Chapter 26 Economics - 21

These statistics, though trivial and seemingly useless, have some value because they are fairly complete.There is nothing more that I have not entered in the books.From the above table it appears that food alone cost me twenty-seven cents a week.Food, for the next nearly two years, was always rye and Indian cornmeal, potatoes, rice, a little cured meat, syrup, and salt; and my drink, water.For a person like me who loves Indian philosophy, it is appropriate to use rice as the main food.In order to deal with the objections of some people who are used to nitpicking, I might as well say that if I sometimes go out to eat, which I have done in the past, and I believe there will be opportunities to eat out in the future, then I will do so. It would damage my family's financial arrangements.As I have already said, going out to eat is a frequent event, and it does not affect such comparisons at all.

I know from two years' experience that, even at this latitude, there is unbelievably little trouble in obtaining one's necessary food; and that a man may eat as simple a food as an animal and still maintain Health and strength.I once ate some purslane (Portulaca oleracea) from the cornfield, boiled and salted, and ate a meal which in several respects satisfied me.I put down its Latin scientific name because its common name is not very good.Tell me, in peaceful times, what more food could a rational being wish for than some sweet tender corn, boiled with salt, at the usual noon hour?Even if I change the pattern a little, it's just for a change of taste, not for the sake of health.Yet people often go hungry, not for want of necessities, but for want of luxuries; and I knew a good woman who thought her son died because he drank only water.

The reader understands of course that I am dealing with this issue from an economic point of view, not from a gastronomic point of view, and he will not boldly experiment with my diet unless he is a person with too much fat. At first I baked bread of pure Indian cornmeal and salt, and pure mattress-cakes, which I baked over an open fire, upon a slab of wood, or upon a log sawn from the lumber in which the house was built; But it often smells like pine trees.Flour, too, I tried; but at last I found a combination of rye and Indian corn meal most convenient, and most palatable.In cold weather, it's fun to bake these little loaves in succession like this, turning over carefully like the Egyptians hatching chicks.The ones I baked are the fruits of my real rice grains. In my sense of smell, they have a fragrance like other delicious fruits. I wrap them in a cloth to keep the fragrance as much as possible. The longer the better.I have studied the indispensable ancient art of bread-making, and consulted those who are authoritative all the way back to primitive times, when unleavened bread was first invented, when man first advanced from the eating of wild fruits and raw meat to the The degree of refinement and grace of eating this food, I have slowly rediscovered in my readings the sudden sourness of the dough, and it is believed that in this way the art of fermentation was learned, and then through various fermentations, Until I read "good, luscious, wholesome bread", this life supporter.Some people think that the leavening agent is the soul of the pouch, the spirit that fills the cell tissue, like the flame on the holy stove, which is kept devoutly——I think there must be a few precious bottles originally made by "Mayflower" Brought, who has done this for America, and whose influence still rises, swells, stretches, like waves of food in this land,—this leaven I also duly and faithfully brought from the village, until One morning, however, I forgot the rule, and scalded my yeast with boiling water; this accident led me to discover that even the yeast could be avoided,... I discovered this not synthetically, but analytically— ——I have since done away with it merrily, though most of the housewives had zealously advised me that safe and wholesome bread was impossible without baking powder, and the old ones said my strength would be very weak. soon to decay.However, I've found that it's not an essential ingredient, and I've passed a year without fermentation, and I'm still living in the land of the living; I'm glad I finally don't have to carry a small bottle in my bag, sometimes bang The bottle shattered with a thud, and its contents poured out, much to my displeasure, for it was simpler and nobler not to use it.Man is an animal that is better able to adapt to various climates and environments than other animals.I also don't put any salt, soda, or other acid or alkali in the bread.It appears that I followed the recipe of Marcus Borchius Cato two centuries before Christ. "Panem depstieium sic facito. Manus mortgageriumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortgage indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre, Ubi bene subegeris, defillgito, coquitoquesub testu," ③I understand this passage of his:—"This is how the hand Kneaded bread. Wash your hands and the trough. Put the semolina in the trough, add water slowly, and knead thoroughly. When you're done kneading, shape it, then cover and bake,"—this I mean in an oven for baking bread.Not a word about fermentation.But I cannot often use this type of life supporter.There was a time when the bag was so empty that I saw no bread for a month.