The pulses, which include all kinds of dried beans, peas, and lentils, have been used as a very valuable food for many hundreds of years. They were known and cultivated by the ancient peoples of Egypt, India, and other countries. The customary way of using them was to roast or parch them, then grind them into a flour which was cooked in soup or made into cakes. The soup tablets used by mountain-climbers and explorers are made on a basis of finely ground peas, beans, and lentils. Different varieties of these valuable foods grow in all climates, and our Government has stimulated the cultivation of certain types especially valuable for food, such as the soy bean and the pinto bean.

They vary little in their general composition, with the exception of the soy bean and the peanut, which may be classed with the beans. When they are dried they have very little water, about 10 per cent. They contain about 65 per cent of carbohydrate, 22 to 25 per cent of protein material, about 4 per cent of mineral salts, and 1 per cent of fat. Their fuel value is greater than that of meat. Soy beans and peanuts differ from the others in that they contain a much larger percentage of fat (16 per cent for soy beans, 38 per cent for peanuts), whereas their starch content is correspondingly low.

Value as food

They are a hearty food, and like cheese suitable only for vigorous people. The woody fiber which surrounds each bean, and makes up the framework of all vegetation, interferes with the absorption of the nutrients present. It may also act as a local irritant hastening the food through the digestive tract. If the starch has not been thoroughly cooked, it is apt to ferment and cause flatulence. When the beans, however, are combined carefully with other food materials, the work of digestion is distributed and causes no difficulty. They are extremely valuable as a source of nitrogen for men and women who are exercising vigorously, lumbermen and day-laborers, for instance.

All legumes should be soaked at least eight hours before cooking. It is better if a half teaspoonful of soda is added to two quarts of water for the soaking to help soften the fiber. They should then be boiled until thoroughly tender. Soft water or rainwater should be used for boiling if possible ; since the protein of the pulses tends to form insoluble compounds with the lime and the magnesium salts found in hard water. After the beans are boiled, they can be used in a great variety of ways. The one most familiar to the New Englander is the historic baked bean. Why should we be bound by the habits of our ancestors and continue to have that particular food every Saturday night? When our Puritan grandmothers did all their baking in a brick oven, it was quite logical that they should build the fire in the oven on Saturday in order to have plenty of food for over the Sabbath, since they did no cooking whatever on the Lord's Day. Being thrifty souls, they utilized every particle of heat present in the bricks of the oven. The pies and biscuits, which required the greatest heat, went in first, then the cake and bread; and then, in order to utilize all the heat left in the bricks, in went the bean-pot. Would it not be more logical for those of us who use coal ranges and do our ironing on Tuesday to have our beans for supper Tuesday night, since we could thus utilize the heat of the oven and have a very simple supper to serve after a fatiguing day?

There are many other ways of serving the boiled legumes than as baked beans. They may be mashed through a strainer and the pulp thus obtained used as a basis for soups, such as the black bean, split pea, and lentil soups; or this pulp or puree may be well seasoned, mixed with fat, and served as a dish by itself of about the consistency of mashed potato. The puree could also be used as a stuffing for green peppers or tomatoes; or it may be mixed with celery, pimentos, a little cheese, and baked in a pan and served as a roast with a well-seasoned gravy. This same pur6e makes a good filling for hearty sandwiches or it may be served cold with greens as a salad.

How to use legumes

It must be noted that in using this material in place of meat, it, like cheese, must be carefully combined with the proper foods. Unlike cheese, it contains a large amount of starch and has no fat, so that in serving, it is not necessary to increase the amount of starch served with it but it is always well to see that there is some fat in the meal in some form or other. This is the reason for serving salt pork with baked beans. It is poor management to serve a rice or bread pudding as a dessert for a supper made up exclusively of baked beans and brown bread. Instead, fruit, either cooked or raw, should be used for dessert, and vegetables, such as greens or tomatoes, or salads which contain water and make up in bulk for the concentration of the beans, should be served with them. Of course it is not necessary to serve meat at a meal in which are used baked beans or other forms of the pulses, such as split-pea soup or green peppers stuffed with lentils.

Attention should be called to the high food value of the humble peanut. It is rich in both protein material and fat and has a far greater fuel value than an equal weight of beefsteak. When ground up into the form of peanut butter, it makes an economical and palatable substitute for both butter and meat. A good many people object to the drying quality of peanut butter; but if it is used in combination with a sour jam or marmalade in fillings for sandwiches or on toast or bread, this objection is overcome. Peanut butter when used for breakfast could be substituted for the usual egg and for butter on the toast.