Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/76

 never used as food in India; and so, properly speaking, they should not be included in the "Foods of India". Now, before I come to the last division of my subject, I should request you to bear in mind the following divisions that I have made: first, corn for bread-making, e.g., wheat, millet, etc.; second, pulse, for dal or soup-making; third, green vegetables; fourth, fruits; and, fifth and last, nuts.

Of course, I am not going to give you recipes for cooking these different kinds of foods. That is beyond my power. I shall tell you the general way in which they are cooked for their proper uses. Diet cure or hygiene is a comparatively recent discovery in England. In India we have been practising this from time out of mind. Native physicians no doubt, use drugs, too, but they depend more upon change of diet than upon the efficacy of the drugs they prescribe. They would ask you to take salt in certain cases; in many, they would ask you to abstain from acid foods, and so on, every food having its medical value. As for the corn for bread-making, it is the most important article of diet. For convenience, I have called the preparation made of flour bread, but cake would be a better name for it. I shall not relate the whole process of making it, but I may just say that we do not throw away the bran. These cakes are always fresh made, and generally eaten hot with clarified butter. They are to the Indians what meat is to the English. The quantity of food a person eats is measured according to the number of cakes he eats. Pulse and vegetables are left out of account. You may make a meal without pulse, without vegetables, but never without cakes. Different preparations, too are made of the various kinds of corns, but they are merely cakes in disguise.

Pulse for soup-making, e.g., peas, lentils, etc., is prepared by simply boiling it in water. But an addition of innumerable condiments makes it a most delicious dish. The art of cooking has full play in these foods. I have known peas spiced with salt, pepper, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, and such like. The proper use of pulse is to help you to eat the cakes. Medically, it is not supposed good to take too much of the pulses. A remark on rice here would not be out of place. As I have already said, rice is used for bread-making, especially in Bengal. Some of the doctors trace the diabetes from which the Bengalees very often suffer to this source. No one in India would call rice a nourishing food. It is the food of the rich, i.e., of people who do not want to work. Labouring men very rarely use rice. Physicians put their feverish patients on rice. I have suffered from fev er (no doubt by breaking