Evening star., 1930-06-15

W things are now being cooked which
will make the mouth water and the
hair curl. Have you eaten any
bamboo shoots or taroS pronounced
like jolly Jack-Tar-o), dasheens, shayotes or
Jerusalem artichokes recently? No? Well, it
probably won't be so long before you will be
able to- If you want new sensation. Those
who have eaten them say that they are delicious
and add piquant touches to our list of foods
for the dinner table.
Uncle Sam has a group of men and women
who spend their time studying foreign plants
with the idea of growing them in the United
States and making them available for the
American housewives table.
Food, the first thing we cry for and the last
thing which keeps body and soul together, is a
matter of much concern to Uncle Sam.
It is strange that so few housewives know
how to prepare Observation-Disclosures pears as
they familiarly called-because those indi-
Viduals who like this fruit nearly always become
enthusiastic addicts. AVocadoS for long time
were too expensive for the average pocketbook,
but they are now being grown more extensively
and the season in which they can be procured
Is getting much longer. They should be eaten,
however only when they are thoroughly ripe
which can be determined by the feeling of
mellowness through their stout rind.
They are excellent when cut lengthwise and
filled with a tangy French dressing. Or the
hull can be removed and the fruit cut in strips
and served alone on lettuce leaf with dressing
or garnished with cut celery A beautiful salad
can be made with pale green strips of the
avocado garnished with the red seeds of q
pomegranate. In tropical Central America they
are often diced and dropped into soup
broccoli, a novelty while ago, is now
familiar in most markets. The trick about
cooking broccoli seems to be in the way it is
prepared The thick, heavy stalks should be
cut lengthwise leaving a little bunch of the
Towering tops to each strip, and boiled in an
uncovered saucepan. When prepared in this
fashion the stalks get done at the same time
that the tops do. 1t can be served simply with
melted butter with Hollandaise or butter
Sauce.
Another crop plant which is coming into
vogue is the Jerusalem artichoke, which for a
long time has been despised weed of the corn
belt. Children usually can tell you where to
find them on the farm, for they like to dig
them up on warm days because the artichokes
are always cool, crisp and refreshing. Farmers
in the past have considered the potato-like
tubers food only for the hogs. But recently the
doctors have gwen the Jerusalem artichoke a
boost Some say that 1t Is similar in food value
to the potato and is particularly valuable for
diabetic patients, who seem able to the
carbohydrates contained in it to better adyan-
tage than the starches and sugars of the potato.
There is some difference of opinion as to
whether inulin, one of the carbohydrates is
really assimilabe.
AT any rate the Jerusalem artichoke scraped
and cooked slowly in casserole with butter and
little salt and pepper, Is a perfectly delicious
dish. ArtichokeS can be baked exactly like
potatoes, boiled in their skins to preserve their
flavor and then peeled and seasoned fried like
potato chips, used raw in salads or made into
soup.
Rarer than these foods in America are the
daSheen, the Chinese jujube and bamboo shoots,
all of which said to be excellent dishes for
our table.
THE dasheen is a distinctly Starchy vegetable
like the Irish potato and the sweet potato,
but is noticeably sweeter than the former 1t is
grown quite extensively in the Southern
States, being in appearance one OF the varieties
of elephant ears" familiar in parks and botani-
cal gardens. The dasheen is an ugly-looking
thug-prObsbly one reason for the slow growth
Of its The small dasheens are especially
good if boiled and peeled and then placed in
the oven long enough to melt a dressing Of
butte over them
'' are used in virtually every way that
whit" potatoes used-baked fried French
fried with cheese or fish in cakes riced in the
making of hash and scalloped. Recipes for
cooking them have been worked out by the
Office of Foreign Plant Introduction of the
Department of Agriculture
The daSheen is one variety of taro In gen.
eral the taros are comparable to the potato as
food, though most of the more desirable sorts
contain less water than the driest white DO
tatoes and have a correspondence high pro-
portion Of nutritive materials They are easy
20 digest and in Hawaii are the commonest