New Britain herald., 1924-11-03
HOW SNOWDRIFT
 IS MADE

IN SEPTEMBER the fields of the South were white with cotton and cheerful darkics were slowly shufling down the long rows, picking the snowwhite bolls.
 lift weren for that cotton crop we d be hun. gry people this year. In its way that cotton crop is as necessary as the wheat crop of the great Northwest, if we rc to be wholesome, we'll fed nation. Cotton seed supplies something more than a third of all the fat we eat. More than billion pounds year. We'd be hungry people if it weren t for that cotton crop. Does it seem odd to think of cotton in conncc- tlon with cooking fat'
 Or trees in connection with sugar?
 Nature is very generous We get maple sugar and syrup from tree that may some day be the boards on our kitchen floor We get delicious, wholesome fat from q plant that may give us our gingham apron, too. Cotton is one of the most important food crops in this country.
 When the cotton is picked it is taken to the gin, Eli Whitney's great invention, where the sc:l is picked out from the long, white fibre. Tn: white cotton is baled and shipped of to the mills to be woven into cloth for the outside of us, and the seed to the "crusher' to become food tor the inside Of us.
 The cotton seed, as it comes from the gin, is small and gray and looks bit like pussy-wil- low bud because of the short cotton fibre that clings to the outside It is put into an ingenious machine where tiny knives scrape off this lint from the hull or shell and, thoroughly soraped. the cotton seed is like little, dark brown nut
 These seeds, or nuts, are cracked so as to-get at the kernels or meats, rich with oil, and then heated -' cooked, wesay-in great steam kettles so that the oil can be easily pressed out This job of cooking the meats is quite skill full one, In our Company we're as proud of some of our old, experienced cooks as good hotel might be of its chef. There is an opportunity for judgment and skill in this cooking and it makes difference in the product.
 When the meats are cooked, they are placed in huge hydraulic presses and the rich molasses colorcd oil is squeezed out.
 The quality of this oil Twill vary considerably Cotton seed, for instance, is no more uniform than wheat or corn or any other crop All the apples even from the same tree aren { going to bc exactly alike and each exactly as good as the next. The quality of oil will vary, de pending on the seed and the cooking, and our first oppor tunity to make Snowdrift better than any other cooking fat IS to select only the choicest oil from the millions of gallons pressed.
 The oil then goes to refinery.
 As it is pressed from the seed the oil is dark in color and has decided odor and flavor Some folks like this flavor More don't If you like molasses better than white granuated sugar, you might possibly prefer cotton seed oil before 1t was refined.
 Molasses not only sweetens but havors every thing it sweetens. You taste the rnolasses Tn everything you sweeten with it. Refined sugar swcetens, but doesn't change the flavor. Siml ilarly, good cooks want fat that fattens Of en- riches food without making everything taste of the fat used. So oil refners not only try to get all i'm purites out of the oil, but also try to take out the color and any strong flavor.
 The ideal oil would be almost as clear as crys- tal-just pure, rich oil-1oo per cent fat-with 70 impurities, coloring matter or flavor what ever. The best we have ever seen (Wesson OiD is such a pale, straw color that 1t is aluo5t no color at all, and is SO delicate in flavor that you really f,sI the rich, delicious oil in your mouth more than you ta5h any flavor.
 lnere arc many good re1ncrS ana most or tnC cotton seed oil on the market IS pretty good. Ordinarily it bears about the relation to old fashioned cotton seed oil that light brown sugar does to molasses, so far as color and taste are concerned. That is, it is yellow and has a dis tinct flavor that you may or may not like, but 1t is good, wholesome food.
 Quite naturally, all refining isn't alike. When thing takes knowledge and skill and exPeri- sncs. some are bound to do 1t better than others