavored, and next there was cheap fish nicely fried. The 

 head of this household was a skillful economist, absolutely no mistakes 

 were made in cooking, and not a scrap was wasted. She had a long 

 list of simple dishes at her command, and she specially studied variety. 



* I abandon even a favorite dish for weeks,' she said, ' if any one tires 

 of it.' I give this as a sample of what I know to have been done by 

 a highly respectable family in a city of small size in one of our Eastern 

 States. 



" It must be mentioned that the price on which this family lived in 

 comfort could not have been so low as it was but for one great help, 

 they had a garden that furnished green vegetables and a little fruit. 

 But then most every family has some special advantage that would 

 lower the rate somewhat ; one buys butter or fruit advantageously of 

 friends in the country, another can buy at wholesale when staples are 

 cheaper, still another may be able to keep a few fowls, and so on. 

 Numerous instances could be brought to prove that the food for a family 

 can be purchased in a raw condition for the sum per head for which 



