The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-07-26
THE HousEKEEpER's RESPONSIBILITY.


While tue country is stirred by the
audacity OF the Chicago meat packers,
and its effect on the dinner pals and
pocketbooks of the people, it is time
for women TO show little of their
grit and gumption. No better time
has existed since my earliest recollec-
ton, or perhaps since the first settle
ment of this country, for them to ex-
hibit to the world that they are peers
of their pioneer foremothers, who so
valiantly stood by the side of their
husbands and fathers in those trou-
bled Revolutionary days, and helped
to create conditions that would insure
peace and plenty to all wel1-regulated
households.
The cry prevails Don't eat meat
while prices are high !" and the
housekeeper should go into deep
thinking as to her responsibility in
deciding what shall be eaten to take
the place of this expensive food which
we have, too long I fear, considered
indispensable. Marion Harland, Sa-
rah 7. Rorer, and many other we'll
known authorities in cooking, are
helping to solve the problem by fur
nishing recipes for vegetable dishes
having meat value, and let us look
up the good, but almost fogotten
homemade foods of our mothers that
we so relished, and use our own in
genuity also to supply our tables with
something that will serve as good a
purpose as meat.
1t will greatly help to down the
meat trust to abandon their doctored
wares, and buy only of home butcE-
ers whom we know furnish the fresh,
pure article. If there is one thing
more than another in which we should
encourage home trade, it is in the
food we eat.
IF you have no butcher within reach
you can yet live, and live well with
out. The farmer has chickens, eggs,
MIX, butter, cream, vegetables and
fruits at his command. He can raise
lambs and calves for himself and to
sell to those not so well provided for,
but who desire to know where their
food comes from and how it is manip-
u1ated. No woman who considers
the health of her family, the pocket
book of her husband, or the best in
terest of society at large, will buy a
pound of Chicago-dressed, emba1med
or refrigerated beef. She knows now
what these meat kings will do for the
sake of enriching themselves, and
she can aid in stopping them in their
mad career, and be all the better
for it.
The people of this country are too
great meat eaters. There is no rea-
son apparent why Americans and
English should consume more meat
than the Germans and French. They
live longer and are stronger than the
corresponding class in this country
because they eat less animal food,
twice a week being the average for
meat eating among the rural people
of these countries.
This agitation may have good eff
feet if we profit by the lesson it
teaches. Eminent doctors, chemists
and experts testify that the amazing
increase in dyspepsia and its allied dis
eases of late years is largely due to
the methods of refrigerating and pre-
serving meats. Refrigerating is said
to be as bad as using chemicals.
Meats preserved with the aid of
boracic acid, salicylic acid, formalde-
hyde and other preservatives are un-
wholesome and far less nutritious
than freshly-killed meats.
The housekeeper who feels the
weight of responsibility that rests on
her will want to be on the safe side
and know what she sets upon her
table. 1t is easier to furnish health
full fare than to nurse inva1ids.
The Spanish war is not so far back
in history that the numerous canned
beef furnished by the meat trust to
American soldiers on the transports
and in the field is forgotten. AL
though the soldiers were desperately
hungry they tossed it into the sea,
and tons of it were buried on land be-
cause it was utterly unfit to eat. The
so-called 'roast beef and such, it
has been shown, were made from odds
and ends of the beeves which could
never be sold in a natural state.
After the war there was no market
for timed goods. From the Presi-
dent of the United Statas down to the
humblest workmen there has been
only disgust for the vile stuff that
sickened Our hungry soldiers. 1t ac-
cumulated IN storage warehouses,
and now the object of the meat trust
seems to be to put up the price of
fresh meat so that only the rich can
buy, while they unload the shelves of
this long-standing, horrible stuff.
While fish swim in the stream, poul-
try is on the farms, and sheep and
lambs easily raised, let US wash Our
hands Of the grasping meat men and
their unhealthy wares.
"There are no flies on Chicago
beef" remarked a former council
man, and proprietor Of an abattoir in
a great Eastern city. "They won't t
light on it," said he, "they know bet
ter. The fly is an intelligent insect ;
it has an instinct which prompts it to
take care of its own life. I have
seen two pieces of beef set out in the
sun on hot summer day; one piece
was Chicago-dressed beef and the
other was the home product. In a