Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each one links straight to the page it comes from.

1. The book answers one everlasting question. The foreword says it exists to help the housewife with "her everlasting question, 'What shall I have for dinner tonight?'" Read it in the book →
2. There is a free sequel about shopping. A companion book, The Family Food Supply, "tells how to do your marketing and plan your meals economically. A copy will be sent you upon request." Read it in the book →
3. Meat once a day — insurer's orders. The Food We Eat rules that "children should not have meat more than once a day; adults also can get along very nicely with meat once a day." Read it in the book →
4. Fiber, by its 1918 name. Fruits and green vegetables "maintain and build blood and bone, regulate the body and furnish it with roughage." Read it in the book →
5. Two cups of butter make a pound. The Table of Measures and Weights opens the kitchen mathematics: two cups butter, four cups pastry flour, or two cups granulated sugar each equal one pound. Read it in the book →
6. The lunch box is planned for the factory floor. The Lunch Box chapter prints suggested cold lunches specifically "for industrial workers" — the millions Metropolitan insured through industrial policies. Read it in the book →
7. The invalid's drink is beaten egg white. Albumen Beverages: egg white beaten to a froth with fruit juice, strained and served cold — pure protein for a patient who cannot chew. Read it in the book →
8. The first sentence is an actuarial creed. "Right living is largely dependent on healthful eating" — a life insurance company opening its cookbook with the reason it wrote one. Read it in the book →
9. Wartime shows in the chapters. A whole chapter of Meat Substitutes — beans, cheese, eggs — sits mid-book: 1918 was the year of federal meatless days, and the ration reached even the insurance company's kitchen. Read it in the book →