Cooking for profit

A MOVEMENT is now in very successful operation in Bordeaux to supply workingmen with wholesome, well-cooked and substantial meals at a low cost. To this end a number of restaurants have been started in various parts of the city by a certain company, which is backed by the moral support of the medical fraternity, the churches and the health authorities. In the course of a flying trip to Bordeaux last week, writes a correspondent, I visited one of these restaurants. The bill of fare served and the cost per item were as follows: A large plate of vegetable soup, cost two cents; two large slices of bread, two cents; a plate of red haricot beans, two cents; a plate of roast veal, four cents; a plate of rice, one cent; half a bottle of vin ordinaire, four cents. Thus a very fair and liberal dinner — there was no stinting in the amount served — was to be obtained for 1 5 cents. This might serve as a hint to New York. What can be made a successful business, where almost every article of food is taxed, ought to pay in New York, where meat and nearly all kinds of food are cheaper. Surely a good warm dinner of this character, served at a comfortable table, is a boon to the artisan. ONE-CENT BREAKFAST. The head master of the Board School at Wallsend, seeing so much distress about, and that many of the children attending his school were badly prepared to face the lessons of the day for want of sufficient food at home, and being, it is said, a firm believer in oatmeal, once the chief of "Scotia's food," determined to do something on his own account without waiting for " a committee." So he ordered a good supply of oatmeal from a mill in Berwickshire, of the finest quality. The cooking operations commenced at 6: 30 a. m., and the porridge is allowed to boil for fifty minutes, and is cooled and ready for serving out at 8: 15. Each child is supplied with about a pint of porridge— more or less, according to size and appetite — and a little more than half a gill of good skimmed milk. About one hundred and twenty children are thus receiving breakfast at a cost of about one-half penny each, and in most cases they are given free. In times gone by oatmeal was also the staple food of the North of England; it will be curious if it comes again into use. Its value as regards nutrition for children is beyond dispute. High wages have conduced to a high class though not better food for the working class. — London Lancet, The New York Hotel Reporter makes the following remarks upon country or seaside boarding.