Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1910-12-09
TEA CAKES.
By LUE =. VERNON.

L have with great patience seen
my dish of "hot cakes" slapped,
pounded and bruised in many places,
coupled with that delight-apple
dumpling-by the hand of the medi-
cal scientist who claim these dishes
are disease breeders of unknown
ability and strength, ON account
of the adulterated ingredients which
compose them. That they lead to
indigestion, and make our stomachs
squeamish. So | passed up hot
cakes" and apple dumpling, and
tried hard to forget them.
And now comes Boston medical
professor who says, in all frankness
and sincerity, that: THE tea-cake
must 60" The scientist declares
that the lOng-used article is not
good for the system, on account of it
being indigestable. Continuing he
says: ;" We must view it with the
jaundiced eyes of the over-fed."
That is to say that, instead of look
ng forward to the consumption of
tea-cakes, at the picnic, as one of
the things that make life worth
while, we nowadays agitate our
brain-matter with dyspeptic dis
cussions on such problems as, Should
we eat tea a-cake?"
Forty years ago we ate anything
and everything, never hearing of
adulterated food, or SO much about
indigestion, and felt no bad effect
from doing so either.
PROFOUND the conundrum to the
average American schoolboy, and he
will at once reply by asking another
/ question, to-wit: What do you
think?" At least, that is what
should have done in those dim, far
off days, to which l referred just
now. and I rather think that the
average schoolboy of to-day does not
greatly differ when it comes to gusta-
tory matters from his prototype of
the seventies. But we have pro-
gressed-or otherwise-siuce then,
and the question is being seriously
asked, in all the porten tiousness of
capital letters. in more than one of
the eastern newspapers just now.
On the whole, the general trend
OF opinion seems to be in the mega
tive. We should not eat tea cakes,
and that for two different reasons.
They are bad for our digestive ap-
paratus in the first place, and. in
the second place, it is bad for the
baker. So far as the baker is con-
cerned, it would seem that the sensi-
BILE solution of the difficulty is that
he should cease to bake the caxes.
If tea-cakes means that men have to
work for thir:y-six hours at o
temperature of ninety degrees. then
l should say its high time for the
tea-cake to skidoo.
But the bakers say that they cam
not help it. The public is iusistent.
1t is, so to speak, q teacakeivorous
public when picnic is toward, and
If it does not get its quota Of cakes
from one place it simply goes to an
other, and the tea-cake baker is
buncoed, as it were. This you will
notice. raises the tea-cake problem
at once to q very high plane. It
comes within the scope of the science
of social economy, and l am con-
sciOus of being afflicted with such an
i immense ignorance of this obtuse
science-an ignorance so vast and
variegated-that 1 dare not venture
to 60 further than to express my
conviction that if l were baker
would let the other shop make tea
cakes and be hanged to it.
When it comes to be digestible-
or, rather, the indigestible-prop-
critics of the tea-cake, the case is diff
ferent. We are on familiar ground.
1t may or may not be correct to eat
tea cakes, thus assisting in the par
boiling OF the long suffering baker.
That is a matter which had best be
left to the conscience of the individ-
ual eater Of tea-cakes. But regard
ing the tea-cake, considered merely
as an article of diet, every tea-cake-
eating American is entitled to ex-
press his or her opinion, and l think
that will have the solid bulk of the
tea-cakeists, as it were, behind me
when 1 say that the man who as
serts that the tea-cake, with its cur
rant is indigestible, is an enemy to
his country and deserves the scorn
of every man who claims to be re-
garded as prO-tea-cake.
There is, l am afraid. only too
much reason to suspect the exist
ence of a deep-laid plot against the
tea-cake. The anti tea-cake folk are
not content with speaking disparag-
ingly of the little sweet. with one
currant, as the bakers curse. "
that we might tolerate, for, as have
said, even the most bull-headed lover
Of tea-caSes would not desire that
the poor baker should be stewed 70
make us happy by supplying our
iavorite - the tea-cake. But the
enemies of the tea-cake 60 further.