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Show Kathleen Norris Says: For Americas Soke Slop Fussing Ilrll SyiHlltot-WNU rtur. a) LZJ kv. r. . "Just keep serene and cheerful, nnd ak him not to pronounce upon the din-i din-i tier's scarcities or deficiencies until ie'j euten it." IT'S A GAME Good sportsmansltip is as valuable in war as it is on the baseball diamond. And that applies to the home front as well as to the battlefield. U hiners and those who cry "gimme" are as guilty of a foul as the player who knocks the ball out of bounds. But unfortunately unfor-tunately there isn't always an umpire on hand to call the foul on those people. In time they will put themselves "out" by their actions, but until then others must suffer for their failure to "play the game" according ac-cording to the rules. By KATHLEEN NORRIS ALL this fussing about food Z- shortages seems to me unworthy of the people of the greatest nation in the aorld. That we ARE the greatest aation in the world is more evident every day. Our ideals re the highest, our purposes ri war and peace the most lair, and our people the most .'ortunate. There are millions sf men and women in the vorld who would thank God ill their days for a chance to fct to America. And there are very lew other countries to which these imprisoned, oppressed, starved, expatriated ex-patriated folk would care to go. That's why it seems to me beneath be-neath our dignity to keep up this anxious talk about food. We'll always al-ways have plenty of food; nobody's going to be hungry. But what we have to remember is that we are making the most colossal war effort ef-fort of our history, and for awhile the questions of farm labor and farm production, market labor and market distribution, are going to get all mixed up, be mis-managed, cause infinite confusion and inconvenience. Then everything will get straightened straight-ened out and organized, and we'll have plenty again. Someone made the statement the other day that more than four million Victory gardens, gar-dens, large and small, are being planted all over the country; that means vegetables, anyway, for some 12 to 20 million persons who depended depend-ed on markets last year. Delicious Meat Substitutes. It wouldn't hurt us at all to cut down to ONE real meat meal a week and piece out the others with cheese, eggs, oysters, shell-fish and real fish, and the lesser meats; chipped beef, sausages, tongue, tripe, kidney, calf's head, pig's feet, ox tails. All making an endless and delicious variety. va-riety. A fish chowder is a meal in itself, and so is asparagus plentifully pieced out with croutons and scalloped scal-loped in a cheese sauce. Or cauliflower cauli-flower so treated, or even the humble hum-ble cabbage. Other nations merely season a hearty starch or vegetable dish with meat. Half a pound of ham or chopped giblets, poured over a great dish of spaghetti, is a meal in Southern South-ern Europe. Potatoes boiled in their jackets with butter and salt and hot milk have nourished many a strapping strap-ping young colleen or gossoon in Ireland. Ire-land. In France a simmering "pot-on-the-fire" gets a little of everything; every-thing; last week's chicken bones, the ham bone that was bought when every bit of meat was gone from it; beans, cabbage, carrots, turnip, toasted odds and ends of bread, and scallions galore, and the result is the delicious, mellow, velvety, filling "potage paysanne" that with a salad, sal-ad, and long cuts of sour bread, makes 300 suppers a year. Years ago we used to save all the stale bread until Friday. Then it was toasted in the oven, put in a tureen, salted, and covered with several quarts of hot milk in which butter was melting. It was served in soup-plates, and was by no means an unpopular supper. The delightful uncertainty as to whether one's share would be mostly bran, rye, graham or raisin bread was a part of the charm; Bread was never wasted, and nobody left the Friday fupper table hungry. .If dessert could be something extremely popular; popu-lar; say deep apple pie or a chocolate choco-late custard, all the better. But no matter how plain this fare looked to us when the realization came, "Friday "Fri-day again!" it always left us satisfied satis-fied and happy. We used to call it "crusts" and "poor house chowder" until a visiting child christened it "White Fried Soup Day." Proper Welcome for Dad. And that reminds me of a hint an older housekeeper may well pass on to some of you younger ones. A man comes home tired, depressed, cross and starving, and either chilled to the bone or suffering from the humidity. This is the unfailing law of the Master's return. To greet him with bad news, to have some caller he dislikes very chatty and friendly in his particular chair, to permit the children to be yelling and quarreling all over the place, or a thoughtless little daughter to be monopolizing the evening paper, or the bathtub, or the radio or the telephone tele-phone at that moment simply marks you as a bad manager. Look out for all these things and be ready for them. Of course he wants a big steak, or two double chops or a roast. But he doesn't need them, and if you can keep him quiet until any good plain filling food is inside him, he'll realize that war-time meals aren't such an infliction, after alL Don't greet him with a shrill denunciation of the butcher, don't let him feel that his coffee supply is scant; just keep serene and cheerful, and ask him not to pronounce upon the dinner's scarcities or deficiencies until he's eaten it. Write the boys that all this talk of rationing isn't serious; and give them a list of your new culinary achievements; the egg and codfish dish that Daddy likes so much, the big puddings stuffed with fruit that have come back into fashion. For remember, desserts can be full of vitamins and calories, too. I've revived re-vived old-fashioned suet, puddings for special occasions; crumbs and suet, and as much again of chopped fruits, spices, a little corn syrup to sweeten it, a little prepared flour, one beaten egg to bind it, and there you are! You can make combinations combina-tions of ginger root and raisins, dates apd figs, cranberries and jams, apricots and corn meal, prunes and orange peel and candied pineapple. They scent the house as they bump away in a boiler for three long hours, and at dinner leave the family gasping for less good food! Mother's Cornmeal Dish. My mother had a famous one of apples, cornmeal, ginger and suet; she cooked the cornmeal stiff first and then put the other things in; and there's an Indian meal pudding for which I never did have the recipe, but it's as American as Donald Duck and full of nutriment, too. Canned milk. whipped like cream, for sauce; or sauce can be hot water, butter and sugar, with flavoring added. To send a message of strong hope and comfort to our boys, to bring them home one moment sooner, you and I would live on oatmeal porridge por-ridge and skim milk for the duration, dura-tion, wouldn't we? Generations of Scots have grown strong on that fare. Get the word through to the fighting fronts that we are getting along magnificently, that the sacrifices sacri-fices we have to make aren't half enough, that we know what they ar doing for us, and that every last one of us is doing what she can foi them. |