Eating Corn

From the Illustrated London News, 10th August 1918. 

LADIES’ PAGE.

An excellent idea was that of inviting the children in many schools in England to write letters in their own words to the American Food Controller, Mr. Hoover, expressing their gratitude for the self-denial of the American nation by which we are being comfortably fed.  As President Wilson finely puts it: "America is eating at a common table with her Allies."  Under no compulsion, in millions of households in the United States, as well as in hotels and clubs, days of abstinence are, and have been for several months past, voluntarily observed, in order that the wheat and the beef and the pork done without on those days may come to save us and our Continental Allies from want.  Every school-child should at least be told clearly about this mighty effort of loving comrade-ship and self-denial.  It should weave a tie between us and our sister nation across the Atlantic for all time.

The American housewives use a great deal of maize meal, which is over there called distinctively "corn."  On their "wheatless days " for their Allies' benefit, it will be "corn bread" that will replace the more costly grain that they are saving to give to us.  We ought to try to make more use of maize ourselves. It will not make good loaves unless mixed in about equal parts with wheaten flour; alone, it is made up, usually mixed with sour milk and carbonate of soda, into flat cakes (especially griddle cakes, to eat hot), rolls. "gems," etc.  For corn loaves, this recipe is given me by an American lady, who tells me that she practically lived upon it for seven months, gaining in weight and strength, in a cottage deep in the great American woods: Two-thirds wheat flour to one-third corn meal finely ground.  Sift the corn meal, and boil it for seven hours (if slightly burned it does not matter); add salt to taste; knead in the wheat flour to a stiff consistence, and bake in large loaves in a slow oven.  This, she says, is very sweet, and keeps well.  The State Chemist of Massachusetts found that maize cannot be thoroughly digested and utilised in the human system unless it is cooked slowly for several hours.

[The recipe for corn loaves sounds very strange - boil for 7 hours. "If slightly burned it does not matter" - but it could very easily be a lot more than slightly burned after 7 hours' cooking.]