The following extract from a letter of Mr Hoffman,1 of the Tuskegee Institute, is of special interest in this connection:

"The daily fare is prepared in very simple ways. Corn meal is mixed with water and baked on the flat surface of a hoe or griddle. The salt pork is sliced thin and fried until very brown and much of the grease fried out. Molasses from cane or sorghum is added to the fat, making what is known as 'sap,' which is eaten with the corn bread. Hot water sweetened with molasses is used as a beverage. This is the bill of fare of most of the cabins on the plantations of the 'black belt,' three times a day during the year. It is, however, varied at times: thus collards and turnips are boiled with the bacon, the latter being used with the vegetables to supply fat 'to make it rich'. The corn-meal bread is sometimes made into so-called 'cracklin bread,' and is prepared as follows: A piece of fat bacon is fried until it is brittle; it is then crushed and mixed with corn meal, water, soda, and salt and baked in an oven over the fireplace. Occasionally the negroes may have an opossum. To prepare this for eating it is first put into hot water to help in removing a part of the hair, then covered with hot ashes until the rest of the hair is removed; thereupon it is put in a large pot, surrounded with sweet potatoes, seasoned with red pepper, and baked. One characteristic of the cooking is that all meats are fried or otherwise cooked until they are crisp. Observation among these people reveals the fact that very many of them suffer from indigestion in some form."

1 "Food of the Negro in Alabama," United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 38.

Table Showing Diet Of Students' Boarding Clubs In State Colleges

Table Showing Diet Of Women Students' Clubs

The numbers above given for Proteins, Fats, and Carbohydrates represent Quantities in Grams.

The following diagram taken from Atwater and Wood,1 is interesting as it illustrates still more the variation of dietaries actually used, from the standards that have been computed.

Actual Daily Dietaries Of Negro Field Laborer And Farmer Compared With A Well-Balanced Standard Dietary Diet Op Laborer

1 Bulletin No. 38, United States Department of Agriculture.

No group of people in the United States whose diet has been carefully studied is comparable to the negroes about Tuskegee, except the Mexicans of New Mexico.1

"Mexicans of the poorer class raise the greater part of their food, which is almost entirely of vegetable origin. Flour and corn are used, the relative amounts depending upon the amount of money available. If it is necessary to reduce the cost of living to the minimum, as is often the case, more corn and less flour is used.

"Probably the next article in amount, and a very important one, is the native bean or 'frijole' (Phaseolus sp.), which, together with peas and lentils, is used to supply the protein necessary in the absence of meats and other nitrogenous foods of animal origin.

"Another universal article in the Mexican diet is red pepper, or 'chili,' which, while it constitutes comparatively a rather small proportion by weight of the total food, is still consumed in enormous quantities as compared with the use of such material by the people of the eastern states. Chili is probably used more for its stimulating effect on the digestive organs than for the actual amount of nutrients which it furnishes.

"In point of cost, probably the most important article used by the Mexicans not home produced is coffee. Lard is another very important article which is usually purchased, and which is used in considerable quantities. As the vegetable foods used contain very little fat, it is necessary to increase the amount of this substance by addition from outside sources, usually either lard compound or beef tallow, which are the cheapest forms of fat in this region.

"In the houses of the poorer class the cooking is done in an open fireplace, usually located in one corner of the room.

"The 'tortillas,' or cakes made of flour or ground corn, are one of the most generally and extensively used foods. When the tortillas are made from corn, the kernels are first boiled with lime, which softens them. The skin is then usually, though not always, removed, and the grain is ground in a crude stone-grinding apparatus or 'metate,' consisting of a concave slab of stone and a smaller convex piece, which is held in the hands and which serves as a pestle. The grinding is not rotary, however, as in an ordinary mortar, but up and down, toward and from the body. The corn used is usually a small blue kind, rather soft, which seems to contain somewhat more than the average amount of fat. After the corn has been ground into a mush on the metate it is patted out in the hands into the tortillas. Corn tortillas are never rolled, as is the case with those made from flour. If flour is used, it is mixed into a dough with water and the cake rolled out from it. The flour used is not ground in the metate, but in the ordinary flouring mills. It is usually of poor quality, coarse, and dark colored. After being worked into the proper form, the tortilla is baked on a flat piece of iron, supported directly over the fire in the open fireplace, the iron being first greased with lard. As soon as it is done on one side the tortilla is turned by pressing the moistened fingers against the upper side of it, thus causing it to adhere to the fingers, whereupon it is deftly turned and the opposite side is browned.

'"Dietary Studies in New Mexico," by Arthur Goss, United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 40.

"The frijoles, or beans, are cooked in small, home-made earthenware pots, and are almost invariably combined with a very liberal proportion of chili and also considerable lard.

Daily Dietary Of Negro Farmer And Poor Mexican

"The chili is cooked alone, and also with various other articles of food. It is prepared by first removing the stems and seeds of the pods, which constitute somewhat more than half of the total weight, after which it is sometimes ground in the metate, but is usually soaked in water and the inner or edible portion separated from the outer skin by squeezing in the hands. Owing to the extremely strong irritating effect on the hands, this operation cannot be performed by an amateur. The Mexican women, however, become so accustomed to it that it seems to have no effect on them.

"Among the poor families the meals are served on the floor in the middle of the room, the family sitting on the ground around the food and eating without knives, forks or plates."

The small amount of animal food used by some of the negro families studied, and its entire absence, except as it was represented by lard, in the diet of some of the Mexicans is shown in the preceding table on page 55.

The analyses show a sufficient source of heat units or of fuel, but great deficiency of protein. Most of the latter is derived from vegetables, and in several instances is altogether so.