The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-11-16
AGRICULTURAL.
Apple.Sauce and johnny. Cake.

the mistake the farmers wife makes
sometimes when she has company. She
will cook up some great, elaborate din
ner when her guests would much prefer
q dish of fruit and a bowl of cold milk
and bread" Now have felt just that
way myself. In some places the great
est delicacy that can be set before q
guest is fried chicken. Now boiled
chicken or old hen, if boiled long
enough, makes good dish for the
writer's taste, but l have not the least
liking for young fried chicken, had
rather have bread and fruit or almost
anything else. And l am always sorry
to sit down TO table where great eff
fort has been made to get up a nice
dish for me, and TO have something
like fried chicken, which never care
for and do not eat unless forced to. 1t
is doubtless right feeling for house
wife to wish to prepare something ex-
ira for company, but how often she has
TO lose the best part of visit in getting
up fine meal, and by the time the ex-
ira dishes are done, she is more tired
than it she had washed.
Especially if city people are the Wis
itors, it is perhaps but natural to think
that something very elaborate must be
prepared, but the plain, simple truth
. is that most city people, especially
those whose opinions are worth caring
for, are far better pleased with plain,
simple food, with the farmers every
day fare, than with an attempt to pre-
pare something like city folks meals.
City people come to the country to get
country food, country air, to get
change. They want to sit down to
simple, homely fare as rule. Good
bread and butter and milk and plenty
of fruit are the prime needs of table
spread for such. There is feeling
that what the farmer eats is not good
enough for people coming from some
other station in life. Farmers are apt
to look down on their own calling,
their own occupation, their own tables,
but the simple fact that guest comes
from another station in life is no reas-
on for looking up to him or considering
him better than farmer. And this is
the first point l wish to impress upon
my readers, there is nothing ignoble
about farming. 1t is just as honorable
as any other occupation. 1t was
George Washington who said, "Agri-
culture is the most healthful, most use
full and most noble employment of
man" And ! believe that it would be
good thing for the farmers and their
families to think of this very often,
and not underrate their calling.
But in too many farmers families
you will not only find apple sauce and
johuny-cake set on to the table when
there are guests, but you will seldom
find them as common, every day dishes.
There is every reason for farmers to
eat more home grown products. Why
should the farmer who has scores and
hundreds of bushels of nice corn, per-
sist in going to the store and paying
out his money for flour made a thous-
and miles away? How many farmers
there are who never have bit of corn
bread or any preparation Of corn on
their tables from one years end to an
other, bat whose bread is wholly made
of boughten -four? There is a foolish
thought in the minds of great many
in farm homes that corn meal is too
coarse for human food. Put it up in
pasteboard boxes and offer it to them
at the rate of five cents pound under
some high sounding name and they
will-think it is all right, but let bag
OF meal made from the farmers own
corn be brought into the house, and
noses are turned up at it, To their
credit be il said, the majority of south
ern farmers have no such foolish no
tions. They may think corn bread too
AoiS W BAoSN bSiOlN SuColo3 bub
it is found on almost every farmers
table in the south. Ii is cooked in the
simple way the Indians cooked it; a
little salt, water enough to make thick
dough, and bake anywhere that you
can get heat enough, in the oven, or on
the top of the stove on a griddle, or on
a tin plate before the fireplace fire. 1t
is solid, but sweet and healthful. 1t is
said that no corn but freshly ground
southern white corn will do for such a
dish, and this is probably true, but
every farmers wife knows how to
make johnny-cake and hasty pudding,
and when the men and boys have been
out doing chores in the morning in the
cold frosty air, what tastes better than
hot johnny-cake?
But the economy of corn meal as
food should not be overlooked. We
know the American people are averse
to considering the point of economy in