Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/409

 ," pie-crust, or pastry, whether baked or boiled, consist simply of farinaceous food rendered stronger nutriment by the addition of fatty matter.

In the same way almost every national dish might be analyzed up to the pot-au-feu of our neighbors, the right management of which combines nutritious quality with the abundant aroma and flavor of fresh vegetables which enter so largely into this economical and excellent mess.

It will be apparent that, up to this point, our estimate of the value of these combinations has been limited, or almost so, by their physiological completeness as foods, and by their economical value in relation to the resources of that great majority of all populations, which is poor. But when the inexorable necessity for duly considering economy has been complied with, the next aim is to render food as easily digestible as possible, and agreeable to the senses of taste, smell, and sight.

The hard laborer with simple diet, provided his aliment is complete and fairly well cooked, will suffer little from indigestion. He can not be guilty, for want of means, of eating too much, fertile source of deranged stomach with those who have the means; physical labor being also in many circumstances the best preventive of dyspepsia. "Live on sixpence a day and earn it," attributed to Abernethy as the sum of his dietary for a gluttonous eater, is a maxim of value, proved by millions. But for the numerous sedentary workers in shops, offices, in business and professions of all kinds, the dish must not only be "complete"; it must be so prepared as to be easily digestible by most stomachs of moderate power, and it should also be as appetizing and agreeable as circumstances admit.

On questioning the average middle-class Englishman as to the nature of his food, the all but universal answer is, "My living is plain, always roast and boiled"—words which but too clearly indicate the dreary monotony, not to say unwholesomeness, of his daily food; while they furthermore express his satisfaction, such as it is, that he is no luxurious feeder, and. that, in his opinion, he has no right to an indigestion. Joints of beef and mutton, of which we all know the very shape and changeless odors, follow each other with unvarying precision, six roast to one boiled, and have done so ever since he began to keep house some five-and-twenty years ago! I am not sanguine enough to suppose that this unbroken order which rules the dietary of the great majority of British families of moderate and even of ample means will be disturbed by any suggestions of mine. Nevertheless, in some younger households, where habits followed for want of thought or knowledge have not yet hardened into law, there may be a disposition to adopt a healthier diet and a more grateful variety of aliment. For variety is not to be obtained in the search for new animal food. Often as the lament is heard that some new meat is not