Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-11-09
HIS MEAL Of WEEDS
Oklahoma Farmer Prepares a
Menu That Is Rather Odd.
Biscuits of Alfalfa end Teddy of Broom
Corn and Sugar Constitute Part
of Strange Repast-Result
of Wager.

Guthrie, Okla.-It has remained for
Samuel Johnson, a Logan county farm
er, to demonstrate the use as food
products Of numerous plants and
weeds that are not generally recog-
nized as belonging to the food class.
Johnson made a wager recently with
a neighbor, Joseph Thompson. that he
could prepare menu for an entire
day from such plants and weeds. He
was to visit the out-of-the-way places
On his farm, along the creeks and val
leys, and also the cultivated fields. and
produce breakfast, luncheon and din
ner that would be pronounced by
Thompson 'as good as he ever ate"
The wager was for $50 and Johnson
won. Here was his menu:
Breakfast-A toddy for an eye open
er made from broom corn whisky and
sweetened to taste with beet sugar;
breakfast food of boiled kafir corn;
alfalfa meal fapjacks and milomaize
strip.
-4uncheon-Kafir corn bread, boiled
COW peas, young rabbit fried in cotton
lard, elderberry wine, and alfalfa Gig
arettes.
Dinner-AIfalfa mullins with peanut
butter that was mixed with cotton
seed oil instead Of olive oil soy beans.
baked; various fruits from the farm
orchards; wild grape juice,
Before going to bed that night
Thompson placed his $50 on the table
He acknowledged that he had been
converted. The placing Of the wager
came about as the result of an argu-
ment between Johnson and Thompson
on the subject Of what to eat When
the main food products of the farm
fail. Johnson declared that many
farm products, not as a rule recog-
nized as food, and even some wild
vines and weeds could be made use off.
and that if an investigation were made
practically every farmer would learn
that he could live we'll and wax fat
on the things that, as a rule, he turns
aside from. Thompson doubted the
statement. and the wager was laid
My main point, however" said
Johnson afterward, was to prove the
usefulness of broom corn, kaffir corn,
alfalfa. milomaize, cowpeas and nu-
nerOus other farm products as articles
of food. Broom corn whisky has much
the same favor as that made from In
dian corn; kaTfir corn bread much re-
sembles the hoecake of the southern
plantation; alfalfa meal mullins have
har eli mi
lo-maize strip is just as good as any
corn strip you ever ate, while as
vegetables you can't beat cowpeas and
soy beans. I have known OF home
steaders in Oklahoma, during the first
winter on their claims, and when they
were hard up financially. to live al
most entirely on kaffir corn bread and
cowpeas.
In order, too, just to make the pro-
gram strong for Mr.. Thompson, l
washed the dishes after each meal
with soap made from the yucca plant.
l swept the floor with broom made
of the broom weed.
TT became known during the last
year that fine quality of strip could
be made from milomaize, and as a re-
suit eastern manufacturers are con-
tracing for large quantities of this
year. crop from the farmers of
western and northwestern Oklahoma.
Alfalfa biscuits and mullins have
long been the delight of men who are
engaged in the manufacture of alfalfa
meal for cattle feeding purposes, but
1t. use has not been adopted by 9TH
ers to any extent. At a recent meet
ing of the National Association Of Al
falfa Millers the Delegates Toasted on
mullins made of alfalfa meal and pro-