Evening star., 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
Snow-white bolls.
If weren't for that cotton crop we d be hun
cry people this year. In its way that cotton crop
is as necessary as the wheat crop of the great
Northwest, if we're to be wholesome, we'll
fed nation. Cotton seed supplies something
more than third of all the fat we cat. More
than a billion pounds year. We'd be hungry
people if it werent for that cotton crop.
Does it seem odd to think of cotton in connec-
tion 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 a delicious,
wholesome fat from plant that may give US
our gingham apron, too. Cotton is one of the
most important j0oa crops in this country.
When the cotton is picked it is taken to the
gin, Eli Whitncy's great invention, where the
seed is picked out from the long, white fibre
The white cotton is baled and shipped off to the
mills to be woven into cloth for the outside of
US, and the seed to the 'crusher" to become
food for 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. 1t is put into an ingenious
machine where tiny knives scrape off this lint
from the hull or shell and, thoroughly scraped,
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 cooked, we say-in great steam
kettles SO that the oil can be easily pressed out.
:1l >Se <Is Ill
full one. In our Company wei re as proud of some
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-
eolored oil is squeezed out.
The quality of this oil will 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't going to
be exactly alike and each exactly as good as the
next. The quality of oil will vary, depending 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 is pressed from the seed the oil is dark in
COlOf ana mas a QcC1QcQ OQOT ana 1laVOr. COnc
folks like this flavor. More don't. If you like
molasses better than white granulated sugar,
you might possibly prefer cotton seed oil before
it was refined.
Molasses not only sweetens but flavors every
thing it swectens. You taste" the molasses in
everything you sweeten with it. Refined sugar
sweetens, but doesn't change the flavor. Simi-
larly, good cooks want a fat that fattens or en-
riches food without making everything taste
of the fat used. So oil rehners not only try to
get all impurities 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
no impurities, ooloring matter or flavor what
ever. The best we have ever seen CWesson OiD
is such pale, straw color that it is almost no
color at all, and is SO delicate in flavor that you
really feel the rich, delicious oil in your mouth
more than you taste any flavor.
There are many good rehncrs and most of the
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 arc
concerned. That is, it is yellow and has a dis
unct favor that you may or may not like, but it
is good, wholesome food.
Quite naturally, all refining ism alike. When
thing takes knowledge and skill and expert
ence some are bound to do it better than Others