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The First Bill of Groceries: Foods

Flesh or Protein Foods Meats Poultry Fish Milk Cheese Eggs Nuts Dried Peas and Beans Starchy Foods Bread Rice Macaroni Tapioca Cereals Potatoes Fatty Foods Butter Cream Bacon Salad Oils Cooking Fats Fruits and Vegetables Potatoes Lettuce Celery Carrots Onions Asparagus Cabbage String Beans Peas Oranges Bananas Grapefruit Lemons Cranberries Berries Sugars Candies Sweets Cakes Cookies Jellies Preserves Honey Sirups Dates Raisins Dried Figs Currants WHERE KNOWLEDGE OF FOOD VALUES HELPS There are just five of these groups, but every food is so chemically constructed that it more naturally falls into one group than another, so I have to carry but five groups in mind in order to plan my meals.

The First Bill of Groceries I aim to plan them so that I have a food out of each of the five groups at least twice each day - that is, I may have meat only for dinner, but I will use milk or cheese in my lunch dish so that gives flesh foods twice.

This flesh or protein group includes the foods that cost the most money, so if we are playing the marketing game to reduce expenses, it pays to find out the cost of various kinds of meat, fish, and cheese, and to serve flesh foods just twice instead of several times a day.

The least expensive group is the next one, the starches - and although we have most of us inherited the notion, not fact, that we must have potatoes with meat, we can find by a study of their make-up that rice, macaroni, and bread all have the starch which potatoes supply, and so we can turn up other cards and win the game by knowing which ones to play.

As Americans we are apt to overeat rather than undereat, so that for one who knows the game and how to be diplomatic with her partner's tastes and fancies, it is not impossible to win the prize.

CHOOSING QUANTITIES Another phase of the kitchenette marketing is getting the right amount - not too much or too little - of the food desired.

Where there are pantry and cellar supply shelves, it pays to buy foods in quantities, but not so for our kitchenette apartment.

All fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as meats, must find a place in the refrigerator, and as the walls of the refrigerator are not elastic, the garbage pail is too apt to get more than its share of food that is wasted because of the lack of a cool place to keep it.

A glance at a two weeks' market order, after some of these experiences had taught The First Bill of Groceries wisdom in small-quantity buying, tells how it can be done.

Meat Orders Breast of Lamb, Chicken, 3 pounds 2 pounds Dried Beef, 1/4 pound Porterhouse Rib Roast, Club Steak, 1 pound 3 pounds Stewing Veal, 1 pound Crab Meat, pint Eggs, 1 dozen Groceries Tomatoes, 1 can Tomato Soup, 1 can English Walnuts, 1 pound Coffee, 1 pound Peanut Butter, 1 pound Potato Chips, 1/2 pound String Beans, 1 can Apricots, 1 pound Asparagus, 1 can Chicken Soup, 1 can Sugar, 2 pounds Salad Oil, 1 quart Cheese, 1 can Olives, 1 bottle Fruits and Vegetables Lettuce, 2 heads Green Peppers, 2 Mushrooms, pound Potatoes, peck Bermuda Onion, 1 Bananas, 1/2 dozen Oranges, dozen Grapefruit, 1 THE QUANTITY TO ORDER In buying ribbon we instinctively ask the price per yard and then order a yard or two, or if less than a yard, we call for a half, a quarter, or an eighth of a yard - never ten cents' worth. We should so order our food - by the pound, half pound, quarter pound, or other definite measure. Just because it is easier or a matter of habit to follow the line of least resistance, we too often say "ten cents' worth, please", when it comes to buying food, and, by not being exact ourselves, encourage our grocer to become careless too.

The profits on retail groceries are not large, so that our very carelessness necessitates the grocer adding to his overhead expense the cost of expensive scales on which he can weigh accurately the "ten cents' worth" of food which retails at twenty-five or thirty-five cents a pound The First Bill of Groceries - which charge we must pay in the increased cost of our groceries. The alternative open to the grocer who has not invested in these expensive scales is to guess at the quantity, and guessing sometimes is overweight, sometimes underweight his loss or ours. Another necessary point is to see that we get the quantity we order, for a second result of this same carelessness on the part of the buyer is the condition existing in many stores: when you ask for three pounds of rib roast at twenty-two cents a pound, they cut it off and, on weighing, invariably find that they have made a mistake and cut too much. "Seventy-five cents' worth; that's all right, isn't it?" This with a manner that makes us feel very small not to say "Oh, certainly" and pay the bill.

It does take courage to refuse it, but it doesn't take more than a few refusals to convince the butcher that we know how much meat we want. He wants our trade, and competition is keen, so that he will serve us as we wish, when we let him know that we ourselves know what we want. The grocer, too, will go to the trouble to look up specific brands of goods for us when he finds that we really don't want substitutes.

The brands of canned and package foods are becoming so numerous that there is a great field for interesting exploration among them as well as in the market among the fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. The business woman is at a great disadvantage when it comes to the choosing of these latter, for she must needs turn the picking out of her order over to her grocer or market man because her daily work seldom gives her the time to go to market. But she can train her grocer to send her good products by returning poor goods just a few times. The First Bill of Groceries If we give the grocer a fair deal, he'll give us one - but let us not give him a chance to act on the basis that we don't know what we want. -