How to Manage the Family's Food

When you go to the market to buy foodstuffs, Madam, what do you look for among the kinds offered, and on what basis do you decide to buy this kind rather than another? Is it because it is cheap in price, or because it is more nourishing than the rest? On this occasion I should like to give you an example to make clear the matter of food value, comparing milk with other foods rich in proteins. One kilo of milk yields 360 calories, and its price ranges between 75 and 80 Lebanese piasters; in the amount of calories it is the equal of three hundred fifty-eight grams of meat, which cost about 110 Lebanese piasters, or of nine eggs, which cost one hundred piasters.

Foods rich in proteins, such as meat, milk, eggs, and cheese, are generally dearer than foods rich in carbohydrates or fatty matter, such as grains, bread, fruit, and vegetables, because we like to eat the former kinds prepared in quickly perishable forms — meat, poultry, fish, and eggs — and prefer them to the dried pulses such as chickpeas, broad beans, lentils, and the rest.

When the prices of meat and eggs are very high in the market, buy plenty of milk; likewise, when olive oil is dear, replace it by cooking with peanut oil; and buy fruit and vegetables at the height of their season, when they are plentiful in the market.

There is no doubt that the question of preparing food for three meals a day is one of the hardest problems facing the housewife, for she must prepare the appetizing dishes that all the members of the family like, and they must be nourishing, wholesome, and as cheap in price as possible, and as varied as the family's financial and domestic circumstances allow. Books and articles, therefore, cannot be relied upon; the housewife must make a special effort to decide upon the dishes she intends to prepare for the three meals over a week or two. And know, Madam, that the time you spend in planning your family's food has its great value, for it spares you much trouble in other quarters: the doctor's visits to your house will grow fewer, and the sum you spend on buying medicines for your little ones will shrink, if you take good care over the food you prepare daily and observe the rules of health in planning the dishes necessary for each member of the family — child, adolescent, and adult; laborer, clerk, doctor, or professor. If the family consists only of adults, and of those who do no physical work, the morning breakfast should be composed of light foods: some fruit and a little toasted bread with a hot drink such as coffee with milk or cocoa with milk. It may also include some pulses or eggs in addition to what has been mentioned. But if the members of the family are among those who strain their muscles in daily work to earn their living, the morning breakfast must be one of the substantial meals — composed, for example, of pulses, eggs, fruit, and one hot dish, with bread, in addition to the hot drink. And if the family is made up of children and adults together, breakfast should be midway between the light and the substantial — with the understanding that if one of the adults does no work demanding muscular effort, he must not partake of all the dishes on the breakfast table, but confine himself to the light dishes that the children should eat, though he must take a sufficient portion of them.

On the whole it may be said that one hot dish at the midday meal, or two — such as beans or other cooked pulses, or cooked vegetables with rice — is beneficial and easy to digest. And there is no harm in adding one or two cold dishes — a few slices of cold meat, or cheese, or hummus with tahini, or mashed potatoes with oil — for this supplies the body with a sufficient quantity of calories, especially if the person also takes some fruit rich in vitamins and calories, or takes some sweets.

You must, Madam, take account of the tastes of the members of your family in preparing the dishes for the three different meals; but care must be taken in any case not to multiply the dishes that are hard to digest within one meal, or within the meals of a single day. Foods containing large quantities of meat, or rich in fatty matter, are always harder to digest than others, and so they should be accompanied by one or two dishes rich in carbohydrates: butter, for example, is eaten with bread or potatoes, and labneh with olive oil. On the whole, give small quantities of different kinds, for this is better and less harmful than giving a large quantity of one kind.

Foods that stimulate the digestive juices in the various parts of the digestive tract should be taken before the other dishes that hinder the secretion of these juices: soup, for example, should be served before anything else, and meat given after it; while the sweets, which tend to close the appetite, should be given at the end of the meal. And there is no harm in taking a few pickles and certain kinds of spices during the meal, for they help to rouse the appetite and to promote the secretion of the digestive juices.