CONVICT LABOE FOE EOAD WORK. 163 



Supper is a well-balanced meal made up from left-over meat and 

 vegetables with an occasional extra dish for variety. Butter is en- 

 tirely absent from the diet, the fat being furnished by the bacon and 

 the meats. 



Another western camp menu is as follows: 



Breakfast: 



Oatmeal or corn-meal mush. 



One of the following: Fried steak and onions; fried ham; breakfast bacon; 

 fried Uver; corned-beef hash. 



Potatoes (fried, stewed, or potato chips). 



Bread. 



Sirup. 



Coffee, with evaporated milk and sugar. 

 Dinner: 



Soup (four times a week), tomato, cream of tomato, rice and tomato, or split- 

 pea. 



One of the following: Roast beef with brown gravy, and macaroni and cheese; 

 short ribs of beef; boiled ribs of beef; stewed beef; braised ribs of beef with 

 tomato sauce. 



Potatoes (mashed, browned, or boiled). 



Pink or navy beans and rice, or turnips, or macaroni, or cabbage. 



Dessert (four times a week) : Apple roll, raisin roll, or cottage pudding. 

 Supper: 



Beef stew, or fried hash, or chili con came, or boiled beef. 



Always one of the following: Stewed navy beans, pink beans, or baked beans. 



Raw cheese and onions (two or three times a week) . 



Always one of the following: Stewed prunes; stewed apples; stewed raisins. 



Bread. 



Coffee. 



All of the food materials included in this diet are wholesome and 

 nutritious, but a much greater variety than is necessary is furnished 

 at each meal. The redundancy may best be discerned by comparison 

 with the preceding menu. 



Soup may be considered a luxury and is justified only when the 

 ingredients for its concoction are at hand and no extra expense is 

 incurred in its preparation. It contains in itseh very little nutri- 

 ment, but is useful for soaking bread and adding to foods which 

 otherwise would be too dry. 



wSuch combinations as meat and macaroni and cheese, or meat and 

 stewed dried beans, or meat and cheese are both costly and unnec- 

 essary. All these are the more expensive foods, rich in proteins, and 

 a sufficient quantity of one of these dishes at a meal will give fully 

 as much satisfaction. Then, too, when two or more rich protein 

 foods are provided at one meal the opportunity for variety is greatly 

 reduced — the greater the number of food materials served at one 

 time the oftener they must appear, and the more monotonous they 

 will become. 



