Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-07-20
Summer Cookery.

Inc appetite OF the average working
man varies but little with the seasons,
and the same is true of the healthful
growing child. When dinner time comes
both are eager to do the full meal am.
pie justice. Those not engaged in reg
ular industries, invalids, and persons
of abnormal or perverted appetite, are
irregular in their demands for food and
in their satisfaction in it, and require
special catering to make them happy
at their meals. With all classes, how
ever, there is decided difference be-
tween the foods eaten with relish in
summer and those that are eaten with
relish in winter. Fruits and cooling
foods naturally take the place of the
carbonaceous dishes that are required
IN cold weather. Fat meats are at a
discount and vegetables are more in
favor. Iced beverages are grateful and
cold dishes in demand.
The farmers wife or the average
housekeeper not respon sible for farm
work or workers may very properly
take advantage of the natural require
ments for food in summer to throw the
larger part of her cooking into the early
morning, and SO avoid roasting herself
over the stove at midday and in the
afternoon. For good digestion it
is necessary that the contents of the
stomach should be kept at blood
heat, and to secure this, when cold
dishes are eaten, cold drinks should be
avoided, before, after and while ut
meals. If beverages are required, and
they should always be sparingly used
when food is taken, they may be served
hot. Cold food and hot drinks equalize
the temperature in the same way as do
hot foods and cold drinks, and it will be
observed that those who are fond of hav-
ing their dishes served hot usually cool
them by imbibing large quantities of
cold water, a very unhygienic thing to
do. Here it may be remarked that iced
water or milk INDUCED in too freely has
often permanently impaired the digest
i've power of the stomach, first by chill
ing the arteries of the stomach and then
by requiring too much work of them in
their disabled condition. Hence when
cold drinks are taken they should be in
moderate quantity and long enough be-
fore eating to permit the arteries of the
stomach to resume their normal tone
and be ready to receive the food and
dispose of it. There are innocent vege-
table flames that may with propriety
take the place of artificial heat in slim
ulating the stomach to its work, but
those in the shape of condiments and
relishes should be used sparingly.
1t may be well to state that the object
of this article is to tighten, if possible,
the labors of the farmers wife who has
three hearty meals day to prepare for
a number of farm hands, and this in
addition TO all the other work that the
season brings her. While those she
caters for work under the hot rays of
the sun, she works in the hotter kitchen,
and there is no question that those who
have tried both kinds of work find the
former more agreeable and less exhaust
ing than the latter. Raking in the hay
field with Maud Muller on summers
day is infinitely less irksome and less
tiresome work than cooking or ironing
in company with Maud's mother and
hot stove in a close kitchen. There is
n fiery energy and stimulus communi.
Gated by the direct action of the solar
ray that is quite lost in its transmission
through coal and wood where it has
been stored up. In this climate our
houses are built for cold weather and
not for warm, and there are, therefore,
fewer facilities for keeping cool in sum-
mer than for keeping warm in winter.
An ideal summer kitchen would be
quite open to the weather with provision
for protection from the storms that
sometimes sweep over us in hot
weather.
The list of cold dishes that are at once
appetizing and nutritious is very long
one. Any meat that is good hot is good
also cold; so of eggs cooked in some
ways; so of most Kinds of bread and OF
many kinds of buildings and pies and
other desserts; so also of many kinds OF
vegetables. Potato salad is standing
and very popular dish in our restaur-
ants; beans and pork are served cold;
so are macaroni and rice and the
varieties of mush. The reason why
foods when cold do not assimilate as
readily and quickly as when warm is
that they are cold and must after being
taken into the stomach be raised to the
temperature of the blood before they
begin to digest. Hence the more
slowly they are eaten the better. A
quick boiling of cold meal will in
variably be followed by heaviness and
often by indigestion. which slow masti.
cation and reasonable intervals between
mouthfuls would have entirely pre-
vented. A cup of hot chocolate, or
warm ome.et, or even cup Of hot
water (Which is growing in favor as
beverage), is easily prepared and will
lend sufficient heat to make cold meal
very palatable so far as temperature is
concerned.-M Y. Tribune.