SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE

Sheridan, Mary

Sing a Song of Sixpence By MARY SHERIDAN EAVESDROPPING on other people's conversation on the bus is one of my minor vices. Recently, the conversations I've overheard have been mainly about two...

...I pricked up my ears at this question, hoping there would be an answer: "Isn't canned sauerkraut ever coming back...
...I grinned sympathetically at that one, for I've had the same experience...
...The milk trick really helps remove those yellow spots...
...Don't you remember Ilka Chase, in Past Imperfect, telling of her and her cook's decision that sweetbreads were rich people's food and that henceforth tasty stews graced their table...
...Since I'm guilty of asking for sauerkraut in every grocery store I enter, I've wondered the same thing...
...Anything over 19 per cent butterfat content is "rationable," and Dyne's nutritious percentage was 26...
...8 issue, has been taken off the market...
...Educational for me, this bus riding...
...That's the kind of a meal I like, and I often think that more meals like that would do a lot to help untie the nervous knots on the hostess' (who is also* the cook) face...
...Whether the same product can be made with less butterfat, or how long the adjustment will take, remains uncertain at this writing...
...Last Summer I found some packed in glass jars, requiring no ration points, and I thought the sauerkraut problem was solved...
...It had too high a butterfat content, to be sold without ration points...
...The woman's question wasn't directed to me, but I silently thanked her for a good tip...
...Now I wait until I find the odds and ends ground up that sell for seven points per pound—and I sternly avoid thinking about what may have been tossed into the grinder—and am glad with the sure knowledge that no fat will have to be used with that mixture...
...Recently, the conversations I've overheard have been mainly about two things...
...Like this: "There was some nice cauliflower at the A & P yesterday, but it was 30 cents a head...
...And, and this is all for this time, I cocked an appreciative ear recently when a women in back of ine remarked to her companion, "Jim keeps wanting t8 have people over for dinner, but it's so darned much work without help and with this rationing...
...There is no doubt that there is a lot more solid meat in the ground chuck, but at 10 points per pound those hamburgers take a big chunk out of a weekly ration quota...
...And M. F. K. Fisher in her new book, The Gastronomical Me, argues trenchantly for the beauty and joy and simplicity (not to mention good eating) of a few things...
...And I was too timid and tired to leave him in the lurch...
...I thought all hamburger was seven points a pound, but the butcher said no, his was 10 points a pound, because it was ground chuck...
...One Good Big Dish That's true...
...Did you know that those yellow spots will disappear if you add a little milk to the water you cook the cauliflower in...
...Just this morning, I heard this: "The family was getting used to Dyne, even using it on toast in the morning, and now we can't buy it any more...
...No one has enlightened my ignorance on the subject, but I suppose canning of the cabbage crop, with military needs coming first, has delayed the arrival of cans and jars on grocery shelves...
...One, from males (most of whom could well profit by standing up, or, for that matter, walking home), griping about "the women who insist on shopping or playing bridge all afternoon, then grabbing bus seats" during the jamming rush hours...
...The other subject is food...
...short on meat points this week...
...Dyne, the new dairy spread about which I reported briefly in the Nov...
...Few in number—a huge dish of stew, crisp bread, and then just fruit or a sweet and coffee...
...Then I noticed a basket of yellowed heads, for only 10 cents each...
...If I had the nerve, we'd have just one big good dish, but Jim's always afraid the guests won't get enough to eat...
...Now I can't send a jar of this boon to Madison housewives to the Texas gentleman who wrote that Dyne "sounded like just the thing I have been looking for...
...I bought hamburger yesterday for meat loaf last night and hamburgers this noon...
...Sister, you've got something there, muttered I to myself...
...Dyne' Is Off The Market Another day, this overheard conversation had a familiar ring: "I'm...

Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 48


 
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