Message from Dean P. Mabel Nelson

This year is a memorable one for the home economics family at Iowa State. It marks the seventy-fifth year that courses in home economics, once called domestic economy, have been taught on this campus. It is fitting that such a long and useful life be commemorated in an appropriate manner

The Cooking of Meats

Charles Lamb tells us that the art of roasting meat was discovered accidentally many thousand years ago when a swineherd carelessly burned down his house contining a litter of pigs. The pigs were burned to a turn and made delicious eating

Defense Challenges the Home Economist

Dr. P. Mabel Nelson, foods and nutrition head, explains the role of the home economist in the present emergenc

The physical and chemical characteristics of lards and other fats in relation to their culinary value II. USE IN PLAIN CAKE

These studies on the use of lards in plain cake were initiated in the fall of 1932 and completed during the summer of 1936. The major results of these investigations with cake have been included in a series of four theses by Martin (11), Buel (2), Minard (13) and Myers (15) . Cakes containing fat may be divided into two types: 1. The pound cake, named from the proportions formerly used by our great-grandmothers, consists of a pound each of fat, sugar, flour and eggs, with no baking powder or soda. The volume of the cake depends upon the expansion of moisture from the eggs and from the air incorporated-in the creamed mixture and in the beaten eggs. Although the old pound cake recipe is generally modified for modern formulas, it is essentially a type carrying a high percentage of fat, and the texture is rather close, fine, even and compact. 2. Far more commonly used at present by homemakers is a loaf, cup or layer cake, the volume of which depends upon air incorporated in beaten eggs, a leavening agent such as baking powder or soda, the expansion of the moisture into steam and, to a much lesser extent, upon the air incorporated in creaming. An analysis of recipes commonly used for this type of cake shows that they may be very lean, containing as little as 18 parts of fat per 100 parts of flour. A frequently used yet a fairly rich recipe may carry from 40 to 50 parts of fat, and a very rich one may carry 60 to 70 or occasionally 75 parts of fat per 100 parts of flour

A Look at the Canning Record

To have canned between 143 million and 160 million quarts of fruits and vegetables in a year is a pretty fair sized job. Iowa homemakers, assisted in some instances by their families, did just that last year, if a survey which we made shows the true picture of what happened in 1943.* The survey was made by Iowa State College and the State Nutrition Council

Canning Food That Keeps

The hot water bath method of processing canned foods has been given a nod of approval by research workers. Scientists, a bit skeptical that food processed in the hot water bath would keep successfully, set about to study the method. Results of the study serve as a guide to homemakers in 1943 as the food situation threatens to become even more serious than in 1918

American Home Economics Association Convention

Eleven hundred home economics workers made the pilgrimage to Ashville, North Carolina in June to attend the 20th annual meeting of the American Home Economics Association. Something less than that number attended all of the meetings for the lure of the beautiful country made truants of some of the most ardent of the pilgrims

The physical and chemical characteristics of lards and other fats in relation to their culinary value III. For frying purposes

The main purpose of this study was to compare the frying life of lards and other fats when used under household conditions. Doughnuts and potato chips were cooked in the fats. Certain chemical and physical constants of the fats were determined before and after cooking to find the extent of change during their use. In addition, the amount of fat absorbed by the doughnuts was recorded and an effort made to determine whether the degree of absorption was correlated with the chemical and physical characteristics of these fats, and if so, with which of these characteristics. In another unit of the study doughnuts were cooked at three temperatures, and the extent of the chemical and physical changes in the fats, due to the temperatures employed, was determined. The doughnuts cooked at these three temperatures were also scored for palatability