Chapter D: Dandelions

The juices and salts of the dandelion exert a stimulating influence over the whole system, helping the liver, kidneys and bowels. The fresh leaves are an excellent addition to salads, but should be quickly grown and partially bleached, otherwise they are intensely bitter and tough. The flowers also, which grow freely in the springtime, are a good addition to salads.

Dandelion Tea.

Chop finely or bruise 2 ozs. of fresh young dandelion leaves. Pour over them 1 pint of boiling water. Let stand 2 hours in a covered vessel and then strain for use.

A wineglassful can be taken cold three times a day, or this quantity can be added to a breakfastcupful of hot water and drunk as a tea.

To make a Dandelion Decoction.

Add 4 ounces of finely chopped or well bruised fresh green dandelion leaves to 1½ pints of water. Boil the liquid until it measures a pint, then strain and use in the same way as the tea. This is a stronger preparation than the tea.

Dandelion Coffee.

This is a fairly pleasant beverage, and closely resembles ordinary coffee in taste. It is especially advantageous when tea or coffee are found to disagree. It is an excellent drink for dyspeptics, as it stimulates all the organs of the body and also exerts a cleansing action upon them.

The roots are usually dug up in October, dried, cut into small pieces, carefully roasted and ground.

To make it add 1 teaspoonful of the roasted dandelion coffee powder to ½ pint of boiling water, bring just to the boil, strain, and serve, adding milk or cream if desired.

DATES.

The distinctive feature of the date is its large sugar content. This sugar is of a mixed kind, being partly fruit sugar, and partly cane or invert sugar. The presence of this latter makes the date somewhat difficult of digestion in cases where the power of digesting cane sugar is small. Dates go well with nuts of all kinds. They are better assimilated when eaten with fresh green salad.

On account of their sweetness, dates have at times been used for preparing a coffee by drying and roasting them in a slow oven or kiln. So made, the resulting powder must be kept in an air-tight tin, otherwise it will absorb moisture, and become caked.

The stones of dates also have been used, after careful roasting, to make a coffee, but the grinding process is difficult, owing to the intense hardness of the stones.

In the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa the date is a food of immense importance and frequently constitutes the sole food of the Arabs when travelling. Even the stones are pulverised, and fed to the camels. In the East, the date palm bears the title “the tree of life”: its length of life and fertility are certainly astonishing.

It is not necessary to pay a high price for good dates. The Hallawi, Khedrawi, and Caliphat varieties are the best, having the softest fibre and thinnest skins, and their price is moderate, the Hallawi, for instance, being quoted by one well-known London store at 1s. 6d. for a 7 lbs. carton.

Date Decoction.

Add 1 quart of water to 1½ lb. of washed and scalded dates. Allow the dates to soak for a few minutes. Then, with a potato masher or something of the kind, break up the dates until the water has reduced them to stones and fibre. Strain off the liquor and heat it to very near boiling point. Add cream or milk, according to taste. This makes an excellent drink with about half milk. To those who lack energy it will often bring about surprising results. (Bernarr Macfadden.)

E

EGGS.

Eggs, being in a liquid form, and at the same time highly nourishing, constitute a very important ingredient of food beverages. Moreover, in their raw state they are very easy to digest. Many advanced vegetarians, especially the Hindoos, abjure eggs because they assert that they exert an injurious effect upon the generative system. It is quite practicable to entirely discard eggs from a dietary with proper training. Beginners at any vegetarian régime will find it wise to include eggs until they have trained their digestive organs to do without them.

Those who follow the “uric acid theory” in diet, take the white only and discard the yolk for the reason that the latter contains xanthin, a form of uric acid.

Albumen Water.

This is a light, easily digested food for those who require rest from ordinary foods, as in cases of gastric catarrh, fevers, diphtheria, etc. It is made as follows:

Take 2 egg whites, separate in patent egg-white separator, add a teaspoonful of lemon juice, or if preferred, use dill or cinnamon water, and ½ pint of distilled or barley water. Mix well together and sip slowly. An easy way to prepare this is to first beat up the egg whites, add to water, transfer to a bottle and well shake contents until thoroughly combined. A tablespoonful of pure preservative-free cream is a useful addition in cases where cream is easily digested.

Albumen Lemonade.

This also is a light restorative fever drink. Make thus: 1 egg white; ½ oz. malt extract or honey; juice of 1 lemon or orange; ½ pint of distilled or barley water.

Egg-Nogs.

These are forms of beverage containing usually both whites and yolks, and if combined with other foods are perfectly balanced meal-nutrients. Thus:

Malted Egg-Nog.

1 new laid egg beaten up well; ¼ oz. dry malt extract or ½ oz. thick malt extract; teaspoonful of lemon juice; ½ pint of water. Serve cold and sip slowly.

Egg-Nog with Fruit Juice.

1 new laid egg whipped well; grated nutmeg or cinnamon to taste; ½ tumblerful of unfermented cider, apple, grape, or other acid fruit juice. Serve cold or lightly warmed. (It must not be boiled, or the egg will become coagulated.)

Egg-Nog with Fruit or Vegetable Juice and Cream.

An egg mixed with fruit juice and pure cream constitutes a full and perfectly balanced light meal, if sipped slowly. Thus: 1 beaten-up new laid egg; 1 oz. pure cream; ½ tumblerful of grape, apple, orange, or other fruit juice. Tomato or some vegetable juice extracted by the Enterprise Fruit Juice Press, can be used to replace the fruit juice, if preferred.

Egg and Milk.

This constitutes a full meal, but to render it digestible it must be very slowly sipped through a straw: 1 egg; grated nutmeg or other spice; a little tomato or vegetable juice; tablespoonful of pure cream; pint of fresh rich milk. Mix well together, and sip slowly.

Egg and Cocoa.

2 tablespoonfuls of prepared clean cocoashell; 1 teaspoonful of cocoa essence. Boil in some water for about 15 minutes; then add ½ pint of fresh (not boiled) milk, and lastly, 1 beaten-up new laid egg. Serve cold or moderately hot; but do not boil, or the egg will coagulate and spoil the beverage.

EUCALYPTUS.

There are many varieties of the Eucalyptus tree which grow in special abundance in Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, however, the tree does not flourish in Great Britain, as the winter frosts kill it. The leaves of the Eucalyptus tree possess powerful antiseptic properties. When the fresh leaves are not available, the dried leaves can be substituted.

Eucalyptus Tea.

Place in a teapot ½ oz. of broken leaves, add 6 ozs. of water; infuse ½ an hour; add liquorice or honey to sweeten. This is said to be an excellent remedy for colds, influenza, and diabetes. The oil used similarly is not found to have the same effect (Mr. Faulds, in _British Medical Journal, Jan. 1902_.)

F

FRUIT DRINKS.

All fresh fruits are rich in organic potash salts, such as the citrates, malates and tartrates. These are essential to the renewed construction of the tissues and organs of the body. These salts, as they exist in fresh fruits, are acid, but in the body they undergo combustion and become converted into alkaline carbonates so that fresh acid fruit juices are really curative of acidity when this is due to ill health and fermentation. Far different is the case of mineral acids, which remain acid throughout.

Fruits contain more than two-thirds water (in this resembling the human body) and are therefore good thirst quenchers. The water in fruits is practically the purest and most perfect distilled water obtainable. The man who eats fruit freely is seldom thirsty.

Fruit Soups and Teas.

These are real foods, and are best made by extracting with a fruit press the fresh juices of the fruits available. They are served cold or iced in small China bowls or bouillon cups. Excellent drinks are made by mashing and pulping bananas, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, plums, or any moderately soft fruits. Then adding the pulp to a quantity of hot or cold water, straining, sweetening (if necessary) and serving in dainty cups or glasses.

G

GINGER.

Owing to its hot aromatic constituents ginger is frequently used as an addition to foods, medicines and beverages, to correct any tendency they may have to disturb the stomach and create colic. Ginger is obtainable as whole roots (green, dry, or in syrup), in powder form or as an essence in a liquid concentrated form. Ginger is preserved by the Chinese in a ripe form with sugar, and imported into Great Britain both in the familiar quaint jars and in a dry form. The latter is dry externally, but soft within, and much to be preferred to the made-up heavily sugared varieties sold in cubes and chips by confectioners.

Green Ginger Punch.

Teacupful of dry Chyloong ginger cut fine; 4 breakfastcupfuls of water. Boil 20 minutes, strain, add a teaspoonful of lemon juice, or 1 oz. of orange juice. Serve cold.

GOOSEBERRY.

The gooseberry is a common and relatively cheap spring and summer fruit, and is well adapted for the purpose of making beverages. The green gooseberry from its tartness is preferable. It is one of the first of the spring fruits to come in.

Gooseberry Drink.

2 lbs. green gooseberries; ¼ lb. malt extract or black treacle; ¼ pint water; cornflour to thicken. Trim and wash gooseberries; stew until soft; add more water as needed, but use as little as possible; sieve, and finally add the malt extract or treacle. Serve either quite cold or quite hot, according as circumstances render desirable.

GRAPES.

The value of the grape as a food is remarkable. This fruit is especially good in cases of anæmia, and as a restorative in severe illnesses. For this purpose the hot-house black grapes are the best.

Fresh Grape Juice.

By far the best juice is that which one gets from eating sound ripe grapes, or from drinking the recently extracted juice from fresh grapes. The many unfermented grape juice beverages on the market are not so good as the fresh juice, because they have been sterilised to enable them to keep. It is easy to extract the juice in its fresh state by means of the Fruit Juice Press and it is best to include the stalks when passing the fruit into the machine. If a press is not available the grapes can be mashed and pulped by putting them into an ordinary potato masher and collecting the juice as it runs from the wire meshes.

Grape Tea.

Add a wineglassful of either fresh or sterilised grape juice to a tumblerful of hot water. Add lemon and some form of cooked cereal (cornflour, oatmeal flour, etc.), if desired, for grape soup.

GRASS AND CLOVER.

In America there is a group of vegetarians who believe in grass-eating on the Nebuchadnezzar plan. If it is tender and young it is said to be by no means unpalatable. It makes an excellent addition to salads. The generality of mankind are, however, strongly averse to eating grass in any form although there is no reason why it should not, in common with other greenstuff, form a part of the daily diet. The analysis of grass shows that it is a very useful food. According to a recent analysis it consists of Proteins 3.5, fat 0.8, Carbohydrates 9.7, fibre 4.0, mineral salts 2.0, water 80.0.

Clover possesses valuable medicinal properties. There is a form of clover which exerts a marked effect in imparting fertility to the ground by restoring nitrogen to it after it has been depleted by wheat and other nitrogen using crops. The red, or meadow, clover has been used as a remedy for cancer.

Clover Tea.

Take a handful of clover, fresh clover by preference, or if this is not in season the dried clover must do instead; place it in a warmed teapot; pour a pint of boiling water over it; allow to stand until drawn, and take a teacupful at frequent intervals.

GUM.

Many of the edible gums known to commerce, such as gum arabic and gum tragacanth, are often found useful as additions to beverages to thicken them or to make them more soothing and demulcent.

Gum Water.

1 teaspoonful of best quality gum arabic; tumblerful of cold water; let stand until dissolved; then flavour with lemon, or any other fruit or vegetable juice.

H

HONEY.

Honey consists of pure fruit sugars extracted by bees from flowers. Its colour, taste and odour thus partake in some degree of the flowers from which it has been collected. The virgin honey in the comb is the best to use, although the most expensive. Honey is a useful addition to many beverages as a pure and natural sweetening agent. For this purpose it is preferable to either cane or beet sugar. As a rule, it is better to avoid low priced foreign honey (unless it bears an absolute guarantee of purity) as few articles of food are more widely adulterated.

Mulse.

This was a famous drink in ancient times. It is made by boiling together one part of honey and 8 parts of water.

Mead.

This also was a popular drink with the early Norsemen and our own Anglo-Saxon forebears. It was a mixture of light red wine and honey, with a little fresh herb added sometimes.

HOPS.

Hops possess tonic and sedative properties. They contain an aromatic oil which gives to the plant its medicinal virtues. Practically all fragrant herbs have a tendency to bring on sleep and hops are no exception to this rule. Hops are often given in various ways to induce sleep and to soothe the nervous system. A hop pillow is a device to attain the same end.

Hop Infusion.

½ oz. hops; 1 pint water; infuse in the usual way. Dose is 4 to 8 tablespoonfuls. Malt extract can be added to improve the taste and mitigate the intensely bitter flavour of the hop.

HORSERADISH.

This is an excellent relish to go with salads. It should be scraped into fine shreds using a cobbler’s knife sharpened with sand paper. It makes an excellent addition to vegetable drinks.