Читать книгу A Comprehensive Guide-Book to Natural, Hygienic and Humane Diet - Beard Sidney Hartnoll - Страница 5

In every household where reformed diet is adopted, effort should be made to prepare the meals in an artistic manner. If a dish is skilfully cooked and tastefully served it is not only more enjoyable but more easily digested.

The general custom in English homes is to serve vegetables in a rather slovenly style. To see how nicely such things as legumes, vegetables, salads and fruits can be prepared, one requires to go to a good French or Italian restaurant. But it is quite easy for us to learn the ways of our friends abroad, and to make our dishes look tempting and appetising.

One of the first lessons to be learned by the vegetarian cook is how to fry rissoles, potatoes, etc., quite crisp, and free from any flavour of oil or fat. To do this a wire basket which will fit loosely into a stewpan is necessary, and it can be purchased at any good ironmonger's shop. Nutter (refined coconut butter) is a well prepared form of vegetable fat, and it is retailed at a moderate price; it keeps for a long period and is equally useful for making pastry – three quarters of a pound being equal to one pound of butter. Where nut-butters cannot be obtained, good olive oil should be used.

The temperature of the fat or oil must be past boiling point, and should reach about 380 degrees. When it is hot enough it will quickly turn a small piece of white bread quite brown, if a finger of it is dipped in the fat. Unless this temperature is reached the articles to be fried may turn out greasy and unbearable. If the fat is heated very much beyond 400 degrees it may take fire. Haricots, lentils, and many other legumes are more tasty if made into cutlets or rissoles and fried in this manner, after being mixed with breadcrumbs and seasoning, than if merely boiled or stewed in the usual crude style.

The Art of Flavouring. The art of flavouring is also one which should be studied by every housewife. By making tasty gravies and sauces many a dish which would otherwise be insipid can be rendered attractive. The recipes for "Gravies" will prove useful on this point.

Many valuable modern scientific food products are not fully appreciated because people do not know how to serve them. Take 'Protose,' 'Nuttoria' and 'Nuttose' for instance – very useful substitutes for flesh which are made from nuts (malted and therefore half digested). If slightly stewed, and eaten without any flavouring, some persons dislike the distinctive taste; if, however, they are well cooked, according to the recipes printed later on in this book, and served with such garnishings as are recommended, they are usually much enjoyed, even by those who are prejudiced against all vegetarian ideas.

Cooking by Gas saves Labour. Cooking by gas appliances is more easily controlled and regulated than when the old-fashioned fire is employed, and much labour for stoking and cleaning is avoided. Those who can do so, should obtain a gas hot-plate, consisting of two or three spiral burners, and a moderate-sized gas oven. If they cannot afford the ordinary gas cooking oven, a smaller substitute can be obtained, which can be placed upon any gas jet; this is very economical for cooking single dishes, and for warming plates, etc. A gas cooking jet can be obtained for eighteenpence, and two or three of these will take the place of a hot-plate if economy is necessary. In summer-time the kitchen range is quite a superfluity unless it is required for heating bath water.

A New Mission for Women. The ordinary public know very little of the variety and delicacy of a well chosen fruitarian dietary when thoughtfully prepared; ignorance and prejudice consequently cause thousands to turn a deaf ear to the evangel of Food-Reform. All women who desire to bring about the abolition of Butchery, and to hasten the Humane Era, should therefore educate themselves in artistic fruitarian cookery, and then help to instruct others.

To illustrate the truth of these remarks I may mention that at a banquet given by the Arcadian Lodge of Freemasons, at the Hotel Cecil, in London – the first Masonic Lodge which passed a resolution to banish animal-flesh from all its banquets – one of the Chief Officers of the Grand Lodge of England attended. He came filled with prejudice against the innovation and prepared to criticise the repast most unfavourably. In his after-dinner speech, however, he admitted that it was one of the best Masonic banquets he had ever attended, and said that if what if he had enjoyed was "vegetarian diet," he was prepared to adopt it if he found it possible to get it provided at home.

By practising the recipes which are given in the following pages, and by utilizing the hints which accompany them, readers of this book will find no difficulty in acquiring the skill which is requisite to win many from the flesh-pots, even when they cannot be induced to abandon them from any higher motives than self-interest or gustatory enjoyment.

Every woman should resolve to learn how to feed her children with pure and harmless food. Every mother should make her daughters study this art and thus educate them to worthily fulfil their domestic responsibilities. Here is a new profession for women – for teachers of high-class fruitarian and hygienic cookery will soon be greatly in demand.