The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-07-08
WHAT TO EAT.

Meat, of course, has been the answer
heretofore. No nation, not cannibal or
Esquimaux, has ever been such meat
eating people as the Americans. But,
with beef. our great staple meat, at Ii
or IA cents a pound on the hoof, and at
from 20 to 80 cents at wholesale, and
from % to 35 cents pound at retail, it
is quite plain that the common people
the well-to-do, even-cannot afford to
indulge very freely in beef; and as all
other kinds of meat are proportionably
high, and as even fish is very dear, it
becomes serious and difficult question
for people in moderate circumstances to
answer-What shall we eats How
shall we live? We don't know why
meat should be so dear. The excuse
has been that gold was so high. But
with gold at SLIP, meats are as high as
they were when gold was at S1.30, or
even higher.
Those who must have meats, and yet
cannot afford to pay on an average %
cents pound for fresh beef, must re-
sort to the prepared and imported ex
tract of meat. This can be bought in
our markets for shilling or less per
pound; that is, can of the extract of
beef, containing the substance of eight
pounds or more of South American
beef, can be bought for about as many
shillings. This meat, if properly pre-
pared and put up, is nutritious, health
full and palatabIe, and is oue-third less
expensive than fresh beef bought in our
markets. Then, economy in cooking
and serving meats must be tried. Many
families waste half as much as they eat,
by their slovenly way of cooking, and
dishing, and using meats. Strong, nour-
ishing soups may be more freely used
or rather stews of meat or vegetables,
against which many people have an alb
surd prejudice, as neither nice or gen.
teel. Properly made, they are extreme
ly nice, besides being nutritious and
economical and as for the gentility of
the thing, that is all in the eye-all nom
sense.
But then our people must learn to de-
pend less on meat; and to eat farina-
ceous and vegetable food and fruit more
freely. 1t is a mistaken notion that
men cannot work without being glutted
with meat. During half the year at
least our laboring men would be better
able to work and endure on food large
| ly composed of wheat, and rye, and
| oats, and rice, and beans, and peas, and
vegetables, and fruit, than on a diet
mainly of meat; and all the year round
it would, no doubt, be good for them
and all o, hers, to eat less meat-much
| less than is now common among us.
| What greatly aggravates the expens-
iveness of living in our cities is the
clearinghouse, hotel and restaurant
mode of living, pursued by so many
persons. Hotel and restaurant living
particularly are the most expensive
kinds of living. The cooking and serv-
ing food ought not and need not cost
| three or four times as much as the raw
material; yet it is estimated that what
costs the restaurant fifty or sixty cents,
costs the consumer from two dollars to
two dollars and fifty cents. And this
system keeps up the high prices of meat,
and makes it difficult for a poor man to
buy a small bit of meat at our large
markets; the dealer declining to cut up
into small lots, when the hotels and res
taurants are ready to take it in large lots.
Thus this gregarious method of feed
ing, while it is breaking up home living
and destroying home manners among
those who indulge in it, is, at the same
time, greatly enhancing the cost of liv-
ing.
A return to the simpler family habits
of our fathers, when men, women and
children were content to live in small
quarters, on plain food, prepared mainly
by the hands OF the mistress of the house
and her daughters, would do much to
diminish the alarming responsiveness OF
living, while it would tend to preserve
from utter corruption the manners and
morals of the nation.-ITGeeles: