Copyright, 1922
By Whitcomb & Barrows
MADE IN U.S.A.
THE purpose of the study which resulted in the collection of the enclosed material was to compare the foods of other peoples with that of the Americans in relation to health. The inspiration for the work came at the request of Mr. Michael M. Davis, Jr.
A deep sense of appreciation is felt toward many friends and fellow workers who very kindly coöperated. Acknowledgment is here given to a large number of men and women of different nationalities for their patience and help in teaching the recipes which had to be made many times before the measurements were standardized.
Mrs. Mary L. Schapiro's article, "Jewish Dietary Problems," was of great value in making the study of Jewish food habits.
Many thanks are due to Miss Minnie Newman, of the Foreign Department of the National Young Women's Christian Association, for much information secured in relation to both the Polish and Hungarian diets.
To all others who from time to time added valuable information, this piece of work is gratefully dedicated.
BERTHA M. WOOD.
BOSTON, December, 1921.
Portions of Chapters I, IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, were published in "Immigrant Health and the Community," by Michael M. Davis, Jr., Harper and Brothers, New York, to whom acknowledgment is here made.
A FAMOUS doctor has referred to this medical age as having witnessed "the passing of pills and powders." Although the patent medicine advertisements in newspapers and magazines seem to belie the remark, yet the fact remains that physicians nowadays give less medicine to their patients than formerly and pay much more attention to hygiene, diet, and occupation, both as therapeutic agents in curing disease and as factors in maintaining the individual in the best of health and at a high level of working efficiency.
Of these personal and environmental factors affecting the hygiene of life and the physical efficiency of the individual, food ranks among the first. The physician, the public health nurse, the social worker, must deal at every turn with problems of diet. These present themselves in economic form when the income of a family is so low as to make adequate nourishment difficult, even with very careful selection of foods. The problem presents itself in a medical form in the treatment of many diseased conditions: diabetes, nephritis, tuberculosis, "malnutrition," constipation, etc.
Thus the dietitian has entered the area of medical and public health service as an aid to the physician and as an agent in the curing of disease and the maintenance of health. In this capacity the dietitian has entered the hospital, the clinic, and the homes of patients. Books have been written and courses are given for the training of dietitians for such service, but to a large extent the dietitian, the physician, public health nurse, and social
From this point of view the physician, the nurse, the social worker, and the dietitian must study
In the present book Miss Wood opens the door to this knowledge in an interesting as well as a practical way. Her initial study, undertaken in connection with the Americanization Study supported by the Carnegie Corporation, was included as a chapter in the writer's "Immigrant Health and the Community." We owe to the courtesy of Harper & Brothers, the publishers of that volume, the privilege of reprinting a considerable portion of that material in this book, amid the very considerable additions which Miss Wood's further investigations have brought.
MICHAEL M. DAVIS, JR.
NEW YORK CITY, December 15, 1921.
MOST of our friends from other countries come to America in the very cheapest way, and are unaccustomed to travel. They leave home with many of their cooking utensils in a cloth bag and continue their housekeeping on shipboard in the steerage, feeding their children and themselves from stores brought from home. Almost their first thought on landing is of something to eat, and this fact places food in the first rank of importance in our plans for Americanization. Their first impression of America is often gained in a poorly-housed restaurant, whose proprietor is of their own nationality. From him they learn where to get some of their native foods, both raw and cooked.
Usually they establish their homes in neighborhoods or colonies of their own nationality. Here there is no opportunity to know about American foods, raw or in combination, or the kind and amount of foods needed in a day's dietary under the new living conditions. If they have come from countries in which the climate is very different from this, they make no change in diet; or if their occupation here is more strenuous or less taxing, they do not take this into consideration. They have always eaten certain kinds of foods, prepared in certain ways. Why change? There is no one to tell them; no one to tell them which of theirs to keep, and which of this country's to adopt, or how to prepare them. They are probably more willing on their arrival than they will be at any later time to accept American help and suggestions.
Their housing conditions are changed--their style of clothing must be changed; many of their social customs, as well as some of their religious ideals, must be given up; the only habit and custom which can be preserved in its entirety is their diet. This is made possible because they find in America, as in no other country, all their native raw food materials.
All human beings are naturally gifted with more or less ability, when occasion requires, to prepare food for themselves. This aptitude does not necessarily help them to adjust their diet to new conditions. They are willing to learn, but who will teach them? Who knows their food? How many and which ones shall they continue to use to meet their daily needs and their new financial condition and responsibilities? Where shall they buy them? Even the dishes to cook in are of a different type. Which kind produces the familiar results?
There is much that we may learn from these people and, equally much for them to learn from us with profit. If we then study their customs and acquaint ourselves more and more with their foods, we shall not only broaden our own diet by the introduction of new and interesting dishes, but also we shall be better able to help these foreign-born to adjust themselves to new conditions with as few changes as possible.
During the influenza epidemic of 1918 it was plainly demonstrated that neither district nurses, settlement workers, nor visiting dietitians knew much about the foods of the foreign-born patients. Gallons of American soups and broths were served to these people, only to be untouched and thrown out. This came at a time when diet might have meant much in furnishing resistance to the disease. In our hospitals and dispensaries we usually
It is much easier for the dietitian to learn the foods of the foreign-born than for these people to adjust their finances to a new dietary. Often their income is insufficient to buy their own foods, which they know they like. Can we wonder that they hesitate to invest in food about which they are uncertain? There are certain diseases prevalent among the foreign-born people which are due largely to their change of diet. If this is corrected, it may overcome the disease.
A Bohemian family of father, mother, and six children, who were patients at a dispensary, were living (or staying here) on an income of twelve to sixteen dollars a week. It was necessary to get milk and cereals into the diet of the children, but who, without a knowledge of Bohemian foods, dare disturb that very limited amount of the income which was available for food?
An Italian printer earns seventeen dollars a week. In his family are seven children, the oldest a boy of eleven. Barbara, five years old, was very bow-legged, and had to have her legs broken to straighten them. Three younger children were sent to a dispensary food clinic for diet to prevent their being bow-legged. It was necessary to have not less than two and a half quarts of milk added to their food each day. The income was too small to allow
In the chapters which follow a brief account is given, for several important nationalities or race groups, of the conditions and dietary habits of the people in their own country, and then of their food problems here, with special reference to health. Reference is made to some diseases in which diet is a factor and which are most frequently noted among the group by physicians, nurses, and social workers.
Diets and recipes for these diseases are given for each nationality. These recipes are made from our American raw materials, and many of them resemble our dishes so closely that only slight changes are necessary in our recipes to produce a welcome diet for these people. In printing these recipes no attempt has been made to force them into cook book English. Many carry their national atmosphere in the expressions used.
A dietitian has never been so honored, in college or out, as she will be by these foreign-born people when once she talks to them of their familiar foods. An Armenian storekeeper found a fellow-countryman, a chef in an Armenian restaurant, who was suffering from indigestion. He said to him: "You come with me. I take you to the smartest woman you ever knew. She knows our foods; she tell you what to eat; you feel better."
The recipes have not been worked out in calories or grams, as this can readily be done by the dietitian when necessary to fit specific needs. Because it might be that the same dish could be served with very little change, lowering the fat content, increasing the protein, or lessening the carbohydrate, as the case might require, it is
MEXICANS have settled in some of the best fields of California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho.
They are not a people who love academic work, but they enjoy any educational training which develops the use of their hands. Their interest lies largely in music, flowers, and the arts.
Mexicans who live in the rural sections, on farms or ranches, are not naturally migratory. They remain in the same locality or in the same communities more permanently than any other nationality. They are especially desired where irrigation farming is necessary, because they are very skillful at this kind of farming, many of them having been well trained in old Mexico. Most of them live in houses on the farms and pay a per acre rent, although there are some who pay a percentage of the grains.
Many live in the smaller villages, leaving their families there and going to work by the day on ranches. This bears a definite likeness to the French system. They live in groups, going out to work small sections during the day and returning to the village at night. They pay rent for their small houses in the villages, although some own the small tracts of land on which they live; and the men and the older sons take care of these, or leave them to the care of their wives while they themselves work by the day on larger ranches in the neighborhood. To look at their homes, one would think that they were decidedly unsanitary. This is not necessarily so, but depends almost entirely upon the water supply. Most of the water comes
The people crowd into their small houses, and often there is a deplorable lack of window space. Fortunately, the shacks are only one story high and are not close together, even in the villages. The life is an outdoor one; doors are almost always left open, and it is doubtful if the housing conditions have much to do with their ill health.
Infant mortality is always high among the Mexicans in both city and rural districts, and this is no doubt entirely a matter of feeding and bathing. Most babies are breast-fed, especially during the first few months, but in addition to the milk, Mexican mothers generally insist on feeding the children heavier foods as soon as they will begin to take them. Very small infants are taught to eat frijoles or beans, and when the melons begin to ripen, the babies are stuffed with cantaloupes and watermelons. During the summer, and especially during the hottest months, infant mortality increases by leaps and bounds. If the babies can be put on milk diets under the care of a visiting nurse, they seem to do quite well, although it is necessary for the nurse to repeat her instructions many times.
There has been distinct improvement in the housing conditions in El Paso, and to some degree in other cities also, during recent years. A few years ago the Mexicans were living in crowded, small, adobe houses of one room only, sometimes with no windows at all, and only the door to admit light. In one instance eighty tenants lived in one block, the entire block being filled, leaving nothing but an alleyway which was not used. The houses were a miscellaneous lot of shacks, with one toilet for the entire
There are still undesirable places, and many of the houses lack proper window space and toilet facilities. Almost none of the houses in which Mexicans live have bathrooms, but plans are under way to provide a system of public baths, which will probably be better than having bathrooms that would not be used. There is one small public bath, which is almost always crowded with Mexican boys.
As the Mexicans live almost entirely in one-story houses, part of which are of brick and part of adobe, the housing problem should not be a serious one, as there are few elements of danger. There are only a few tenement houses, which are of two and three stories. Small houses tend to scatter the population, although, of course, they may be crowded in the single rooms.
The people are responsive to right treatment, although suspicious, but not necessarily unstable. Their suspicious nature handicaps efforts to get their coöperation. They are responsive only to the degree that they understand the motives. The prevalent idea is that Mexicans are very deceitful. This may be so if their suspicions are aroused; otherwise they are no more deceitful than any other nationality. They are extremely courteous, and in their way coöperative.
With regard to their food, Mexicans eat beans, rice, potatoes, peas, and all sorts of vegetables. The chili, or pepper, is often considered a sacred plant which furnishes health to those who eat it. Therefore it is found in many of their dishes. They still prepare their food largely as they did in Mexico. To write fully about it and its preparation would require many pages. In brief, however,
Undernourished and malnourished children are frequently found in Mexican families. They are served with the same foods as the adults, foods highly spiced, with a large amount of fat added, or corn meal fried in fat. Bland foods are quite unknown in their dietary. Chicken, chicken soup with rice, vegetables, fruits and cereals, with milk and eggs, are good foods for the children. Clean milk, however, is not always easy to procure. Rice and oatmeal are the cereals most commonly used. These are boiled in water, with milk added when nearly done. They are eaten as a thick gruel instead of with cold milk poured over them as we have them.
Nephritis cases, in general, must have foods containing less spice and salt. The diabetic must be furnished with dishes that have no rice in them. This is difficult, as rice is used in many combinations with other foods.
When the Mexicans intermarry with Americans, the result of the cross dietary is that often there is double the amount of fat taken at a meal by the American. The
As the Mexicans come north or intermarry, it would be better for the children and adults to learn to eat the simpler foods of the American people, boiled or baked, with less spice and fat.
Any nurse or dietitian can persuade them to use cereals or baked or boiled fish and meats and vegetables, if they gradually reduce the amount of tomato or pepper for flavor until it becomes a bland dish, easier to digest and not harmful to the kidneys.
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MOST of the Portuguese in this country come to us from the Azores or Western Islands, only a small proportion coming from Portugal. We have grown to know them in their homeland much better since the war, as at that time we used Delgada, the capital of the island of Saint Michael as a coaling station.
The Portuguese are among the most gifted city builders in the world. They do not plan for efficiency, as the Americans or French would do, but have a gift for tucking a sense of beauty into every little corner of a town. In this they are hard to rival.
The natural environment of these island people is a sparkling cluster of white houses, dashed here and there with spots of vermilion, blue, and lavender, and flanked on either side by an ancient fortress, with no sooty railroad yard or fuming factory visible to mar the loveliness. Even their row boats are artistic. As one approaches the shore one notices the striking beauty, the wonderfully graceful lines, and the charming decorations of the boats dotting the shore line.
From the boat landings of the port cities on the several islands of Saint Michael, Angra, Madeira, and the northerly island of Terceira, the streets usually radiate up the hills like the ribs of a jeweled fan. The public markets occupy whole squares, located among the cross streets. These are tempting places, with their stalls of melons, bananas, pineapples, eggs, squashes, tomatoes (both red and yellow), meat, fish, and the brown potatoes (two or three times the size of the largest American ones), with splashes of sunlight and shade giving cheer and inspiration
The few Portuguese who come to us from Portugal have had the same surroundings. Even Lisbon is as romantic and full of color as the island towns and cities. The whole environment of these people has avoided the grimy, sordid, commonplaceness of the neighborhoods into which they come in America.
In the old country, the chief pursuits of the people are fishing and gardening; over here they usually locate in a seaport, but these occupations become only their recreation, with often very little of that. In America, most of them work indoors in the big mills.
Their diet, too, has changed; not because a new one has been thoughtfully planned to fit the need, but because foods are too expensive. Fruit and vegetables are not grown near at hand, and therefore cost more. Fish, too, is three times the price paid in the islands. There are few goats in the city neighborhoods into which they come.
Their cooked foods have much the same flavor as those of the Mexicans. Spices and peppers are freely used, their favorite spices being allspice and mace.
When the income is sufficient, the children's food is easily planned for. They are fond of fruits and vegetables, as well as of cereals. If they were born here, they enjoy milk; but if they were brought up on goats' milk in the homeland, they must be taught to like the flavor of cows' milk. They like eggs, and chowders and soups are used freely. This helps in the care of underweight or tuberculous children and adults.
All nephritic patients must be warned against the frequent use of salt fish and many kinds of spices.
Hypotension cases, also, are difficult to treat, as they have been in the habit of using various kinds of salt fish as well as irritating spices.
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ITALY has a climate much like that of California, which gives the people a long farming season, but in the hottest part of the summer, in Southern Italy, very little work is done during the middle of the day. Wheat, corn, and other cereals, vegetables, fruit, chickens, sheeps' and goats' milk constitute the food products of the farm. Some have a greater variety than others, depending on the ambition and aggressiveness of the farmer.
The Italians make their own cheese from goats' milk; they lay in a store of dried peppers and strings of garlic for the winter, and they make enough tomato paste to last during the season. Here and there one finds olives raised for family use. These are pickled, both ripe and green, and are used not only as a relish, but cooked with macaroni or, in Northern Italy, with corn meal.
The Italians who come to America are the peasants or land workers. They are heavily taxed at home, and almost no educational opportunities are provided for their children. Taxes are heavy, ready money is scarce, and saving is a slow process. The needs of the family are supplied from the farms direct, or by exchange with neighbors.
Italians may be divided into three groups: those from Northern Italy; those from Central Italy; and the seacoast group--the Sicilians and those living on the shores of the Adriatic.
The northern group know as little about the foods of the central and seacoast groups as they do of their dialects, and
The Italians from the northern provinces use stronger drinks than wine, both at and between meals. Their diet consists of black coffee for adults, goats' milk for children, and bread without butter for breakfast. The bread is heavy and made of wheat, which is home grown and ground. It is dark in color, because the wheat is not put through any refining process. The bread is made in large, round loaves, or in oblong pieces, and is baked on the bottom of the oven, without being placed in tins. Oftentimes it is baked on the stones in one side of an open fireplace, or out-of-doors on heated stones. This gives a heavy crust on all sides.
The midday meal is not considered an important one, as the men are out in the fields during the farming season, which lasts from early spring till late fall. Often the women are with them, helping them with the work. Sometimes they take along bread, cheese, and coffee; sometimes a piece of sausage. If they return to the house they have bread, fried eggs, and black coffee.
The important meal is served at the end of the day, preparation for which is generally started early in the morning. The black pot is put over the fire, and into this is put a small amount of meat or some beans. Their variety of the latter is so great, they can use a different kind each day if they wish. Later they add vegetables, then macaroni, and last fat, either lard or olive oil.
Polenta may be started in this same black iron pot. This to us is a thick corn meal mush, to which is added tomato paste or ripe tomatoes. Sometimes they change it by adding grated cheese, or bits of pork and garlic. It is eaten hot; or, if allowed to cool, is then sliced and fried in olive oil. This is eaten with bread and butter.
Proceeding south in Italy, one finds the use of alcohol
The food produced in Central Italy is not very different from that of the north. It is raised more abundantly, however, as the farming season is longer. Fruits and vegetables are produced in quantity, and the poorest people have them in abundance. Very little meat is used; it is served not more than once a week in some families, and in others on festive occasions only. Here again we find the many kinds of pasta, or macaroni, used in combination with different vegetables, garlic, and oil. When bread is eaten with it, no butter accompanies it.
The peasants use very little pastry or cake except on feast days; then they are elaborate--such as Gateau Margherita, made with ten eggs and the whites of five more, butter, flour, and almond flavoring. In the frosting of cakes the Italians exercise all their artistic ability, beautifying and ornamenting them. It is because of the expense and the unusual amount of time and work required to make them that pastries are not used oftener. Fruit takes their place in the everyday diet of the people.
Goats furnish milk for the family. The children drink it, and the surplus is used for cheeses of various kinds.
Thus we see that the people of Northern and Central Italy have a very well-balanced diet in their own country, with protein from milk, cheese, eggs, and meat; carbohydrates from macaroni in various forms and from bread; mineral matter from fruits and vegetables; and fat from olive oil, lard, and pork. From the milk, vegetables, and egg yolks they derive vitamines to promote growth and repair tissue.
It is difficult to measure their daily food in calories, as they generally have a one-dish meal, prepared in a large
The occupation of the southern Italians outside the cities is fishing. Some are engaged in the sponge fisheries, others in coral fishing, while the largest proportion are fishing for food. As a result, the seacoast people have a more varied diet than the other two groups. Fish of many kinds, including shellfish, are added to their daily menus; these ranging from snails--the smallest variety--to ink fish, one of the largest.
Snails are sometimes combined with rice or macaroni. They are put into cold water and left to soak out of their shells, then the shells are taken out and the water turned off, leaving the snail meats in the bottom of the dish. These are scooped out and mixed with the macaroni to which may have been added garlic, green or red peppers or tomatoes, for the southern Italians are fond of more highly seasoned food than the other two groups. All small fish are boiled, baked or fried in olive oil, and served with a tomato sauce to which garlic and green peppers have been added.
Generally one can tell from what part of Italy a family have come if one knows the foods they are using.
The diet of the Italians in the cities is more expensive and varied than that of the people in the rural districts. Incomes are larger and transportation brings food materials from all parts of Italy, from Northern Africa, and even from America. These people use more pastry and cake. Afternoon tea is always accompanied by cakes, and light wine is served with small cakes.
Throughout Italy the variety of foods is more limited in the winter than in the summer, as the people have little knowledge of preserving fruits and vegetables, except the
On the arrival of the Italians in the United States, they readily find friends and neighbors from their own section of the home country. They establish their homes near; and from the different foods carried in the markets, it may be determined from what locality the people came. Macaroni is not only imported, but is also manufactured in this country. There are Indian meal for their polenta, meat and fish in abundance, and plenty of vegetables and fruits of various kinds, but everything is much more expensive than at home. The Italian laborer here is paid larger wages; he handles more money than in Italy, but with the joy of this comes the realization that it costs more to live. At home he had a garden and never had to count the cost of vegetables or fruit; here he has no garden and is amazed at market prices.
The most important food that is missing from the Italian diet in this country is milk. Herds of goats and cows, with their calves, are not driven around our streets from door to door to furnish the day's supply of milk for a few cents, as is done in some cities of Italy. No great effort was necessary there to have milk; goats were inexpensive, both in first cost and in their maintenance; cows were always kept on a farm if goats were not, and the more well-to-do often have both. These animals were considered as much a part of the place as the grapevines and fruit trees.
In this country it is an effort to get milk, and it has to be planned for. As it is usually considered a drink rather than a food, the food is bought first, then if any money is left, and usually there is not much, it is used for milk.
More meat can be had than in the old country, and the
The family like vegetables, but to get from them the amount of satisfaction and bulk to which they are accustomed would incur too great an expense. Either they leave out both milk and meat and live largely on starches--bread, macaroni, and potatoes--and vegetables, or meat is used at the sacrifice of vegetables and milk. When the health of the family suffers through this great change in diet, one often hears, "My man no like his work; he sick," or "My child, he no good since he came here," always attributing the difficulty to the wrong cause.
Eggs are another staple in the diet in Italy which is almost prohibited here because of the high prices, unless the family keep hens. Many of their soups require a large number of eggs, eggless soup being almost unknown to them.
These conditions and changes help to indicate the hard problem which the woman in the Italian family has to meet in this country. Doubtless she was unaccustomed to marketing in Italy, and generally has no one who has solved the problem to help her in this country; so she quite naturally follows in the footsteps of others who have known no more than she the way out into dietary suited to the new needs of her family and to American supplies. The result is that a readjustment takes place without really making any plan for an adequate diet.
The raw food materials of the Italian diet, many of which were easily procured from their own farms, when combined in their home country ways furnished a cheap, well-balanced diet. In this country, because of greater
The Italian children are given the adult's diet as soon as they are out of swaddling clothes. The larger the abdomen, the stronger and healthier the mother considers the child. A diet of milk, strained cereal, and fruit juices is unknown to an Italian mother. Too large an amount of macaroni or rice and lard are usually included in the diet, and often the children suffer from constipation because of this excess of starch, with few vegetables and little fruit.
The children learn to take tea and black coffee, and bread without butter, for breakfast. Usually this means a meal of 200 to 250 calories, composed of carbohydrates, instead of one of 500 calories, such as they should have obtained from a combination of protein, carbohydrates, mineral matter, and fats. At noon the meal often consists again of bread with a piece of bologna, and more tea or coffee.
At night, or supper time, comes the big meal of the day, which, as in their native country, is started in the morning and cooked either in one large kettle or in several small ones, the contents being put into one in the last process of preparation.
The Italian woman, when she does cook a meal, spends much time and care, and the results are very appetizing. This fact gives encouragement, showing what an apt pupil she would be if taught early on her arrival how to market, what raw food materials like those of her home country can be secured, what substitutes can be used, and what a day's dietary--breakfast, dinner, and supper--should contain,
In attempting to furnish this instruction, native dishes and raw food materials should be recognized and preserved as far as possible. If olive oil is a luxury, other vegetable oils, of which we have several, may be introduced. Soups may be given that will have the Italian flavor of tomato, or garlic, or both. To them may have been added macaroni in one of its various forms, rice, or fava (horse beans), and this will furnish thickening in the place of eggs. Milk soups will be acceptable only when highly flavored, or after the family have learned to like white sauces. Gnocchi is their milk soup. Vegetables the Italians have always cared for, and when their value is explained, they are often willing to substitute more of them for meat. Cheese is used more sparingly here, because the people cannot make it themselves and must therefore buy it. This adds another expense, with the result that less is used.
The Italians have an many good combinations of food to select from as can be found in American cook books, when special diets must be given to those who are not well. The following are prescribed for undernourished children:
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Some of the Italian soups more nearly resembling our own are minestrone alla Milanese, or vegetable chowder, brodo di capone, or chicken soup, and brodo di carne, or vegetable and beef soup.
Milk may be given plain or in custards, as in gnocchi of milk, or in zabione.
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Other recipes which may be used for children are as follows:
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Italian children do not need to be encouraged to eat macaroni, vermicelli, or spaghetti, which are usually well cooked. They are quite ready to eat oat meal or rolled oats if these are cooked in milk and raisins added.
A constipation diet includes vegetables served in the many different ways of cooking and combining, and fresh fruit or fruit juices. When constipation is found among the Italians, it is usually due to the fact that they have been financially unable to secure vegetables, fruit, and olive oil, and have lived exclusively on macaroni, rice, and lentils.
An Italian patient with nephritis finds it very hard to leave cheese out of his diet. He does not miss the other forms of proteins so much. A very little meat is used at any time; eggs are used as thickening, and would not be missed if another thickening were used, but cheese furnishes flavor for many dishes. Therefore, if any protein is to be allowed, cheese should be selected.
Tuberculous patients may be given milk in the same forms as are prescribed for undernourished children, and eggs in soups. The Italian people are not in the habit of using soft eggs, but have many recipes for using hard-boiled eggs. Patients can be taught to poach or drop them, and serve a little grated cheese on them. In this way they may learn to eat them. Sugar may be prescribed in fruit compotes--stewed fruits, made of either fresh or dried fruits. Raisins and almond paste are other forms of sweets.
Diabetic patients find it very hard to adjust themselves to a diet without any pasta, or macaroni. Among their people it has always been the staple at every meal. Vegetables used by them in many combinations are prescribed for this disease. Tomatoes may be scooped out and an egg dropped in each. Then the tomatoes are placed in a small dish, and baked until the eggs are set. Mushrooms are often chopped and baked in tomatoes. Beans of all kinds are used in their dietaries, and must be removed. Often the use of mushrooms may be encouraged in their place. Endive is enjoyed as well as dandelions, spinach, and many other leafy vegetables.
If the Italians can secure their preferred diet, it is usually well-balanced. Naturally they are painstaking, good cooks. It is not, therefore, at all impossible for a person who knows their native dietaries to help them adjust
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THE Hungarians come to us from various walks of life, and with different standards of living, and include in about equal proportions the peasant type and the city dwellers.
The peasants come from the fields in the country towns where opportunities for education are lacking. From them we get our unskilled Hungarian workmen, who, in this country, are generally found in our mill cities, working in the factories.
At home, in the fields, they are served a lunch at four o'clock, consisting of bread, bacon or bologna, and curdled or sour milk. Here, they change from an outdoor occupation to one in the mill or factory, and there is no mid-afternoon lunch.
The city dwellers have had educational advantages, and there are many in this country who have had a college education. Some have left Hungary in order to have religious freedom in America.
Some of these city dwellers have been artisans in the homeland, and in this country are among the best workers in metal factories.
The ordinary factory noon time in Hungary is one and half hours, and the worker tries to live near enough to go home for dinner. Otherwise he must go to restaurants. Sometimes his wife or child carries his dinner, but dinner pails generally are unknown.
Liquor is always taken in the home at meals, and often the wines served are home-made.
Rye bread or rolls is the usual bread served. Cereals
Underweight children should be taught to eat cereals, and dill pickles should not be included in their diet.
The nephritis patient must have a number of changes made in his diet, as ordinarily it contains a large amount of spice and many pickles. The diabetic can be fed very comfortably if the income is sufficient to buy vegetables. It is the custom to serve them dressed with melted butter, and with bread crumbs placed on top.
The following week's menus, arranged and served by a Hungarian housewife, give a good idea of the kinds of foods and the combinations used by the different types of Hungarians in their own country. These do not change very much here if the income is sufficient to purchase them.
(Breakfast the same every day)
(Breakfast the same every day)
Women and children--Coffee with bread and butter or left over cake, 4 o'clock. Lots of fruit and melons.
Every afternoon at 4 o'clock coffee with sweet bread of some kind.
Brown the
Brown the
Chop the
THE Polish people introduce us to a northern climate in which the summers are not so long as the winters. Very few of the people from the cities of Poland come to America. Those we find here are the peasant class. They have lived on farms where they raised grain and vegetables that develop during a short season, such as beans, carrots, turnips, parsnips, cabbage, lettuce, and other summer vegetables. Tomatoes are not raised, nor are they known to the people outside of Warsaw. They raise stock from which they get milk and meat. In the winter they are fond of hunting, and they know many ways of cooking game. Many spend their summers farming and their winters lumbering. Wood is used almost exclusively for fuel. Great ovens are built out-of-doors, in which quantities of food are prepared to be stored away for winter use.
Meat has a prominent place in the Polish diet, beef, veal, and pork being the kinds most commonly used. These are roasted or used in combination and boiled. Pork is perhaps the favorite kind, and they have many ways of making it into sausage and of smoking it. When smoked it is often covered with mace to add flavor. This is true not only among the Poles, but also among other Slavic people. Pork is frequently used with beef and made into puddings or loaves.
In the winter the only fresh meat used is game, and it is customary to roast this over an open fire. The skins are used for clothing, including shoes.
In the very recent years only have floors been laid in the country homes, families heretofore going barefooted on dirt floors.
Fish is used fresh in summer and pickled in winter. It is rarely preserved by salting. In some restaurants of the large cities of Poland and Russia there are tanks or aquariums filled with edible fish for the enjoyment of the guests, who designate to the waiter the kind of fish they prefer. It is then taken from the tank and prepared. Fish is boiled or baked, but for special occasions the best cooks prefer to make it into cutlets. Cooked fish blended with a sauce or gravy is shaped into cutlets, which are then fried or baked and served with a sauce or gravy.
Potatoes are served at almost every meal. The preferred grain among all these people is barley. The Poles use corn meal and oats also.
Eggs are the dinner dish on Wednesdays and Fridays in place of meat. Sometimes chickens or ducks are used.
When a family arrives in this country, it is confronted by many new and strange appliances, such as agate and tin cooking utensils instead of copper and iron, and "so many kinds to learn how to use"--
The clothing is queer, too. Hats made of straw or felt are such wonderful things compared with kerchiefs. Other clothing seems of such light-weight material, even in winter.
When the man of the family gets his first job, it is as a laborer, sometimes building our railroads, bridges, or
In his own country bizos was one of the luncheon meats taken when hunting, and as he sits on the curb, or out along the railroad he is helping to build, he enjoys his lunch, accompanied by memories of one of those hunting expeditions and the friends who were with him.
The family diet slowly changes from flour gruel and potatoes with coffee for breakfast to coffee and rolls or coffee, rolls, potatoes, and meat. Wednesdays and Fridays they have always had eggs for dinner. This custom they continue as long as they are able to afford it. In winter, because of the high price of eggs or because the man is out of work, they must hunt a substitute; or, what is more frequently done, eggs are left out and no substitute is provided. Flaxseed oil is their favorite fat. That is hard to find here, and this necessitates learning to use some of the vegetable oils that we have.
The Polish children and those of the other Slavic peoples come from a sturdy race. Upon arrival in this country they have round, well-shaped heads, rosy cheeks, and strong bodies. With their kerchiefs over their heads, they make fascinating pictures of health. They have had an abundance of milk and fresh air in their own countries. Here they live at first in crowded districts, and milk is counted as a drink--not something to eat. Therefore,
In cases of undernourishment among the children, it is always necessary with the Slavs, as with the other foreign-born people, to prescribe milk and to help plan the food budgets so that milk may be included in the children's diets. Among their soups children may have rosolzlazankamt, a consommé with eggs dropped in it. Eggs are beaten as for scrambled eggs, and dropped into the hot soup by small spoonfuls just before serving. They may also have chicken soup or krupnik palski, which is prepared with barley. Cereals are eaten not only for breakfast, cooked in milk, but often in soups or baked and served with meat. As vegetables are seldom cooked and served without meat, it is necessary not only to prescribe them, but also to show them how to make purées and to cook plain vegetables.
One quart of
A constipation diet is easy to find for these people, as they are naturally large vegetable eaters. Szynka pieczona zkasza (ham roasted with cabbage) or rozbiantere dusgony (roast fowl with vegetables) illustrate how inseparable are their meats from their vegetables. Dusgony or vegetables they welcome on a diet list. Cereals in the form of coarse grains they use. These will come under the name of kasga, which is boiled in milk or baked in water, with milk and fat added during the baking to give moisture.
The diabetic patient finds consolation in the number of fish dishes known to the Polish and Russian folk. Ryba wgalarecie, or fish in jelly, is much enjoyed. The jelly is made with lemon and the first layer often has chopped cabbage or celery in it. When this is set, the fish, already boiled, is placed upright in it and more cooled jelly added to cover the fish. Pigs' feet in jelly is another favorite dish, made of the gelatine from the feet of the pig, with meat from the hocks. Ciely, or veal roasted or made into cutlets, may be used; also pork, or wiprzony, prepared in a number of ways. Sledy pocztomy, or maatjis herring, is often used for supper.
For nephritic patients it is hard to separate their protein from their vegetables. Their vegetable soups are made thick with vegetables and in this way they can be given in a diet. Zupa Jarzynowa is vegetable soup made with a foundation of chicken stock and any or all kinds of seasonable vegetables added. Soup, or rosal, with makoronom or noodles cannot be included, but borszoz zabillang can be given. It is a beet soup, made by boiling both the tops and the roots of beets with the addition of fat and sour cream.
Tuberculous patients will enjoy many of the smietanie,
One-quarter pound
A
Boil a quart of
Flaxseed oil with a small amount of lemon juice is a favorite salad dressing.
The following story illustrates how a sympathetically prescribed diet, recognizing the value of familiar national foods, aids in winning the hearts of people. A Russian woman was asked to interpret for a Ukrainian patient at a Food Clinic. She was not much interested at first, but when some of her well-known foods were mentioned, she
Arrange in a crown shape on a chop plate and pour
To serve, put into plat