News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-05-12
BETTY AT THE FAIR
Letters of the Panama Pacific Expo
sition by Florence Livingston
LETTER Nv
SAN FRANCISCO,

terrain my friends. am going to spre at
the sandwiches with pink butter. 1 go
the idea in the Food Products Building
There l saw two show cases filled with
daffodils, peoples and roses, tinted with
vegetable colorings. These are all made
OF butter and are kept at temperature
OF AZ degrees. You should have seen
some OF the long pink buds, exactly like
dollhouse roses. l could hardly believe
that nothing had been added to the but.
ter. but it is really true, and I even saw
the girl pulling and rearranging the pet
ais as If she were working with ribbon;
but of course you understand she was in
one of the refrigerator cases while she
was doing it.
The Food Products building might
well be lost and found station. Every
body goes there, wanders out and comes
back again, drawn by the irresistible
lure of good things to eat. 1t gives one
cheerful feeling to be surrounded by
housewifely operations and to be offered
dainty bits of cookery on little saucers.
In one booth there is cooking going on
by representatives of several different
nations, in costumes. A fat, happy Chi
naman makes diamond shaped cookies,
and Titles cakes round as apples, into each
of which he pumps an almond. Next to
him stands Hebrew girl, with phleg-
matte face and tiny hands, rolling and
pounding unleavened bread. A Russian
girl concocts queer-looking turnovers. A
Mexican senorita deftly moulds small
biscuits and spreads tamales. A maid
from Japan bakes rice cakes, standing
between Southern nanny and white
turbaned man from India. Then you
may come back to the United States and
grab eagerly at plum pudding and grand
mothers cookies, at the sight of which
your curiosity drops and your appetite
rises.
There are all sorts Of machines al work.
They are far cleverer than any people we
know, ard it's only natural, 1 suppose,
because each one represents the skill and
ingenuity of many men, working out and
modifying one idea until it has been
brought to comparative perfection. Prob
ably very few of us realize the great
amount of cleverness that has gone into
the preparation of various foods.
Have you any idea how coffee is put
into cans? The method is one of the
many things have learned at the Expo
sition. The ground coffee runs down a
chute into various tunnels, where it is
automatically weighed, a pound being
automatically shut off in the lower part
of the funnel. The cans meantime travel
along treadmill and stop under the fun
nels, which discharge their weight. At
farther parts on the treadmill the cans
receive their covers and are sealed.
Think of the careful calculation that has
gone into the timing of all these proc
esses? The coffee must be weighed
while the .cans are travelling; the cans
must stop before the tunnels can dis
charge, and they must not move on until
the filling is completed; in the mean
while more coffee must he weighed for
the cans that are next in line.
Equally wonderful is the machine that |
measures gelatine into paper, shapes |
this into package, supplies it with a
book of directions, puts both into an
outer case, fastens it into basket, all |
done.
Every few minutes the quiet is broken |
by sound like an explosion. That 10 rice |
being shot into long wire-covered bin, |
every kernel swelled with Importance.
A small shredded wheat plant is |
in operation. The wheat. previously |
steamed, is turned into a glass receiver |
and feeds down into the grinding ma |
chinery, which transforms it into long |
slender threads. These are caught in |
narrow box. sliding back and forth so |
that the threads will be evenly distrib-
uted. When this is full, it is put into |
a cutting machine, where a double set of |
dull knives marks the shreds into fiat |
cakes. These are allowed to rise in a |
niiu hOob anu diO luOu Ddktu Ou Silutb A
which revolve in an electric oven.
II dignity were tangible thing, you |
would find quantities of it outside the |
doors of this building, for everyone drops |
his share before he enters, and becomes
just an ordinary human beipg-very hui
man indeed and suddenly very hungry.
If you meet person who isn't munching,
you may be sure he has just come in and |
haunt bad time to get to booth. Every |
body wears green pickle in his button
hole and slides sheepishly from booth to |
booth, eating dainty connections and |
drinking delicious hot things, served |
graciously and freely to the most appre-
ciative public you ever saw.
There are dozens of cook stoves in this
building, and they are all electric. That
me of a charming little bunga-
low in the Manufacturers Palace, which
1 visit and revisit with 1ndiminishing
pleasure. 1t is prettily furnished, but
that is a fact which is felt rather than
notioad haoauea ~ hoe tba oraatar attrac-