CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD 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 liver; 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 carne, 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 itself very little nutri- 
ment, but is useful for soaking bread and adding to foods which 
otherwise would be too dry. 
Such 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. 
