This is Mrs. Dan Hey. Aside from making a truly unique cocoa, Mrs. Hey was also pretty darn smart and responsible. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Hey was featured in the Farmer's Wife Magazine to share her wisdom in planning school day meals.
We could learn a thing or two from Mrs. Hey. We could also learn, or at least remember, that nearly all of the "scientific" studies and research that are uncovering all of these "new" ideas about nutrition, are a waste of time and money, because the work was already done, with few exceptions.
To illustrate what I mean, listen to and absorb the wisdom from Mrs. Hey:
"According to Mrs. Hey, any plan for meeting the food needs of school children must take into account the whole day's meals. A glimpse into her own kitchen would show that the day's food preparation proceeds according to a well-planned pattern. Breakfast is not a heavy one, but quite satisfying for their needs. There is fruit, orange juice (the favorite with the children) or tomato juice, apple sauce, canned pears or stewed dried fruit. There is sometimes a cereal -- a prepared cereal in the warmer weather perhaps with berries or sliced bananas, and hot oatmeal or a wheat cereal in the colder weather. Instead of cereal there may be eggs or bacon and eggs. Then there are rolls or toast, and always hot cocoa for the children and coffee for the grown-ups.
Since the children are away at noon the parents eat more of a luncheon than dinner at noon. Then comes the extra meal in the late afternoon, for the minute the children are inside the door after school, it's eating time again. They are always hungry then and again at supper time.
Supper, then, is the hearty meal of the day. It is depended upon to supplement a moderately hearty breakfast, a fairly light lunch and a "piece," so it includes meat, two or three vegetables, one a green leafy one, and a light dessert. There was interesting variety and again, good head work, in the way those meals were planned. On Dad's night out --Kiwanis club-- the children could have their special favorites, which usually meant macaraoni and cheese for one thing, and on Friday nights, some of the children's friends might be brought home, and supper often boasted fried chicken. The meals are easy to plan for their cupboards are always well stocked.
~
Ideas for Putting Up School Lunches
I keep on hand a quart or so homemade salad dressing in order to be able to mix up into sandwich filling any materials I may have at hand as:
Minced ham and pickle;
hardcooked eggs and mango;
baked beans, even cold navy beans moistened with mustard or catsup;
left over meats or any kind ground with mango, pickles, pimento or onion,
carrots and raisins,
cream cheese and pimento.
For vegetables I often send our favorite, tomato, but a whole tomato is rather soft and warm and quite unappetizing after a morning in a lunch box. I peel one, cut it into pieces and place it in a small glass jar, then salt it and on top place a nasturtium leaf on which there is a small dab of mayonnaise.
The glass jar may also carry puddings, baked beans, custards, the dabs of pie fillings that are sometimes left over, fruit salad, slaw, stewed fruit, cottage cheese or anything that has been served on the family table that is good eaten cold.
In the thermos bottle I have sent besides the customary cocoa and soups such things as creamed meats, creamed vegetables, spaghetti and tomatoes, fruit juices and jello. This food can be poured into the cup and eaten.
When baking a cake some of the batter may be dropped into muffin pans or paper cups to make just a few cup cakes to help out in packing a school lunch. The may be iced when the cake is iced, and children like them better than they do slices of cake.
~
Send raw vegetables as often as possible. Crisp celery stuffed with a sandwich paste, a salad rolled up in a cabbage leaf and pinned with a bright colored toothpick, some slices of turnip or kohl rabi, carrot sticks, radishes, onion and now our nutrition experts are telling us to take even our spinach and cauliflower raw."
Now, are you thinking to yourself "My kids won't eat that!" or "I wish my kids would eat that!"
And, I'm sorry to say, I have somewhat shocking news for you:
It is true, kids are picky when it comes to vegetables, but kids also eat what they are exposed to from the age of beginning to eat solids forward. That means if you NEVER eat things like fresh, raw vegetables, or even cooked vegetables, or if your vegetables only come out of a microwave package, that's how your children will also eat. It also applies to how food is prepared~bottled baby food is tasteless, bland and almost nothing like its namesake in actual taste and flavor. Expose kids as early in their developmental stages as possible to good, real food.
Naturally, everyone has their personal preferences, and I have raised two very picky eaters, but I also have a 2 1/2 year old who downs things like chili, any kind of soup including kale (drinking the broth at the end) meatloaf, corned beef, and has even tried a green salad, but said no thank you. He eats peas and corn, carrots and cauliflower. He loves potatoes. Why because he saw us eating it and making lots of yummy noises. You should also note, he NEVER, EVER, not once would take anything out of a jar or pre-packaged as "baby food", despite my coaxing or its organic, whole food price.
I'm sure Mrs. Hey's children also ate their lunches because that's all there WAS! AND They were hungry! because they were active, not being bombarded by advertisements for sugar oh's all the time and weren't offered an array of more tempting nutritional garbage food choices at the school lunch line or vending machine.
Now, onto Mrs. Hey's Cocoa. I actually made this first in the spring and then again today. I was intrigued, having never quite seen anything like it. Was it shelf stable I wondered? How would it work?
The good news is, it IS shelf stable, for how long, I don't know, but I kept mine on the counter and used daily for over a month.
Her original recipe is as follows:
1 C cocoa
1 C sugar
1/4 C corn starch
Salt (a presumed pinch or dash)
Mix and combine with water to make a paste. Cook in top of a double boiler 1 hour or longer. Cool and store. Add as needed to scalded milk and beat until frothy.
It didn't say how much water, how thick of a paste, or what the final product should look like, but I forged ahead.
Firstly, you absolutely NEED a double boiler or it's equivalent. You also NEED to understand that you cannot walk away from this for more than a few minutes. It doesn't need constant stirring, but every few minutes or so helps. I added about 1/2 C + 1 Tblsp of water. The double boiler maintained barely a low simmer (I had it on the lowest heat setting). Do not BOIL the chocolate, just heat it well and keep stirring. It took almost exactly 1 hour, and you will see the consistency of the mixture and change texture and gloss over the course of the hour. You end up with a very thick paste. The taste is very good, and very cocoa-ey! You can add of course, enough to taste, depending on how you like your hot chocolate. No preservatives, no garbage, controlled sugar, very nice!
At the beginning the mixture is somewhat thin.
By the end of the hour, it is much thicker
The cocoa now has a bit more gloss to it and is thickened.
Into a clean Ball jar to cool and then it can be capped and kept on the counter.
Voila!
Posts
