Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-06-17

d1Idil way SlbilSI III DOdTuIn0 houses OF
workmen's families, is from 90 to 80 cents
a day for the mere cost of the materials.
How much is wasted in bad cooking after
the material is bought each reader can
imagine for himself. The average cost
OF the materials in the cities of the east
is not far srom % cents day On
larger scale the inmates of the jails of
Massachusetts are supplied with food in
perfectly nutritious and suitable man
ner, the food being of excellent quality,
at cost of materials of from Is to 10
cents day
Probably no single man or woman in
Boston or New York could obtain at any
restaurant, or at any cheap boarding
house, suitable supply of nourishing
/ TODD, we'll cooked, at cost of less than
81 or 80 cents-probabiy more. In some
or the factory towns, like Lowell, mill
operatives, who have their rooms else
where but who get their meals in tide fac
tory boarding houses, are served with
good, nutritious meals three times a day,
at Sl.6O to $3.50 week, or from 2S to 80
cents day. But in these cases the d.
houses in which the meals are served be-
long to the factory corporations. and
yield little or no rent. 1t would. there
fore, seem to be difficult for single man
after having expended S12O, viz. for
rent, $50, clothing, $40, washing, SIS,
and heating say so, to obtain an EIDE
quate supply of food without coming TO
the ordinary rule of spending as much
for food as for all the rest of his subsist-
ence, or at least 1920 to $3.50. The meth
Cd would imply to q large extent the sub
stitution of the stew pan for the frying
pan, of oatmeal, farina and the like for
pale pie and doughnuts, and OF good,
well-made bread like that which is sold
in New York at three cents pound for
dyspeptic biscuit severed hot.
The trimmings of the best Joints of
meat are now thrown into scrap heap
and sold IN every market at from lie. to
lc pound, to be rendered into fat. |
am assured by market man in our prin-
cipal market here that enough meat Is
wasted eyeay day from that market to feed
1000 people or more. OF course. when
people become intelligent enough to make
a selection from this food. which is not
wasted, the price may rise in some meas
ure. But when that which is wasted is
substituted for sirlOin and rump steak the
price of the best cuts may be reduced.
This is the reason why the best cuts even
of American beef are cheaper in LOnon as
compared with the prices of New York
and Boston. The English know how to
make use of the coarse parts of beef and
mutton much better than we do. The
average of the whole beast Is higher in
price in England than it is here. We pay
the hlgest price for what we call the best
part, and we waste the rest, or else it is
sold at small price to keepers of jails,
to be served to persons in a form which
makes it better food than d of the work
ingmen outside the jails can secure for a
much higher cost. / have myself purchas-
ed this good meat which Is now wasted,
at lie. a pound, in parcels of ten pounds,
at which price the market man said he
would select any quantity at any time.
Adding to this 10 pints of water with suit
able seasoning, [ have a rich and nutri-
tious bouillon. Rejecting the bone and
leaving the stewed meat in the broth ten
pounds remained of very nutritious and
appetizing food, at a cost not exceeding
1919 cents for the ten pounds of food, in
Guiding the fuel with which it was pre-
pared. 1t was cooked in an air-tight yes
sci surrounded by hot water. In the
same vessel-a pine bOx-in which this
boull1on was prepared, there was cooked
at the same time pounds of solid beef
and in another vessel two pints of Oat-
meal in four pints of water, making in all
about 25 pounds of food material thor
oughly cooked with 1 cents worth of ker-
Osene oil burned in hand lamp. In
smaller vessel of the same kind 3 pounds
of solid meat can be cooked In its own
juice in one hour and a qurter, with &c
worth of oil burned in lamp, which may
also serve the purpose of lighting the
room while the cooking is going on.
The singular merit of this apparatus is
that very simple supply of food for a
large family may be put into the various
receptacles at night, the lamp may then
be lighted and in the morning everything
will be ready to be served. After the
chemical changes caused by heat are &C
complished, the further effect of the APP
plication of heat is merely to keep the
food hot, or to render it more tender if it
be tough meat. The walls of the vessel
being non conducting, the food will keep
hot for many hours after the lamp is ex-
tinguished. If this apparatus proves as
useful in common practice as it appears
to be in what may call cooking labOra-
tory, difficult question may perhaps
have been solved Given this or some
other cheap application of fuel to the
conversion of food, and it is entirely pos
sible to buy an ample and nutritious ra-
ton, in considerable variety in the city of
Boston, at not exceeding Z cents day,
and to prepare it for use within cents a
day.
At IA cents a day, days rations may
cost in round figures, 81 a week, or $50 a
year, and consist of One-half or three
quarters of pound of good meat, three
quarters to one pound of bread, one-half
to one pound of potatoes or some other
vegetable, one-half pound of oatmeal,
One-half ounce of butter, one ounce of
sugar, large bowl of tea or coffee with
a spoonful Os condensed milk, an orange,
an apple, or some dried fruit. Add one
cents worth of kerosene oil for cooking,
all but the bread, which must be baked
elsewhere, and we have food and fuel for
cooking it at 81 a week. This economy
is possible in what may be called labOra-
tory practice. How long will it take to
make it common practice? How long
will it take to alter the taste of the peo-
pie from fried food and hot biscuit to
stewed food and sound bread? If this
can be done, as it now seems possible, the
price of well-conditiOned life in the city
e Do fI,,, Foo IL III