Tinned food

“ Food is of the utmost importance. Rice, biscuits, and oatmeal may form the staple, and tinned soups, Liebig’s extract of meat, and dried fish may be added. Chocolate [325] and milk in sealed tins is convenient and refreshing. Tea, coffee, sugar, and salt must be packed in well-corked bottles to keep them dry and free from ants, etc. A bottle of Yorkshire relish or Worcester sauce, and a tin or two of bloater paste are nice relishes for soups. Fowls, eggs, fruit, and sometimes freshly-caught fish may often be purchased en route. ”

“ A good supply of tinned provisions should be taken, dried fruits, rice, flour, sago, tinned milk, and chocolate and milk, and some soups and vegetables in tins. The wine should be strong, to bear dilution. ”

“ Tinned Fruits.—Tinned fruits are ready for eating directly the tin is opened. All we have to bear in mind is to turn them all out of the tin on to a dish immediately. Do not leave any in the tin to be used at another time. Most tinned fruits can be served just as they are, in a glass dish, but a great improvement can be made in their appearance at a very small cost and with a very little extra trouble if we always have in the house a little preserved angelica and a few dried cherries. ”

“ All good cooks know, or ought to know, that if they leave the soup all night in a saucepan the soup is spoilt. Again, all housekeepers know that although they have a metal tank, they are bound to have a wooden lid on top, there being a law to this effect. The point they forget in using tinned goods is this, so long as the air is excluded from the interior of the tin no chemical action goes on whatever. When, therefore, they open the tin, if they turn out the contents at once no harm can ensue. ”

“ When by these or other means we convert vegetable tissue into dextrin and sugar, as it is naturally converted in the ripening pear, and as it has been artificially converted in our laboratories, we shall extend our food supplies in an incalculable degree. Swedes, turnips, mangold-wurzels, &c., will become delicate diet for invalids; horse beans, far more nutritious than beef; delicate biscuits and fancy pastry, as well as ordinary bread, will be produced from sawdust and wood shavings, plus a little leguminous flour to supplement the nitrogenous requirement. ”

“ Though it is true that after a few months all tins, meat or fish or fruit, seem to have one and the same flavour, it is possible that a stomach jaded by a long course of beef or mutton may welcome jugged hare or curried prawns. It is worth while, too, to take a few tins de luxe for special festivals. In hot places there is often a craving for strong flavours, and a palate which shuns such things at home cries out for pickles and sauces. ”

“ A paragraph has been going the round of certain papers lately, giving directions for disguising the flavour of tainted meat, which "few cooks know how to treat so as to render perfectly nice"! It is to be wrapped in vinegar cloths, &c.—"boil up, and use it." I should say doctor it as you please, but then—throw it away! If anything, no matter what, goes bad—milk, soup, vegetables—throw it out without hesitation. It is a pity to waste things—and this ought to be prevented by good management—but surely it is much greater waste to use tainted food. ”

“ Oatmeal for the table is made from kiln dried, large, white oats, freed from the husks. Alone it does not make good bread. If long used as a sole or chief food it is reputed to overtax the digestive organs, heat the blood, and produce eruptions of the skin. ”

“ Waste has no place in the substantial American home. The wise home manager uses every bit of wholesome edible product for food. She makes tasty dishes of all left-over foods. A bit of extract of beef adds just the flavor necessary to make many left-over meat and vegetable dishes favorites with the family.
Left-over egg yolks are rich in fat and may be used with skimmed milk in making custards, pudding sauces, salad dressings, noodles and in soups or drinks. ”

“ But there was a plenty of good food in tins easily to be got at; and what was still better I felt quite strong enough to eat a lot of it without hurting myself. I even went at my meal a little daintily, spreading a napkin—that I got from a locker filled with table linen—on the pantry dresser, and setting out on it a tin of chicken and a bunch of cheese and some bread which was pretty stale and hard and a pot of jam to end off with; and from the wine-room I brought a bottle of good Bordeaux.
As I ate my supper, greatly relishing it, the oddness of what I was doing did not occur to me ”

“ After that I opened a tin of meat—but on the instant that the hatchet split into it there came bouncing out such a dreadful smell that I had to rush on deck in a hurry with it and heave it over the side.
But even without the meat my food supply was secure to me for a good while onward, there being no less than ten boxes with two dozen tins of beans in each of them—quite enough to keep life in me for more than half a year. ”

“ We cannot begin to describe the Elizabethan magnificence in dress. The artificial taste for dainty and costly living was also abundantly evident in the epicurism of the time. The court that allotted a scanty diet of cereal, oil, and vinegar to the men it sent out to subdue a wilderness, could partake of no simple food or drink. The cookery was complicated and consisted mainly of "villanous compounds" of great cost. Butter, cream, marrow, ambergris, lemons, spices, dried fruits, oranges, the scarce sugar—all of these entered largely in the composition of dishes. ”

“ Such are milk, honey, eggs, nuts, cereals, a few roots, legumina, and gums, and the countless variety of fruit, which are man-food par excellence. Our various kinds of bread, though artificially prepared, as well as other farinaceous dishes, are derived from an edible grain which is neither repulsive nor indigestible in its original state.
"To the second or adapted edibles belong different vegetables which are rendered palatable only by the process of cooking, as cabbage, beans, peas and lentils, and various roots and leaves. ”

“ When we come to the question of the food supplies to be taken aboard, much will depend upon the individual. Hard tack, salt tack, flour, beans, corned beef, salt pork, bacon, hams, canned meats, sardines, canned fruits and vegetables, cornmeal, lard, butter, cheese, condensed milk, sweetened and unsweetened coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate, pepper, salt, mustard, vinegar, poultry seasoning, sugar and rice are some of the staple comestibles that suggest themselves, but these may be added to or subtracted from according to circumstances. ”

“ And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers, I believe, my letters and Fanny’s when we were first installed, and were really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape gooseberries—galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful—for no one who has not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. ”

“ A convalescent may use for drinks plenty of good milk, cocoa, carefully made tea and coffee, occasionally good wine, and the different mineral and drinking waters. Some foods to be avoided are pastry, dark or badly made cakes, pork, veal, any highly seasoned meat dish made with gravy, all kinds of fried food, sausages, heavy puddings, badly made bread, lobsters and crabs. ”

“ It is a fair inference from these facts that creatures like ourselves, who are not provided with a crop or compound stomach, and manifestly secrete less saliva than horses or other grain-munching animals, require some preliminary assistance when we adopt graminivorous habits; and one part of the business of cookery is to supply such preliminary treatment to the oats, barley, wheat, maize, peas, beans, &c., which we cultivate and use for food. ”

“ By the substitution of a little cheese and an orange for the oatmeal, a meal containing about the same fuel value and proportion of protein could be arranged, and it would certainly appeal more to the appetite, and furnish better proportions of ash constituents.
In the construction of the menu for the day or meal, we must consider not only food values and time of day and combinations which shall be digestible, but flavor, color, texture, and temperature of our foods. The study of digestible combinations belongs to the science of nutrition. ”

“ We dined that night on eland-steak and boiled hippopotamus, and found both dishes excellent; and we pieced out the dinner with some tinned peaches, which Jack drew from the recesses of the wagon. Blessings on the head of the man who invented tinning, or canning, edible things! They have softened the asperities of life in rough regions to a wonderful extent, and have rendered it possible for men to live a long time away from fresh meats and fruits without danger of that terrible disease, scurvy. ”

“ Cereals, eggs, and milk may be added to increase their food value. Cereals in the form of gruels or delicate puddings, as cornstarch blancmange and tapioca cream, are easily digested. Vegetables are best given rather sparingly, and only delicate, mild-flavored ones, such as spinach or asparagus, if digestion is much disturbed. In getting an invalid to take sufficient food, much depends upon the attractiveness of the service. Remember that very little things, like a fingermark on a glass, or coffee spilled into the saucer, may take away appetite and prevent enough food being eaten. ”

“ By packing cured meat in tins and subjecting these tins to sterilization complete immunity from decay may be secured and there is no damage done to the aroma or flavor. We, therefore, find upon the market at the present time in tinned, canned, or potted form almost every variety of meat that is used either in a fresh state or after the usual method of curing. ”

“ And lugging [26] potatoes is heavy work over a trail. As for the other vegetables and fruits, and even meats, most people buy large quantities of tinned articles and so get rid of the whole question. Personally I think that this is a great mistake. It was a delight to me to find in Doctor Breck’s “Way of the Woods” that he, if obliged to choose between bacon and dried apples and chocolate, would always choose the chocolate and dried apples. And when the question of portage as well as health enters in, it may be said right here that it is quite impossible to carry a pack full of tins. ”

“ This, however, is not the case; for I would remind you that one of the first points to learn in connection with the serving of tinned meats is that they should be warmed up in the tin before it is opened. We can, therefore, perform the astonishing trick of making hot our ox-tail soup, our curried rabbit, our asparagus, and our plum pudding in the same saucepan at the same time. ”

“ Serve with French or mayonnaise dressing; garnish with blocks of aspic jelly.
CEREALS Cold boiled rice left over may be mixed with a small quantity of meat, and used for stuffing tomatoes or egg plant; or it may be re-heated or made into pudding, or added to the muffins for lunch, or added to the corn bread.
A cup of oat meal or cracked wheat or wheatlet may also be added to the muffins or ordinary yeast or corn breads. These little additions increase the food value, make the mixture lighter, and save waste. ”

“ The flavour and texture of food, its taste, in fact, stimulates the production of those secretions—such as the saliva and the gastric juice—by the action of which the food is digested or dissolved, and becomes finally a part of the body, or is assimilated. As food, then, must be relished it is desirable that it should be varied in character—it should neither be restricted to vegetable products on the one hand, nor to animal substances (including milk and eggs) on the other. ”

“ Our Canned Goods are put up with a special quality of tin, and most of them, being hermetically sealed while fresh at the sources of supply, preserve the fresh natural flavors, and are REALLY FRESHER, MORE WHOLESOME AND PALATABLE than many so-called “fresh” articles which are exposed for sale during considerable periods of time in city markets. ”

“ Even when such vegetables are wanted for salads, boiling and subsequent cooling are advised. The mineral salts of vegetables dissolve into the water in which they stand, and in any shortage of such food, or for the greatest economy, it would seem wise to save the water in the can, which is often thrown away to secure a more delicate flavor. ”

“ The varieties of nut-butters are many, and the various combinations of nuts and vegetables making potted savouries, add to a long list of highly nutritious and palatable nut-foods. There are the pulses dried and entire, or ground into flour, such as pea-, bean-, and lentil-flour. There are the cereals, barley, corn, oats, rice, rye, wheat, etc., from which the number of preparations made such as breakfast foods, bread, biscuits, cakes, pastries, etc., is legion. (One firm advertises twenty-three varieties of prepared breakfast foods made from cereals.) ”

“ No fried foods are permissible. Pastries, griddle cakes, rich puddings and sauces, candies, and alcoholic beverages must be omitted from the diet as well as the following articles of food: pork, veal, shellfish except oysters, sardines, canned meats and canned fish, highly seasoned and spiced dishes, twice-cooked meats, vinegar, [Pg 251] pickles, olives, cold slaw, pickled beets, catsup, mustard, coarse fibered vegetables such as cabbage, old onions, old turnips, and cucumbers, strong tea, coffee, or chocolate, rich cream or dishes made entirely of cream. ”