Page:Wood - Foods of the Foreign-Born.djvu/106

90 in Jewish families, and it is with difficulty that a taste for the simpler foods is cultivated.

Jewish women have long known how to use honey, molasses, and syrup in place of sugar. Sugar has often been a luxury in the countries from which they come. They have also been fond of rye, barley, oats, and buck-wheat. These cereals have been used both in puddings and soups.

Probably no other people have so many kinds of "sours" as the Jews. On the other hand, they have little knowledge of stewed fruits but have many kinds of rich, preserved fruits. All these highly-seasoned foods they have in abundance.

In the Jewish sections of our large cities there are storekeepers whose only goods are pickles. They have cabbages pickled whole, shredded, or chopped and rolled in leaves; peppers pickled; also string beans; cucumbers, sour, half sour, and salted; beets; and many kinds of meat and fish. This excessive use of pickled foods destroys the taste for milder flavors, causes irritation, and renders assimilation more difficult.

In prescribing diets for the Jewish people, it might be helpful both to the person who prescribes and to the patient for whom the diet is prescribed to remember that all their foods may be classified under three heads: (1) meat or fish; (2) milk and its products; and (3) neutrals. Meat and milk are never mixed. Neutrals may be used with meat or with milk products, but never with both in the same meal.

The Jewish children suffer from too many pickles, too few vegetables, and too little milk. Because of their dietary laws, they cannot drink milk with their meals if they have meat. Therefore mid-morning and