lahe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
581 
Evaporated and Dehydrated Food 
We Need Them All This Year 
Part I. 
It should be the patriotic duty of every 
housewife aud every chef to become fa¬ 
miliar with the preparation and use of 
evaporated and dehydrated foods. While 
the Biu'eau of Chemistry of the United 
States Department of Agriculture is to 
be commended for its work on the preser¬ 
vation of fruits and vegetables by drying, 
too little emphasis has been given to the 
ways of using the so-called dried or evap¬ 
orated product. If the advantages of the 
evaporation or the dehydration system, 
namely, the avoidance of excessive freight¬ 
ing costs on the water content of fruits 
and vegetables, a reduction to one-fifth or 
one-tenth of the original bulk of products 
and a removal of the liability of perish¬ 
able foods to spoilage, are to be a dis¬ 
tinctive asset during the present war, as 
well as the peace which is to follow, the 
public must know the merits of the com¬ 
mercial evaporated aud dehydrated pro¬ 
ducts. 
The Terms Defined. —The terms 
“dried,” “evaporated” and “dehydrated,” 
or “desiccated,” as applied to fruit and 
vegetables, although having practically the 
same meaning, are more or less confusing 
to the general public. Dried products 
are now commonly regarded as those from 
which the moisture has been removed by 
exposure of the product to the sun, or to 
artificial heat from the kitchen stove or 
range. “Evaporated” refers to fruits 
from which the moisture has been driven 
by heat from a furnace stove in a mod¬ 
ern evaporating plant. The term may re¬ 
fer to vegetable products preserved in the 
same way. Dehydrated proilucts, fruits 
or vegetables, are classed as those from 
which the moisture has been expelled 
more rapidly than from those which are 
dried or evaporated. In the dehydration 
process, the prepared material is ex- 
po.sed to steam-heated air forced rapidly 
through a di’ying chambex’. Sevei:al of 
the dehydration systems are patented, 
while many othei’S have patents pending. 
In reality* the two former terms, dried 
and evaporated, are applicable to pi-oducts 
handled by the latter system, although in 
the dehydrated product the cell structure 
is more likely to remain intact. Any 
dried, evaporated or dehydrated material 
should be so pi-eserved that it will resume 
its normal shape, color and quality when 
placed in water previous to being cooked 
for use. 
The System.s De.scrired. —Oven or 
sun-dried products of some sort should 
be available during the Winter season 
when ripe fruits and vegetables have been 
over-plentiful from the garden or farm 
during the past season. Quality of these 
products may be equal to or better than 
that of those which have been evaporated 
or dehydrated on a commei’cial scale, if 
proper precautions have been taken to 
control temperatures used and to prevent 
contamination fi'om dust and^ flies while 
the produce is being dried. Ways of pre¬ 
paring this material do not dift'er from 
those of preparing evaporated or dehy¬ 
drated foods. Sun-di\ving has not been 
found a practical means of drying fruits 
and vegetables except in sections of rel¬ 
atively low humidity and high percentage 
of sunshiny days, at the pi-oper season of 
the year. Such sections are confined to 
the Southwestern Ignited States, and ai'e 
widely known as centers of the commei-- 
cial prune and peach drying industry of 
the country. 
Army Rations. —Evaporated fruits 
and vegetables, mainly fruits, are pro¬ 
ducts of the kiln type of plants wliich 
have stood the practical test in regard 
to cost of operation and to quality of 
certain prodxicts. Apples and berries, as 
well as many kinds of vegetables, are 
handled satisfactorily in the kiln evap- 
oratoi-s. Since the outbreak of the pres¬ 
ent world war, immense quantities of 
evaporated vegetables, preserved in the 
kiln plants of We.stern New York State 
and sever.al of the provinces of Canada 
liave been shipped to France and Eng¬ 
land and used as an army ration. Should 
the present food crisis in our country be¬ 
come seriously acute owing to a shortage 
of cars for moving green produce, or 
should our commissary department see fit 
to use evaporated products as an ariny 
ration. New York St.ate is fortunate in 
having about .500 good commercial plants 
ready for operation at the first call. Crops 
of potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, 
onions and celery may be had within easy 
hauling distance fi-om each plant in nor¬ 
mal seasons. Dther plants ready for use 
are found in Arkansas, Southern Missouri 
and Virginia. 
The Kiln Evaporator. —In the kiln 
evaporator, products prepai'ed for pro¬ 
cessing are spi-ead out on a slatted floor 
below which is located a hot-air furnace. 
Heat which radiates from the furnace 
stove and pipes creates a warm air cur¬ 
rent through the floor and the produce 
aud out at the large roof ventilator lo- 
<*ated directly over the center of each kiln. 
Produce spi'ead to a depth of 4-10 inches 
on the kiln floor dries at a temperature 
of 110-150 degrees Fahrenheit in 7-24 
hours. Temperature and time required 
differ with kind of produce, its thickness 
on the kiln, the number of times it is 
turned during the pivcess, the moisture 
and atmospheric conditions and the effi¬ 
ciency of the plant. e.specially of the fur¬ 
nace and the furnace room. On being 
removed from the kilns, pi-oducts aj-e 
heaped in a storage room at ordinary tem¬ 
perature. to undergo a sweating or curing 
process; that is, the remaining moisture 
content is as uniformly distributed as pos¬ 
sible by shoveling the product over aud 
back two or three times per week. 
Dehydration. —The dehydration- sys¬ 
tem though in an early stage of develop¬ 
ment, is a means of turning out first- 
class finished products from all kinds of 
green pi-oduce. This system consists of 
steam-heated chambers into which pre¬ 
pared fruits or vegetables, spread thinly 
on trays, are placed until dry. Wliile the 
chambers usually have a fan attxichment 
or a movable deflector of some sort to 
keep the heated air in motion, one or two 
systems are producing superior products 
without using such a contrivance. In¬ 
itial cost of a dehydration plant, together 
with a large amount of labor needed in 
loading and unloading the ti'ays, favor a 
wider use of the kiln evaporators. How¬ 
ever, the ability to turn out a first-class 
product in one-half to three-fourths less 
time, and this without the use of sulphur 
dioxide or other bleaching agents, points 
to a successful future for the dehydration 
system. 
Any Sy.stem Worthy of Considera¬ 
tion. —Any one of the thi-ee systems is 
worthy of careful consideration. During 
the present congestion in freight traffic, 
it seems unwise to ask that six or eight 
tons of water be moved with every ton 
of real food; for. it should be noted, the 
water content of the various kinds of 
i^ioukiiKj the Dried Fruit 
fi-uits and vegetables ranges between 75 
and J)5 per cent. Fresh tomatoes are 04.4 
per cent water, celery 04. onions O.”, 
spinach 92, cabbage 00. carrots S,S, .sxiuash 
86, apples, 84.6, sweet corn 81, and po¬ 
tatoes 78. A means of reducing this 
water content, against adding water, and, 
in some cases sugar, as is added in can¬ 
ning, will cut the costs of transportation, 
reduce the bulk of the product for conve¬ 
nience in common and cold storage .and 
solve the “container question.” Dried or 
dehydrated products keep nicely in par¬ 
affined or pai-chment lined pasteboard con¬ 
tainers, since the mpisture content has 
been sufficiently reduced to pi’event bac¬ 
terial action. Thus, we see that the high 
cost of glass containers may be avoided 
and a large amount of tin plate now used 
in the manufacture of canners’ tins may 
be relea.sed for use in a more direct way 
to help win the war. 
Not Emer(!Ency Foods. —It shoxild be 
kept in mind that evapoi’ated or dehy¬ 
drated foods are not emei’gency foods, as 
we commonly speak of canned foods. One 
cannot open the container, pour the con¬ 
tents into a pan, heat them through and 
serve. To use dehydrated products, po¬ 
tatoes, spinach, sweet corn or “Julienne” 
•soup, the housewife must plan on one 
day for the next. I*roducts must be 
soaked in water from three to 10 hours, 
usually over night, that they may re¬ 
sume their natural shape and appear¬ 
ance. Owing to this fact they may not 
gain the popularity of the present-day 
canned goods xuitil the housewife or the 
chef has made their preparation a matter 
of some little attention. 
Products Worth Trying. — “Juli¬ 
enne,” a soup mixture made up of car- 
rot.s, onions, turnips, cabbage, celery or 
other products, should not be pas.sed by 
until it has been given a fair trial by the 
housewife. Vegetables used in making 
this mixture are evaporated or dehydi-ated 
separately, since different temperatures 
and amounts of time are needed to turn 
out a good product from each. Several 
brands of “.Tulienue” contain matui-ed 
beans or peas in vai\ving amounts. One 
firm uses evaporated products, carrots, 
turnips, potatoes aud onions, at the rate 
of 3, 2K>, 2l^ and 1 pound I'espectively. 
with ,3 pounds each of imiture beans and 
peas in making up each 15 pounds of the 
.Tulienne mixtui’e. As with fresh vege¬ 
tables, the soup ingredients may vary 
according to taste and to different pro¬ 
ducts available, care being taken that the 
nutritive value is kept at or above par. 
Ingredients used are thoi’oughly mixed 
and ground to gether. i:. l. Kirkpatrick. 
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Used successfully p 
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