Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1906-11-09

are called greats or grits; more finely
crushed they are termed meal; and
wnen ground into a fine powder and
sifted they are known as flour.
Grains in the raw state are not us
ually considered pleasant to the taste
and are thought to be difficult of d.
gestion, and therefore cereals are al
most always cooked before eating.
me simplest and doubtless the Oldest
way of cooking them was by parching.
This was frequently all that was done
to the oats which the Scotch Highland
ers took as their only provisions in
their border forays, or to the corn the
American Indians used for a similar
purpose. But other ways of cooking
make the grain more palatable. and it
IS usually mixed with water or other
liquid and either baked as bread and
cakes or boiled or steamed as pud.
ding or porridge. It is the use of GER
calls as porridge that is of special in
terest, as cereal breakfast foods are
most commonly used in America for
porridge making or as a substitute for
porridge. When used in this form thew
are perhaps not as convenient to eat
as bread, do not keep so well and re-
quire long cooking, but in spite of
these disadvantages porridge is much
used the world over, and grains have
been thus cooked since earliets times
Many varieties of porridge are found
Sometimes the cereals are simply boil
ed In water, sometimes with milk, or
with meat Or kale, as in Scotch brose
welsh budrum is made from oats
which have been allowed to ferment
and are then cooked, and the Arabs
have similar dish, kouskous, made
from fermented wheat In the old
fashioned bag buildings of England
of which Christmas plum buildings are
the direct descendants, suet and fruit
were mixed with wheat or barley and
all steamed together in a bag. The
simpler kinds of porridge are, however,
the most common, and it is from them
that modern cereal breakfast foods
have been developed.
The number and variety of cereal
breakfast foods at present on the mar
ket are large. but the majority of them
fall readily into one of three groups.
The first includes those which are pre-
pared by simply grinding the grain,
the second those which have been
steamed or otherwise partially cook
ed and then ground or rolled, and the
| tIillu muse preparations Wnlcl nave
been acted upon by malt, which in
duces a greater or less chemical
change in the starch present.
No class of foods is more extensive
ly or ingeniously advertised than the
cereal breakfast foods. The claims
sometimes made for them are aston
ishing Some of them are said to con-
tain several times as much nourish-
ment as the same weight of beef;
others are lauded as especially valu-
able as brain food or nerve tonics, and
very many are claimed to be particu-
larly well suited for persons of weak
digestion. Many of these claims are
obviously preposterous, others are
doubtless true, and still others con-
tain an ingenious mixture of fact and
fancy. Realizing that accurate infor-
nation in regard TO breakfast foods
was needed, investigators at several
agricultural experiment stations have
recently studied their composition
and food value, and it is now posi-
Bile to make number Of definite and
reliable statements about them
| Scientific American