Photograph from Henry Ruschin 



BUSY BIDDY AND HER BROOD 



Sago is made from the pith of the sago 

 palm. This pith is ground into a meal, 

 and the extracted flour, when dried and 

 roasted, becomes the pearl sago of com- 

 merce. In many tropical countries the 

 bamboo takes the place of asparagus. 

 The tender shoots of the bamboo are 

 boiled, stewed, or pickled in vinegar. 



OTHER TROPICAL PRODUCTS 



Tapioca is prepared from the starch of 

 the cassava, a plant grown largely in 

 Brazil and other tropical countries. The 

 starch is extracted, putjnto shallow pans, 

 and subjected to a low heat. As the 

 moisture is driven off, the heat is grad- 

 ually raised until the mass forms into 

 irregularly shaped kernels. The cassava 

 plant is closely akin to our own milk- 

 weed. 



Cocoa is grown on trees which reach 

 an average height of from 20 to 30 feet. 

 The fruit is a pod possessing a thick, 

 tough rind inclosed in a mass of tissue. 

 Embedded in this tissue are some forty 

 or more cocoa beans covered with thin 



shells. The pods are picked when fully 

 ripe and the seeds extracted and sent to 

 market. 



SOME OF TPIE EARTH'S FREAK FOODS 



There is no accounting for the freaks 

 of human appetites. The Roosevelt story 

 of how he got the best work out of the 

 men with sharp-filed teeth by promising 

 them the choicest bits of raw hippopota- 

 mus and rhinoceros steak for speed in 

 skinning, will be recalled by many who 

 read the article in the magazines at the 

 time of his African expedition. Capt. 

 Robert H. Bartlett, commander of the 

 Karluk, which carried Stefansson to Arc- 

 tic waters, says that on his return from 

 Herald Island to northern Siberia, he 

 found raw Polar bear meat tasting better 

 than any piece de resistance he had ever 

 eaten in the home country. 



The Frenchman likes his snails and 

 wonders how any one who accepts oysters 

 can refuse them. In Canton, China, rats 

 sell for fifty cents a dozen, and a dog 

 steak brings more per pound than a leg 



85 



