Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume I Part 18

2 c. scalded milk 3 Tb. cocoa 3 Tb. sugar 1/4 tsp. salt 2-1/2 c. boiling water

Scald the milk in a double boiler. Mix the cocoa, sugar, and salt. Stir the boiling water into this mixture gradually, and let it boil for several minutes over the fire. Then turn the mixture into the hot milk in the double boiler, and beat all with an egg beater for several minutes. A drop of vanilla added to the cocoa just before serving adds to its flavor.

BOILED COFFEE

Scald a clean coffee pot, and into it put 12 level tablespoonfuls of ground coffee. Add several crushed egg sh.e.l.ls or the white of one egg, pour in 1 cupful of cold water, and shake until the whole is well mixed.

Add 5 cupfuls of freshly boiling water and put over the fire to boil.

After the coffee has boiled for 5 minutes, pour 1/4 cupful of cold water down the spout. Allow it to stand for a few minutes where it will keep hot and then serve.

CEREALS

EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

(1) (_a_) Mention the eight cereals that are used for food. (_b_) How may the universal consumption of cereals be accounted for?

(2) (_a_) Explain why cereals and cereal products are economical foods.

(_b_) What factors should be considered in the selection of cereals?

(3) (_a_) Why are cereals not easily contaminated? (_b_) What care in storage should be given to both prepared and unprepared cereals?

(4) (_a_) Explain briefly the composition of cereals. (_b_) Describe the structure of cereal grains.

(5) What food substance is found in the greatest proportion in cereals?

(6) What characteristics of cereals make them valuable in the diet?

(7) What material, besides the food substances, is always present in cereals, and what are its purposes?

(8) What is the purpose of cooking cereals?

(9) (_a_) What occurs when starch is cooked in a liquid? (_b_) Describe the process of setting a cereal.

(10) (_a_) Mention the various methods of cooking cereals, (_b_) What are the advantages of the double-boiler method?

(11) (_a_) What influences the proportion of water required and the length of time necessary to cook cereals? (_b_) Is it an advantage to cook cereals for a long time? Tell why.

(12) Mention the cereals that you would use in winter and tell why you would use them.

(13) (_a_) Of what advantage is it to add dates to cream of wheat? (_b_) Mention some of the ways in which left-over wheat cereals may be utilized.

(14) (_a_) Explain the three methods of cooking rice, giving the proportion of water to rice in each one. (_b_) How should rice grains look when they are properly cooked?

(15) Mention several ways in which to utilize left-over rolled oats.

(16) (_a_) What advantages have ready-to-eat cereals over unprepared ones? (_b_) Tell why cereals that have been toasted are said to be predigested.

(17) (_a_) What is the advantage of serving milk or cream with cereals?

(_b_) How may variety be secured in the serving of cereals?

(18) (_a_) How are Italian pastes made? (_b_) Mention and describe the three princ.i.p.al varieties of Italian paste, (_c_) What tests can be applied to judge the quality of these foods?

(19) (_a_) Explain the first steps in cooking macaroni, (_b_) How much does macaroni increase upon being boiled?

(20) (_a_) Why may macaroni be subst.i.tuted for meat in the diet? (_b_) What foods used in the preparation of macaroni make it a better meat subst.i.tute?

REPORT ON MENU

After trying out the breakfast menu given in the text, send with your answers to the Examination Questions a report of your success. In making out your report, simply write the name of the food and describe its condition by means of the terms specified in the following list?

Cream of Wheat: thin? thick? lumpy? smooth? salty? well flavored?

Rolled Oats: thin? thick? lumpy? smooth? salty? well flavored?

Scrambled Eggs: dry? moist? watery? salty? well flavored?

b.u.t.tered Toast: thin? thick? crisp? soggy? browned? not sufficiently toasted? unevenly browned?

Cocoa: smooth? strong? weak? thick? sc.u.m formed on top?

Coffee: strong? weak? muddy? clear?

BREAD

BREAD-MAKING REQUIREMENTS

IMPORTANCE OF BREAD AS FOOD

1. BREAD is sometimes defined as any form of baked flour, but as the word is commonly understood it means only those forms of baked flour which contain some leavening substance that produces fermentation. The making of bread has come down through the ages from the simplest methods practiced by the most primitive peoples to the more elaborate processes of the present day. In truth, to study the history of bread making would amount to studying the accounts of the progress that has been made by the human race. Still, in order that the production of bread from suitable ingredients may be fully understood, it will be well to note the advancement that has been made.

2. In the earliest times, what was used as bread was made in much the same way as it is today by many uncivilized and semicivilized people.

The grain was ground between stones, usually by hand, and then mixed with water to form a dough; then this dough was formed into flat, compact cakes and baked in hot ashes, the result being a food very difficult to digest. Later on, some one discovered that by allowing the dough to stand until fermentation took place and then mixing it with new dough, the whole ma.s.s would rise, and also that by subjecting this ma.s.s to the action of heat, that is, baking it, the ma.s.s would be held in place and become a loaf of raised bread that was lighter and, of course, more digestible. It was this discovery that led up to the modern bread-making processes, in which substances known as _leavening agents_, or _ferments_, are used to make bread light, or porous. Chief among the substances is yeast, a microscopic plant that produces fermentation under favorable conditions.

Indeed, so important is this ferment that, in the United States, whenever the term _bread_ is used alone it means _yeast_, or _leavened_, _bread_, whereas, when other leavening agents are used, the bread is referred to as _hot bread_, or _quick bread_, as is fully explained in another Section. It will be well to note this fact, for in all cases throughout these cookery lessons yeast, or leavened, bread is always meant when the term bread is used alone.

3. References in the history of the ancient Hebrews show that bread made light by means of fermentation was known thousands of years ago, but it was not until after the accidental discovery of the action of yeast that the making of wholesome and digestible bread became possible. Through this important advance in the making of bread came a demand for better grains and more improved methods of making flour. Indeed, so much attention has been given to these matters that at present the three important processes relating to bread-making--the raising of wheat, the milling of flour, and the manufacture of yeast--are carefully and scientifically performed. These industries, together with the commercial manufacture of bread, occupy an important place in the business of practically all civilized nations.

4. Among people who are not highly civilized, bread forms the chief article of food and often almost the entire diet, even at the present time; but as man progresses in civilization he seems to require a greater variety of food, and he accordingly devises means of getting it.

Since bread is only one of the many foods he finds at his disposal, it does not a.s.sume a place of so much importance in present-day meals as it formerly did. However, it still makes up a sufficient proportion of the food of every family to warrant such careful and extensive study, as well as such mastery of the processes involved, that the housewife may present to her family only the best quality of this food.