Evening star., 1912-11-10

But now we've got to educate the people
in the cities. the consumers. We want to
get people to buy these new foods, take
them home, cook them and eat them.
Wei guarantee they'll like them
Its pretty big task. OF course we
could go to the proprietor of some hotel
and get him to put-wel-Udos, for in
stance, on his menu card, but at present
it would be just about sensible as
printing the menu of a Scent lunchroom
in French. People would look at the
word Udo, wonder what il was, and then
PROBABLY order the same old things they
have been eating all their lives We want
the people in the cities TO know what
these new foods are and then try them.
Ii they do, some of the older foods will
soon become back numbers. The new
ones are better
'The question of the cost of living also
comes in. Many of the new foods are
more prolific than the old ones. Hence
they will be cheaper Others will grow
at seasons when the older ones will not,
thus enabling the farmer to get crops at
times when ordinarily the land would lie
idle. This, of course. increases the farm
output and in natural sequence de-
creases the cost Of consumer. And finally.
the mere fact that there many
new vegetables entering into competition
with the old ones should decrease the
ton of cost, however. is the fact that
the people have chance to get things
TO eat that are not only new, but that
contain more actual food value than the
thins they have been forced to subsist
on heretofore and are more tasty l ex-
pect TO see the display of the green
grocer or the future different from
that OF today as day is from night and
Mrs. Housewife will be glad of it,
Foods of all sorts shapes colors and
tastes are being sent out daily by Uncle
sam IN his friendly warfare on the foods
70 which We have been accustomed In
80 H. mere Is an apparent resemblance
70 the staple for which the government
hopes IT is to become a substitute Others
look ike nothing the average farmer has
ever seen Some, of course are SO deli
va,e vben ana so difhcult to raise that even
when they become commonly known
.heS VIII be regarded as Iuxuries Others
however, are destined SO Uncle Sans
eAperts believe, to become as common as
Or these latter. perhaps the dasheen
Is most widely known. This is a tuber
plant. designed to take the place of
the irish potato. Uncle Sam has al
ready begun a gigantic campaign of
advertising in its behalf. and the re
suits are expected to be enormous
People who have tasted it," said Mr.
ralrchlld always say it is like a po-
tato. only great deal better I'm one
of those who think So
= x
The dasheen is to be grown in the
south' Tor 1t is semi-tropical In ap-
pearance 1t is cross between a large
potato and a sugar beet If it had
head. legs and tail it might easily
De taken Tor miniature zebra, for it's
skin is striped and hairy. Mr. Fair
child calls it "a striped potato in need
CT a shave
Eight years have been spent by the
department in cultivating the dasheen
ana at hrst the work was extremely
difficult, but not now The dasheen is
heavy groups of leaves strikingly sim
llaf TO the ornamental elephant ear"
In many ways il is similar to the ele-
phants ear, too, for tasted raw it will
cause a singing sensation that is eX-
tremely painful and extremely long en-
during. Cooked, however this un-
pleasant feature disappears, and the
dasheen becomes dish par excellence
ii can be boiled. baked or served in
any other way that the ordinary po-
tato is used. Also it makes splendid
stufhng for chicken. veal and other
meats. 1t has the same mealy taste
as the potato. but added to this is a
rich, chestnutty flavor Many people
require gravy with their potatoes They
Will need none with the dasheen. for
when properly cooked it contains the
favor of added gravy within itself
II has another advantage over the
potato. too. in that ii is larger in size
and II carefully tended is larger in
yield. Also, il will grow in hot, moist
regions. under conditions of humidity
that would cause its common cousin
to rot, all of which means a decrease
in cost. Still another advantage lies in
the fact that. whereas the tops of DO
tatoes are worthless as food. the top
of the dasheen makes delicious green's
All that Is needed in preparing them
is the addition of a little soda in the
water in which they are boiled to re-
move the acrid taste. And actual tests
have shown that dasheen growers can
depend on crop of from 400 to $50
bushels per acre.
The dasheen is no longer an experiment.
Ii is now being grown on many farms
throughout the south and in the far west
Dasheens have also been raised in small
er quantities on farms near Washing
ton and have already been served in this
city as part of the menu of two big BAN
quets. They held an important place on
the menu at the recent annual dinner of
the National Geographic Society and they
have been enthusiastically praised by the
house committee OF the Cosmos Club.
where they have been served many
times.
Just as the dasheen is to be the new
Irish potato the sweet potato is also
confronted with rival known as the
Dahomey tuber. This new arrival in Uncle
Sans field of edibles was brought to
this country as the result of an exchange
OF correspondence between Mr.. Fairchild
and the American consul at Bordeaux
France. The latter had been on a trip to
Dahomey, and while there had been