may be unwholesome in summer. Sausages, for instance, are always suspicious when 

 the weather is warm, owing to the favourable soil they provide for the multiplication 

 of putrefactive bacteria ; whereas this risk is practically absent when there are several 

 degrees of frost, as a low temperature impedes the growth of micro-organisms. 



Again, instruction is needful to show why food which is suitable to the hard 

 outdoor worker, such as pork, molasses and beans, is entirely unsuited to the city 

 clerk, who passes his time in an overheated office ; for whose requirements a lunch of 

 fruit and rice-milk, or a lightly cooked egg with bread and butter, would amply 

 suffice. 



Knowledge of the process of digestion is required before the evils of a monotonous 

 diet are understood. 



Food may in itself be nutritious, abundant, and well cooked ; yet the consumer 

 will, sooner or later, lose all relish for his meals and fall a victim to dyspepsia in one 

 of its myriad forms, unless there be variety of flavour and form. 



SOME RESULTS OF MONOTONOUS FOOD. 



The craving for a fillip to the palate is one dominant cause of drunkenness. An 

 exaggerated consumption of pickles and sauces, of candies or of fruit, are frequent 

 indications of this failure on the part of the cook to vary the character of her dishes. 

 The craving for change has led even to the voluntary taking of nauseous drugs, which 

 occurred so conspicuously at an industrial school for boys that an investigation as to 

 the cause was undertaken. The unnatural taste was traced to the deadly monotony of 

 the dietary, which was designed to fulfil all the needs of growing lads, except this 

 important feature of judiciously varied flavour. 



not in the use of artificial means, such as highly flavoured sauces, vinegar, or pickles, 

 but by the employment of vegetables, herbs, small quantities of different spices, slight 

 changes in the proportions of perhaps the same ingredients, or even in presenting the 

 same dish baked one day, stewed or steamed another, and so on. 



ASSOCIATION BETWEEN FLAVOUR AND DIGESTION. 



Man}' housewives have noted the brightening eyes and smiles of pleasure associated 

 with the appearance on their tables of an unfamiliar or a favourite dish ; but few cooks 

 seem aware that the watering mouths and sniffs of satisfaction, excited by savoury 

 odours from the kitchen, are so many aids to digestion and promoters of efficient work 

 at home and at school. 



SOME REASONS WHY MEALS ARE MONOTONOUS. 



The thoughtful mother, permeated with the bracing spirit of Puritanism, dreads 

 to foster greediness by a too frequent tickling of the family palate. The thoughtless 

 housekeeper skimps her kitchen-work, from failure to realize its bearing on health and 

 happiness. The tired woman shirks the extra trouble occasioned by consultation with 

 her cookery-book before she plans the day's meals. 



FOOD-PRESERVATION AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN WHOLESOME 



VARIETY. 



The country housewife has acquired the habit of preserving certain foodstuffs, 

 plentiful at one season of the year, in order to make good inconvenient deficiencies at 

 Another berries, for instance, or pork. The town housekeeper is tempted, in spite of 

 herself, to introduce some variety into her bill of fare, owing to the produce of the 

 whole world being displayed in most attractive forms before her eyes, at her favourite 

 store. 



