Bread.

Leguminous foods.

The "Erbswurst" and its value.

* What we call " French beans " may be the product of several kindred varieties of the kidney bean, dwarf or climbing, varying according to locality and soil, and distributed over a very large part of Europe. When gathered early, before it is fully grown, the bean is green, like a green pea, and forms an admirable dish, known in France as flageolets. When the ordinary French beans (immature green pods) are mixed in about equal proportions with the flageolets, the dish, which is a very palatable one, is well known in France as haricots verts panaches (variegated), and might be served at our tables with advantage.

Haricots.

The Legumes: A large dish, and may be eaten with salt and pepper. It will be greatly improved at small cost by the addition of a bit of butter, or of melted butter with parsley, or if an onion or two have been sliced and stewed with the haricots. A better dish still may be made by putting all or part, after boiling, into a shallow frying-pan, and lightly frying for a few minutes with a little lard and some sliced onions. With a few slices of bacon added, a comparatively luxurious and highly nutritive meal maybe made. But there is still in the saucepan, after boiling the haricots, a residue of small value, which the French peasant's wife, who turns everything to account, utilizes in a manner quite incomprehensible to the Englishwoman. The water in which dried haricots have stewed, and also that in which green French beans have been boiled, contains a proportion of nutritive matter. The Frenchwoman preserves this liquor carefully, cuts and fries some onions, adds to it these and some thick slices of bread, a little salt and pepper, with a potherb or two from the corner of the garden, and thus serves hot an agreeable and useful croute an pot. It ought to be added that the haricots so largely used by the working classes throughout Europe are not precisely either "red" or "white," but some cheaper local varieties, known as haricots du pays. These are now supplied here at about twopence a pound, and in large quantity might be obtained at a somewhat cheaper rate, their quality as food being not inferior to other kinds.

Various methods of cooking.

But haricots - let them be the fine white Soissons - are good enough to be welcome at any table; and our artisans, whose means are much larger than those of the class above named, might improve their dietary by adopting some of the foregoing hints, as well as those which follow. A roast leg or shoulder of mutton may be garnished by a pint boiled as just directed, lying in the gravy of the dish; and some persons think that, with a good supply of the meat gravy, and a little salt and pepper, "the haricots are by no means the worst part of the mutton." Then with a smooth puree of mild onions, which have been previously sliced, fried brown, and stewed, served freely as sauce, our leg of mutton and haricots become the gigot a la bretonne well known to all lovers of wholesome and savoury cookery. Next, white haricots stewed until soft, made into a rather thick puree, delicately flavoured by adding a small portion of white puree of onions (not browned by frying as in the preceding sauce), produce an agreeable garnish for the centre of a dish of small cutlets, or an entree of fowl, etc. Again, the same haricot puree blended with a veal stock, well flavoured with fresh vegetables, furnishes an admirable and nutritious white soup. The red haricots, in like manner, with a beef stock make an excellent brown soup, technically known as potage a la Conde, and usually served with small fried croutons. The same may be said of lentils, known as "Chantilly," which have much the same nutritive value, and often an agreeable change, especially in winter, when these as well as split peas are usually met with in the well-known form of a puree. If, instead of meat, we employ a good vegetable stock, agreeably flavoured with carrot, turnip, onion, and savoury herbs, a first-rate soup maigre is produced. When, in place of meat, a broth chiefly made from game - especially from the remains of a hare, the prime parts of which have been consumed at table - is thickened with red haricot puree, the result is an excellent soup, which in texture and in flavour would by many persons not be distinguishable from a common puree of game itself. A hint for those who do not despise economy in cuisine, when the value of the product is unquestionable. Stewed haricots also furnish, when cold, an admirable salad, improved by adding slices of tomato, etc., the oil supplying the one element in which the bean is deficient; and a fairly nutritious food is produced for those who can digest it in this form. The same dietetic principle, it may be observed, has, although empirically, produced the well-known dishes of beans and bacon, ham and green peas, boiled pork and pease-pudding, all of them old and popular but really scientific combinations. Thus also the French, serving petits pois as a separate dish, add butter freely and a dash of sugar, the former making the compound physiologically complete, the latter agreeably heightening the natural sweetness of the vegetable, especially and other nutritious combinations.

The finest haricots; their place at well - furnished tables.

Haricot soups, when the peas are a little old, insipid, or have lost their accustomed flavour.

The Legumes: at their Best.

I have just adverted to the bread of the working man, and recommended that it should be made from entire wheat meal; but it should not be too coarsely ground. Extreme coarseness in "whole wheat meal," as it is usually termed, is a condition designed to exert a specific effect on the digestion for those who need it, and, useful as it is in its place, is not desirable for the average population referred to. At the same time, no portion of the husk of the grain should be removed from the wheat when ground, whether coarsely or finely, into meal. That a partial removal is systematically advocated by some as an improvement, is one of the numerous illustrations of the modern and almost universal craze which just now exists among food purveyors of almost every description, for eliminating all inert or innutritious matter from the food we eat. This extraordinary care to employ nothing in our diet but matter which has nutritive value, that is, can be absorbed into the system, is founded upon want of elementary knowledge of the first principles of digestion; and yet, strange to say, the mistaken, indeed mischievous, practice is supported, probably for want of thought, by many who ought to know better. It seems now to be almost overlooked that no proper action of the intestines can take place unless a very considerable quantity of inert matter is present in our daily food, existing as material which cannot be digested. By this character we are not to suppose that it is in the least degree "indigestible" in the sense of that term when employed to signify "difficult digestion," but only that it passes unchanged through the body, neither receiving nor exciting any action. When there is a considerable proportion of this in the food, the bowels can act daily and regularly, having a mass which they can transmit. When, on the other hand, the food is so "nutritious " as to be almost entirely absorbed, there is very little solid matter to transmit, and the action of the bowels is therefore scanty, irregular, and insufficient. This is, in fact, a very extensively recognizable cause of a great deal of the habitual constipation so prevalent among the middle classes at the present time. To return to the subject of coarse wheat meal, let me observe that it does not readily produce light agreeable bread when made in the form of ordinary loaves: a solid mass of this meal being a bad conductor of heat, will have a hard flinty crust if baked sufficiently to cook the interior; or it will have a soft dough-like interior, if the baking is checked when the crust is properly done. Consequently the form of a flat cake, resembling that of the ordinary tea - cake, is preferable, about 1 1/4 inch, or at most 1 1/2 inch thick, since it admits of the right amount of heat operating equally throughout the mass.

Remarks on meal bread.

Reason for not removing the husk.