The Basics
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Cooking Basics
The information on this page came from: The Modern Method of Preparing Delightful Foods
Author: Ida Bailey Allen
Copyright 1929 Corn Products Refining Company NY, NY 7th Printing


Ida Bailey Allen was an International Nutrition Authority and the author of "Mrs. Allen on Cooking-Menus-Service" and "Your Foods and You or The Role of Diet".
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Prologue
Through my work with The National Food Administration during the Great War (WW1), I became convinced that as a Nation we were drifting away from the simple, wholesome living. We did not know how to use Corn-and the Great Products made from it.

Foods must be plain-skillfully combine into three meals a day. Every food has a definite place-only a few are needed to balance a meal-to put into it all the elements the body needs for energetic work and play. Each ingredient should the best of its kind.

Only as we plant seeds of healthful foods, shall we reap health of mind and body.

Recently the Corn Products Refining Company asked me if I thought women would like to know more about Corn and its products.

I knew they would and so- from seed planted ten years ago-this book has come to be.

Ida Bailey Allen
HOW TO MEASURE
All measurements should be exact-as level as possible.

Use standard, half-pint measuring cups, and standard tablespoons and teaspoons. These can be obtained at any house-furnishing store for a very small sum.

To measure a cupful of any dry ingredient-fill and scrap off with a knife.

Half, quarter and third cupfuls are indicated by marks on the cup.

A pint is two cupfuls of anything.

To measure a cupful or a spoonful of Mazola, pour in as much as the utensil will hold.

To measure a cupful or spoonful of Karo, fill the utensil, but not to overflowing.

To measure a half tablespoon or a teaspoonful of any dry ingredient, fill the spoon, scrape level with a knife, and divide lengthwise. To measure a quarter spoonful, halve crosswise.
COLONIAL BREAKFASTS
Three centuries ago in Plymouth, breakfast was served at dawn, on long, narrow, bare tables. There was one high salt shaker in the middle.

Home-hewed wooden trenches were used for plates, one for two children or a man and wife. Sometimes the table-top itself was hollowed into bowls about the edge! The spoons were made of pewter or of laurel, called spoonwood- these were patiently whittled in the flickering firelight. The cups were hollowed gourds. In wealthier homes, one tall leathern tankard mounted in pewter was used by all.

The rough floors were strewn with sand or rushes. They used benches for seats drawn close to the table's edge-they called them "forms".

The children stood throughout the meal, never speaking, sometimes eating at a separate board, helping themselves from the smoking kettle at the great table. (Is this the origin of the 'kids' table perhaps?)

Hasty Pudding, made from Corn was the main food. The brass pot in which it was cooked was a precious possession. It was filled with water, swung over the fire, the salt thrown in and the home ground meal stirred in and cooked as quickly as possible. Sometimes maple syrup, milk or butter was eaten with it. When these could not be obtained, the resourceful Colonial Cook used cider!

Hulled Corn, "Injun" Bread with milk, or a great pot of pumpkin sauce made into mush with meal, furnished nourishment for hours of toil.

Those were plain days, plain thoughts.

They were plain folk seeking new life in a new land.
BREAKFASTS
EARLY BREAKFASTS

1-Peaches, eggs "poached" in Mazola, reheated quick rolls and butter, coffee (adults), milk (children).
2-Apples, corn flakes and top milk, creamed dried beef with buttered toast, coffee (adults), milk (children).
3-Orange or grape juice, coddled eggs, toasted "health" muffins, coffee (adults), milk (children).
4-Coddled apples, creamed ham with toast, coffee (adults), milk (children).

LATE BREAKFASTS

1-Grapefruit, French Toast with Karo, coffee (adults), milk (children).
2-Grilled apples, corned beef hash, southern corn bread and butter, coffee (adults), milk (children).
3-Sliced oranges, codfish balls, drop biscuit and butter, coffee (adults), milk (children).
4-Cracked wheat with raisons and Karo, with top milk, toast and butter, coffee (adults), milk (children).

TRAY BREAKFASTS


1- Grape fruiot, baked omeletsouffle, breakfast cake and butter, coffee.
2-Stewed prunes, eggs benedict, toast, coffee.
3-Strawberries or oranges, browned panfish, Sally Lunn and butter, coffee
4-Melon or pears, broiled ham, waffles with Karo, coffee
                                                             
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