Page:Wood - Foods of the Foreign-Born.djvu/113

Rh of a family may be reached through the daily chores of the household.

There is need for enlightenment among Americans regarding the practical utility and enjoyability of many foreign foods. A study of "Foreign Foods Which Would Improve the American Dietary" would be an Americanizing agent of practical value for the use of Home Economic sections of Women's Clubs and similar organizations. American diet would be improved and (psychologically speaking) be enriched; and many Americans would be given a sympathetic appreciation and understanding of our foreign-born population through the practical medium of the kitchen and the dinner table.

An International Menu is needed for use in institutions of all kinds receiving any number of foreign-born. An "International Menu" is one which is not confined to "American" dishes, but which contains each day at least one dish especially adapted to at least one of the nationalities or races represented among the patients. This would demonstrate to the patients that the dietitian had considered them and would have a good psychological effect which would of itself help them physically. Thus in a menu for an institution with many different race groups, a characteristic Italian dish might be included one day, a Polish dish at another meal, or on another day soon thereafter, and similarly the next day might remember the Jewish or Russian patients. So during each week they would all be better satisfied, both physically and mentally. Such an "International Menu" need not make the diet less acceptable to the native-born Americans. It would give greater variety and would help the dietitians in their endless search for something new. As must be borne in mind, the practical value of