Housekeeping in the Tropics
p. 68 · Read in the full issue
Conducted hy (( Dorothea”
The Daily Vitamin Content
... • A well balanced diet is essential in the tropics.
An excess of one vitamin cannot compensate lor lack of another. The best safeguard is to eat as great a variety of foodstuffs as possible.
Cheese, milk, and green leaf vegetables, which liver and roe—which supply iodine, also supply Vitamins A and D; whole-meal, which supplies phosphorus, also supplies Vitamin B; liver and egg-yolk, which are good sources of iron, supply also Vitamin A; butter, which supplies calcium, provides also Vitamins A and D. Vitamin B is rarely absent from any but the worst balanced diet, and it may be assumed that if the diet is fSSSSU g t"ts V regSd S S £ C ' Foods which are useful in supplying mineral matter and vitamins are often spoken of as “protective foods,” i.e., foods that protect the body from the deficiency diseases. These protective foods are-
Milk and milk-products (butter, cheese, etc.).
Fresh salad vegetables and fruit.
Liver (including fish liver and fish liver oil).
Fish (especially fat fish); for example, mullet and eel and fish roes. . —From ‘*Bukit Bahrum,” Wau, New Guinea.
Tapioca (Cassava Root) Porridge
Beil 5 cups of water, and grate 2 cups full of cassava root. A pinch of salt. Mix well with wooden spoon and stir until cooked. About 15 minutes. Caution: A very slow fire. For a change, used a little grated cassava for thickening stews. —Sent by “Gumatua,” Fiji.
Ginger Marmalade
Take 31b. dried cooking apples, glace ginger, 1 quart water, and sugar. Wash and dry apples, take slices and place in a saucepan, add water, bring to the boil, simmer gently until fruit is well pulped, strain through a jelly bag, but do not squeeze. Weigh juice and allow 11b. sugar
to every lb. of juice (less container). Put in pan with ginger cut into dices, boil quickly for 8 to 10 minutes until it sets on a cold plate. Pot and cover at once. This is a very welcome addition to dietary. Up here it is a great favourite. Owing to the lack of plentiful fresh fruits (except tropical) I use dried apricots and peaches for jams to vary the menu, and achieve a measure of success. —Contributed by “Bulwa,” New Guinea.
Dutch Cutlets
1 tin Rex-pye, 1 onion, 1 cupful of breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, 1 egg, 1 cup brown sugar. Mix together Rex-pye, breadcrumbs, minced onion, pepper and salt to taste, and, lastly, the beaten egg. Flatten out oval shape, place in greased pie-dish with slices of bacon on top. Add gravy, cover over with greased paper, and bake in mod erate oven for one hour. Ten minutes before taking out, remove paper. —Mrs. Hill, Ysabel, Solomon Is.
Corned Beef Hash
Peel and boil about 11b. of potatoes, then mash with a little butter and milk. Mince lib. cooked corned beef, and 1 onion, then thoroughly mix together the beef, onion and potato. Put into a pie -dish with a few dabs of butter on top. Bake in a fairly hot oven until brown and crisp on top, usually about half an hour. A little seasoning, tomato sauce, or cooked haricot beans may be added if wished. —Sent by “Bitinanbo,” Solomon Is.
Prickly Heat
Thin-skinned individuals, subject to prickly heat, should take a hot bath daily with Neko soap, and use plenty of good talcum powder, on all places affected. This is equally good for children. In extreme cases curtail alcoholic drinks, curries and condiments, and take an occasional hot bath containing three tablets of corrosive sublimate. —“Belinda,” Shortland Group, Solomon Is.