CONTENTS

Chapter
Foreward vii
I. Dietary Backgrounds 1
II. Mexicans 6
III. Portuguese 13
IV. Italians
V. Hungarians 39
VI. Poles and other Slavic Peoples 49
VII. The Near East: Armenians, Syrians, Turks and Greeks 65
VIII. Jews 82
IX. Applications 96

"Foods of the Foreign-Born in Relation to Health" by Bertha M. Wood was published in Boston by Whitcomb & Barrows in 1922. The complete copyright-free book is available at www.archive.org. The author includes extensive notes in this book of international cuisine relating to health. Regarding Italian cookery she states: "Italy has a climate much hke 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 sea- coast 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 vice versa. 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 sea-son, which lasts from early spring till late fall. Often the women are with them, helping 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 shced and fried in olive oil. This is eaten with bread and butter. Proceeding south in Italy, one finds the use of alcohol decreasing and more wine used at meals and on social occasions, accompanied by cakes. 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 vitamins 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 kettle from which each one helps himself, eating until he is satisfied. 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 making of tomato paste, the pickling of peppers, cucumbers and olives, and the drying of peppers and garlic. 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 Italian enjoys it. Moreover, he feels better satisfied when he has it in larger proportion with his macaroni and olive oil. Whereas it was used only once or twice a week in Italy, now it becomes a part of the daily dietary. 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 a 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 cost and more difficulty in securing, the Italians otten have a poorly-balanced diet and run short in some of the most important food elements. 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, and why. 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 as 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.....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 fur- nishes 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 themselves to the conditions in this country and to the needs in their local environment. An understanding of their dietary background is absolutely essential to successful results. .... N.B. Technically, a book has to have been published prior to 1921 in the United States for it to be in the public domain, but sometimes the author and/or his heirs, place the book in the public domain so that individuals can have access to it. Whether this is the case for this particularly book is hard to say. In any case the book can be accessed without cost at the on-line public library, www.archive.org. Because "traditional" recipes don't belong to any one individual, it seems the recipe ingredients cannot be copyrighted, though it is possible that the word-for-word directions given in any one recipe might be.

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