The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-05-12

are accustomed to more than one sort
| of food. it is much easier to relieve
| their distress in case of need. During
the famine in India one of the most
perplexing problems of those who dis
tributed food was TO induce the people
to eat what they were not accustomed
to regard as food. 1t was next to i'm
possible to persuade a Madrassee peas
ant to eat millet; he was brought UP on
rice. 1t has been long recognized that
if the famine problem were eliminated
from the government of China, some
important changes might take piece.
Again, rice is a simple and easily
cooked food. requiring for it's perfect
preparation nothing but kettle. a fire,
and some salt and water, while bread
is more or less complex and varied
product. If the Chinese get it into their
heads that leavened bread in its myriad
forms is proper food there will be an
opening not only for the agents of the
flour factories, but for the baking
powder man, the stove man, the tin
peddler, and all the other innovators
to bake bread according to the plan of
Western civilization. One need only re-
view the progress which has been made
in breadmaking during the last fifty
years to see how large a commercial
field would be opened in the Flowery
Kingdom by the introduction of modern
bakeries. The old-fashioned loaf was
baked in a covered kettle, or brick
oven, or rolled up in a cabbage leaf
in the ashes, but even that was
not a very simple product compared
with the unleavened bread of the Is
raelites in the wilderness. For modern
rolls. biscuits. bread. or cake the house
wife requires range, baking tins. bak-
ing powder. flour, refined salt, sieve
all of which are articles manufactured
by firms which would be eager to in
troduce their goods in the East
Bread would, taking the cheapness of
Oriental labor into account, be con-
siderably cheaper than rice. The Chi
nese plan would probably be to estab-
lish bakery in each village. where the
people could buy their bread as they do
in French and German cities. This
would lead TO the introduction of other
foodstuffs. including pie from America
and sauerkraut from Germany, and
macaroni from Italy, and a new sphere
of influence--the influence of foreign
cOokery-micht be established. Then
there would be comic opera scenes in
good scoth. Imagine the Chinese coolie
making acquaintance with the railway
pie and the schweitzer sandwich. and
eating them in conjunction! 1t is
possible that a village of coolies, after
a great feast of foreign cookery, would
have a time the reverse of celestial,
and the creation of Great Pie Belt in
China might produce another Boxer
outbreak.
But, after all. the nature Of the Mon
golian is to be considered. The Chinese
colonies in this country have their own
groceries and their own delicacies, and,
unlike other foreigners, the people of
these colonies do not speedily assimi-
late either the food or the costume of
the United States. And here they are
thrown into much closer contact with
American customs than they would be
in their own country. If the pie of
American tradition. even on its native
heath, does not win its way into the
of the Chinese, it is improb-
able that pie mission would have
any very great success in China. The
natives would probably explain 10 the
airy that the "Feng shut" or
gods of the earth. were against
their changing their diet. and that
would be all that there would be
about il.