“THE CURSE, CAUSELESS, SHALL NOT COME.”
By David Paulson
Instead of considering in detail the various errors of popular cookery, it will suffice for the purpose of this article to study briefly the principle that underlies the proper preparation of the starches, which constitute nearly four fifths of the ordinary dietary. To assist in grasping the subject, let us imagine an ordinary stepladder with five steps. Put on the first step a glass of common flour. This represents ordinary raw starch, which is entirely unsuitable for digestion, and needs, as all readily recognize, some further preparation. Place on the next step a dish containing kettle-cooked starch, such as the well-known oatmeal mush. If you rub some of it between your hands, they will stick together like two sheets of fly paper; and when you pull them apart, the noise that is produced may be heard a hundred feet. Such substance is good material for the paper hanger, but has no business to be placed inside the human stomach. Job raised the question, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” And the inspired answer is, “Not one.” It certainly requires a great stretch of the imagination to suppose the digestive process can in some way transform this paste into healthy blood. Why should we eat it in this form when a proper preparation, which will be described later, can change it into something that is wholesome and good? Take down a half loaf of bread from the pantry shelf. It appears attractive on the outside, but its interior is virtually a “whited sepulcher.” Pick out a bit of that middle portion and roll it between your fingers for a moment, and you have a dough ball, which, when tossed against the floor, will surprise you by bounding back half a dozen feet. No human record can ever satisfactorily compute the number of boys that have been driven to the saloon because of such improperly prepared food materials souring in their stomachs, producing an irritated and stuffy feeling in the head, which they imagine nothing but liquor can effectually clear up. Who can estimate how many are to-day in the graveyards because of a persistent attempt to subsist largely on paste and dough; which, because of their indigestibility, really pave the way for many serious and obstinate diseases. The piece of doughy bread should be placed on the same step of the ladder as mush, for it belongs there, being chemically the same form of starch. On the next step of the ladder, place a piece of bread that has been so thoroughly baked that when an attempt is made to roll it up and make dough balls of it, it simply produces crumbs. This form of starch is known as erythrodextrine, while paste and dough are known as amylodextrin. But there is something that is far superior even to this bread that will crumb, and that is a slice of bread which has been placed in the oven at a slow heat until it is thoroughly re-baked. This does not mean to burn it on the outside, and then allow it to remain wet and doughy in the middle, but it should be nicely browned all the way through. What is more tasty and palatable than such a piece of nice, crisp toast? Even if it has to be soaked in cream, fruit juice, or soup for the benefit of those whose teeth are defective, it does not return to dough. It has passed beyond that stage, and is now chemically known as achroödextrine. Wafers, crackers, etc., should all be subjected to the same process. Ordinary rice may be put in the oven until it is slightly brown; if it is then soaked overnight in water, it can be as readily cooked as before, but it is now food that can be readily digested, even in an invalid’s stomach. Potatoes, instead of being placed on the table kettle-cooked, soggy, and unpalatable, as they ordinarily are, should be thoroughly baked, or if this is not desirable, after being cooked, they may be mashed and spread out on a bread tin, or made into balls, and baked until a nice brown crust forms; and thus, instead of souring and fermenting in the stomach, as is often the case, almost setting up a distillery within, they are converted into an ideal food. Those who wish to eat mush made from oatmeal or any other grain, should make the same quite thick, cook it a short time, and then sprinkle bread crumbs over the bottom of a bread tin, spread the mush out in a layer about an inch thick, and put it into the oven and let it bake until a brown crust forms on the top and on the bottom. In this way the objectionable mush is transformed into an acceptable article of diet. There are prepared grains and cereals upon the market, such as granose and granola, which embody this same idea almost to perfection. This browning of the starches changes them into what is known as “dextrinized foods.” They all belong on the third step of the ladder.587 On the next step of the ladder may be placed a dish of luscious fruit, which represents a line of food in which nature has, independently of artificial heat, transformed for us the starch even beyond the stage of dextrine. A green apple contains a large amount of raw starch of much the same nature as that found in a potato, but under the beneficent influence of the sun it is so thoroughly “cooked,” as the Mexicans term it, that the starch is changed not only into dextrine, as in the case of the toasted foods, but into sugar, thus making fruit a diet, par excellence, for fever patients and others who do not have power to digest even dextrinized starch. The delicious fruit, which comes to us almost perfect from the hand of nature, should not be spoiled by pouring over it a combination of cream and sugar. If either is to be used, let it be used separately, as milk and sugar is an ideal combination for the encouragement of fermentation in the stomach. Upon the top round of the ladder may be placed a dish of honey, as it represents the last stage in the digestive process of starch. Just as the sugar passes through the intestinal walls into the blood, it is transformed into that form of sugar known as levulose, or, practically speaking, honey. Honey is a valuable food, although while the bees are gathering the same, it is likely to be more or less contaminated with dust, germs, etc. It is amazing that in this age of progress so little attention is given to the study of practical dietetics. Thousands of girls are graduated from our higher institutions of learning perfectly conversant with a number of more or less useless ancient and modern arts, but unable to prepare a wholesome meal. With such a situation, it is not surprising that fresh recruits are daily being added to that already vast number of dyspeptics, and that thousands of our boys are tempted to resort to the saloons to drive away, even temporarily, the dreadful “all gone” feeling which invariably results from trying to subsist upon an improperly prepared dietary. The third fundamental cause of Sodom’s destruction was “abundance of idleness.” When Adam fell, the Lord arranged it so that he would have to work hard enough to sweat. This was not a curse, but a blessing, and was essential to his happiness while in this wicked world; but there never was a time when honest labor was so much despised as at present, and when there was such a desperate attempt to get through the world without working. The country boy reads about his city cousin becoming rich in a night, and abandons the farm in the vain attempt to secure a livelihood without earning it by the sweat of his brow. Every rescue worker of any considerable experience will substantiate the fact that a large proportion of the ever-increasing army of fallen girls comes from homes that had in them pianos and the various comforts which modern life produces; where the mother frequently said: “Mary, you will never have such a time as I have had. I am going to see that you have a chance in the world;” and so the gray-haired mother drudges from morning till night in the kitchen and over the washtub, while Mary enjoys the curse of “abundance of idleness.” Contempt for honest labor increases until she would rather barter her womanhood for bread than earn it legitimately. The aged father says to his boy: “Johnnie, I don’t want you to have to do as I did early in my life; I want you to have a chance.” And so Johnnie uses up his surplus energy while in college by playing pranks upon his fellow students, and squanders some of his useful activity, which should have been expended in wholesome work, in the wine rooms in the evenings; and the poor father, with commendable pride, thinks he is giving his boy a “chance.” By and by Johnnie discovers that the shortest way of getting through the world without working is by gambling or forgery. Some one has said that “an idle brain is the devil’s workshop.” It may be as truly said that it is his camping ground, and the best foundation for just such a life as Sodom represented. The remedy consists in inculcating from earliest childhood the true dignity of labor, in giving industrial training equal prominence in the school curriculum with higher mathematics and the fine arts, in recognizing that the girl who faithfully performs the kitchen work belongs on the same social plane as her wealthy sister who never toiled, provided she otherwise possesses the necessary character and qualifications; she should be afforded the same standing as the young woman who fritters away her time in idleness, and perhaps possesses no special qualification except the fact that she “never had to work.” This may, in some instances, necessitate some re-casting of fossilized ideas, but the sooner the erroneous notion that work is degrading is broken up, the better. Just so long as society closes its social doors to boys and girls on the ground that they are toilers, while at the same time the dens of iniquity are extending their arms to them, society need shed no tears over the prosperity that these institutions are enjoying while sapping the life-blood of the nation. The “ax” must be laid at the “root of the tree,” instead of being used in hewing off small twigs. “Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” The last source of Sodom’s difficulty was utter neglect of the poor and unfortunate. But some will say that this certainly does not apply at the present time, for there never was a period in the world’s history when so much money was expended for charity. However, it is well to bear in mind that much of this money is disbursed through boards and bureaus and institutions, often in a cold-hearted, professional way, thus lacking the inspiration that comes from the benefactor and the benefited grasping each other’s hands, each feeling the pulse-beat of the other. In one of the large Eastern States, for every five dollars that is given for charity, four dollars is actually expended for the salaries of the secretaries and boards and committees who devote their time to the disbursement of the other one dollar. In fact, personal, individual charity, where heart is brought in contact with heart, and face looks into face, is being discountenanced and frowned upon by many charity bureaus, and regarded as “misapplied charity.” The Master did not operate through bureaus, boards, and committees. He “went about doing good,” and the great masses, individually, were inspired by His personal presence. The ever-increasing tendency of modern charity to transfer efforts from the individual to the community is robbing it of the blessing that accompanies personal and individual effort in assisting the poor and suffering. The saloon keeper, the cheap politician, the managers of gambling hells, all recognize the value of personal efforts, and the Christian worker must not overlook the fact that it is just as true of human souls as it is of fruit, that the hand-picked varieties are always the best. True reformatory efforts will be successful just to the extent that they are directed to the removal of causes rather than to the cure of effects; and just to the extent that the correcting power of the gospel is applied to the taproots of the fundamental defects of society,—namely, pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, and failure to help the poor and needy,—just to that extent, we shall see that it has in it the same power to inspire and uplift humanity that it possessed when it was enunciated by the lowly Nazarene on the hills of Galilee.