Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/172

158 poisonous. Fish is a food which you can get more good from, considering the price, than if you bought meat, and the most nourishing fish and the cheapest are the herring mackeral. Pieces of fish, buttered, can be deliciously steamed or baked if laid between two plates over a saucepan of water.

Oatmeal.—Oats, too, are full of value; a pound and a half a day will keep a hard-working man, for oatmeal increases the power of the muscles, and is rich in bone and flesh-forming materials. What you can get out of oats for 5 cents would cost you 75 cents in lean beef. Oats give increased mental vigour and vitality, as they have so much nerve and brain nourishment in them.

Oatmeal should be kept fresh in a shut case or package.

If you think your brain requires a fillip, eat plenty of beans, but they must be very much cooked, and should be well buttered.

Vegetables.—Of vegetables I should like to say they can scarcely be too much cooked. Wash well in salted water; let leafy ones have a swim to get rid of grass-hoppers and caterpillars and sand, then put them into boiling salted water and take off the lid. Roots may be allowed covers.

Peel and slice your onions under water or at a tap.

I once watched a grand chef cooking potatoes, and he told me that the best of the potato lies next the skin, so he never cuts it, but he peels his potatoes on a fork after boiling. The cunning cook boils a bunch of mint with the potatoes.