Page:Wood - Foods of the Foreign-Born.djvu/39

Rh Italian enjoys it. Moreover, he feels better satisfied when he has it in larger proportion with his macaroni and olive oil. Whereas it was used only once or twice a week in Italy, now it becomes a part of the daily dietary.

The family like vegetables, but to get from them the amount of satisfaction and bulk to which they are accustomed would incur too great an expense. Either they leave out both milk and meat and live largely on starches—bread, macaroni, and potatoes—and vegetables, or meat is used at the sacrifice of vegetables and milk. When the health of the family suffers through this great change in diet, one often hears, "My man no like his work; he sick," or "My child, he no good since he came here," always attributing the difficulty to the wrong cause. Eggs are another staple in the diet in Italy which is almost prohibited here because of the high prices, unless the family keep hens. Many of their soups require a large number of eggs, eggless soup being almost unknown to them.

These conditions and changes help to indicate the hard problem which the woman in the Italian family has to meet in this country. Doubtless she was unaccustomed to marketing in Italy, and generally has no one who has solved the problem to help her in this country; so she quite naturally follows in the footsteps of others who have known no more than she the way out into a dietary suited to the new needs of her family and to American supplies. The result is that a readjustment takes place without really making any plan for an adequate diet.

The raw food materials of the Italian diet, many of which were easily procured from their own farms, when combined in their home country ways furnished a cheap, well-balanced diet. In this country, because of greater