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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1917 



I 



N 



the spring 

 a young 



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OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stanq' Puerden 



man's fancy 

 lightly turns to 

 thoughts of 

 love." That is 

 u n d u b t eclly 

 true of young 

 men; but in the 



spring this woman's fancy strongly turns 

 to thoughts of gardening. Give me credit, 

 Mr. Editor, for writing two pages right at 

 the beginning of the garden season without 

 mentioning so much as a seed. It was a 

 triumph of will power over inclination. 

 " Breathes there a woman with soul so dead, 

 who to herself hath never said, ' this is my 

 own, my plant I raised?' " It makes little 

 diiferenee what kind of plant. It may be a 

 rare flower, it may be a tomato-plant; but 

 if you planted the tiny seed, saw it come to 

 life, and cared for it thru its different 

 stages to maturity, the joy is there. You 

 worked in partnership with the Creator. 



But even if the love of gardening was not 

 born in you, don't fail to raise something 

 this year. Every bit of unused soil should 

 be set at work helping to feed the world 

 and reduce your own food-bills. If you 

 simply cannot make a garden yourself, let 

 some garden-loving neighbor use your land 

 on shares. You don't know what a feeling 

 of satisfaction it gives one, when parsnips 

 and vegetable oysters are retailing at eight 

 cents a pound, to know that you have two 

 long rows of them in the thawing garden. 

 But that is nothing to the bliss you feel 

 when you go to your back yard in May and 

 pull up delicious, pearl-like green onions, 

 crisp radishes, and cut young, tender as- 

 paragus. True, they may have been at the 

 grocery four or five weeks earlier; but the 

 flavor of the wilted, imported things was 

 not the same at all, and the price sent 

 groeei-y bills up in jumps. 



Then in June there are green peas. Last 

 year there was an article in an otherwise 

 good magazine by a famous New York chef. 

 He undertook to tell how to cook green 

 peas. His instructions were to boil them 

 rapidly in a large quantity of water, and, 

 when done, to pour off the water. That is 

 what I would call a culinary crime. His 

 further directions were to sweeten them and 

 ser\'e them with some kind of sauce. His 

 idea in treating them in that way was to 

 preserve the gxeen color. The poor igno- 

 rant city man probably never ate green peas 

 fresh from the garden, cooked before they 

 had a chance to lose a particle of nature's 

 delicious aroma and sweetness. 



The following is my recipe for cook- 



1 



E 



ing peas : First, 

 pick them your- 

 self in your own 

 garden. Shell 

 them immediate- 

 ly and put them 

 on to cook in a 

 very little boil- 

 ing water — just 

 enough to keep them from scorching. Sim- 

 mer them gently until tender. This is very 

 im2>ortant, for, if alloAved to boil rapidly, 

 much of the flavor is driven oft' into the air 

 and wasted. When they are done, twenty to 

 forty minutes, depending upon the age of 

 the peas, dress them with a little cream, 

 milk, and butter, or butter alone, if pre- 

 ferred ; season, reheat, and serve immediate- 

 ly. You will have a dish fit for a king. 

 To sweeten them would be carrying coals 

 to Newcastle. 



If you prefer to gather the peas in the 

 cool of the evening, don't, please don't, put 

 them on the cellar floor until morning. 

 Shell them and parboil them immediately. 

 Then when you reheat them for dinner the 

 next day they will be almost, if not quite, 

 as good as when eaten the same day. 



If you are one of those unfortunates who 

 live in a city and have to buy your peas at 

 a grocery or market, sweeten them with 

 honey. It is nature's own sweet, and more 

 like that of the fresh vegetable. 



Never waste the water in which delicate- 

 flavored vegetables have been cooked. If 

 you do not wish to use it with the vegetables, 

 start them with very little water and cook 

 until it is all absorbed ; or, if you must pour 

 it off, save it for enriching soup. Do not be 

 guilty of feeding valuable mineral salts to 

 the kitchen drain-pii^e. The drain-pijie 

 will not be benefited, and you will be rob- 

 bing your family of necessaiy food ele- 

 ments. 



For the past few years writers on health 

 have been laying great stress on the impor- 

 tance of iDlenty of minei'al salts in our diet, 

 and also the necessity of sufficient bulk, 

 roughage, or cellulose. Fine white flour, 

 polished rice, commercial corn meal, and 

 many of the breakfast foods have been de- 

 prived of valuable mineral substances as 

 well as the desired cellulose in the process 

 of manufacture. We are told repeatedly 

 that our bones, teeth, and nei"\'es are being 

 starved by the modern too concentrated 

 foods, and that life itself is often shorten- 

 ed for the same reason. Vegetables, if 

 properly cooked, are rich in soluble min- 

 erals, and also have plenty of bulk. A cer- 

 tain sanitarium, justly celebrated for its 

 . success in treating disease by attention to 



