Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-03-17
Outside Point of View

!
The commission appointed by Pres
ident Roosevelt to investigate the con-
dition OF the American farmer has
made its report and possibly some good
may result. But it remained for Potta-
wattamie county, Iowa to furnish the
real exciting episode OF. the whole bus
mess. The newspapers have told us
that in it's travels the commission
stopped one night for, supper with an
Iowa farmer of Pottawattamie county
His wife, the mothersof nine children
ranging in age from the sba BY, up to the
boy, prepared the evening
meal for the commission. For pudding
it's awful but it has to be told, pud-
adingsfor supper, 1t consisted of broken
up crackers, sweet milk, and s,ener-
Gus favoring of vanilla extract, served
cold, was the dessert of the eventide,
repast When the commission arrived
at Omaha and stopping at S5-a- day
hotel, some one of the party fool;shly
told of the pudding served at the Iowa
farm house the night before. The re-
porters got hold of the story, and soon
the neighbors of the mother Of nine
children, began to rub it in" In her
humiliation and despair she wrote
Roosevelt and apologized for the meal
And Teddy not very consistently for
the exponent of anti-race suicide wrote
her personal letter in which he said
not to feel bad his wonder was that
with nine children, she had time to get
any Supper, much less to get UP hot
pudding. Then one of the commission
ers remarked publicly that their in
vestigations had convinced them, that
not only the American farmers wife did
not know how to cook, but she did
not know that she did not know how"
And that is the text of what follows
To it must be added there are thous-
ands of women that do know how to
cook, but also do know they are good
cooks. Their husbands know it, espec-
tally their boys know, their neighbors
know it and envy the men folks of the
family that eat the we'll cooked food
but just the same there are Thousands
yes tens of thousands of women in
Iowa alone, that can not boil water
without burning it," To illustrate, the
average woman to boil potatoes puts
them in cold water and let's them come
to boil, not knowing she is making
potato soup instead of boiling pota-
toes.
The average woman to boil beef does
the same thing, and to complete her
throws away the water the meat was
boiled in. Then to add to her nlisde-
meanors to make coffee" she pours
boiling water over ground coffee, thus
cooking the coffee instead of making
the coffee soup she is supposed to fur
nish for drinking purposes. The aver
age woman orders thin sliced, lean,
round steak, puts the spider on the
stove, empties in lot of lard, and be-
fore it is hot throws in the meat and
lets it sizzle till dinner is ready, e. half
hour or an hour just as 1t happens.
The average woman can not make pie
crust eft for a dog She mixes up a
mess of flour, water and lard, rolls it
out till it is as tough as leather, and
then bakes it in a slow over till the
upper crust is soaked thru, and the
lower crust is burned. These indict-
ments must be made in plain Ian
guage. for the average woman, in the
language of the commissioners, mot
only does not know how to cook, but
does not know she does not know how"
This lamentafble condition of affairs
completely destroys the truth of the
old saw, where ignorance is bliss, it's
folly to be wise"
The writer has heard of an enter
prising daily that has offered and will
pay $50 to church sewing society, for
two cooking recipes from each one of
its members, said recipes to be ain ac-
count of actual ingredients used and
actual labor of the writers. At first
it struck the writer as piece of rank
extravaganza on the part Of the PAPER.
and then all Of a sudden 1t occurred
to him that if carried out it was the