The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1919-04-03
European Hunger And Prejudice
From the Literery Digest

INTO the problem OF 1eedlnS the
world, thinks DR.. David Fairchild, of
the United States Department OF
Agriculture, writing in The Journal
OF the Franklin Institute (Phildel-
phia) on The Palate OF Civilized
Man" Our Coutations are from an
authorized reprint in The Scientific
American Supplement (New York,
February ~ DR.. fairchild reminds
us that as general thing people
will starve rather than eat what
they do not like, even when the food
in question has been the staple of
whole nations for centuries. We have
never taken kindly to rice, for in
stance, and would surely object to
being practically restricted to it, as
are some oriental peoples. On the
other hand, we had to ration our
selves during The war in the case Of
wheat because European nations re-
fused to eat Indian corn, which we
had in profusion TO give them. We
read:
Could i Southern planter or a
Western farmer have imagined that
the BelgianS would refuse to eat his
corn or that the British would even
under the pressure of war-priceS
buy cornmeal with great reluctance,
and the reason be that cornmeal is
chicken-food"? The soldiers likes
and dislikes in food have no doubt
restricted and hampered the prosecu-
ton of the war. Blackberry jam
formed an integral part of the ra-
ton of our miniature standing army
but is it hardly to be expected that
it Will be available for the million
men soon to be in the field. Now,
while the events and facts are fresh
in every ones mind, it may be we'll
to consider whether it may not be
easier to change our minds than to
change our agriculture.
"Consider the corn situation today
and its bearing upon the gigantic
problem before us Of feeding starv-
ing Europe. When | first heard that
the Belgians refused to eat corn, and
that the Irish and English would eat
anything else before they would
touch it, my first impulse was to in
sist that they ought to be made to
eat it. Edward Eyre Hunt, the au-
lIlOI VI "oI-DISoo, SAPioihSu oiiu
made it entirely clear to me that a
shocked and outraged people,
wrought up and nervous to a high
degree asa result of the treatment
they have received, is in no mental
attitude to learn to like new food.
The task of education would have
been too long and more expensive
than the shifting of our own menu at
home, and in the meantime would
have cost many thousand of lives.
Resort was made to the use of differ
ent names for corn and concealment
of it in war-bread with three parts
of white -four. Sir Horace Plunkett
informed me that unfortunately his
people had grown up to look upon
corn as hog and chicken-food, and
that this prejudice was extremely
difficult to overcome, but that high
prices would in time force them to
eat it. One of the British commits
sioners to this country remarked,
last spring, to one Of our Southern
ladies': Madam, | wish you could
send us q hundred dark cooks to
teach our people how to cook corn"
''Not to ike food which has been
the staple Of peoples for thousands
of years and today is produced by
the thousand million bushels and
feeds hundreds of millions of people
seems to us who like it a strange,
incomprchensible spectacle. Yet it is
TO stranger than that of the Ameri
can people and their Indifference to
that other Great cereal, rice, which
is produced in larger amounts than
any other cereal in the world and
forms the staff Of life OF hundreds of
millions Of civilized peoples.
at is said that Europe is depend
ent upon the wheat loaf, and the
bakeries Of that country are ill-suit-
ed to utilize corn. We are sometimes
inclined TO insist that they should
break away from the exclusive use
of the wheat loaf and learn to make
corn bread-yet we have not yet
learned to cook rice properly, and
complain of its insipid character,
which must be an attitude hard for
our oriental neighbors to understand.
This Indifference toward rice, Of
which staple we even now consume
only the insignificant quantity Of
seven pounds per capita, has led to
the abandonment of the fertile rice
fields of the Carolinas, and today eff
forts are being made to find some
paying crop to take its place there,
because our meacer demands have
been met until very recently by the
California and Texas rice araes re-