Quitting the subject of wheat and the leguminous seeds, it will be interesting to review briefly the combinations of rice, which furnishes so large a portion of the world with a vegetable staple of diet. Remembering that it contains chiefly starch, with nitrogen in small proportion, and almost no fat or mineral elements, and just sufficing perhaps, with a small quantity of the former, to meet the wants of an inactive population in a tropical climate, the first addition necessary for the people who dwell on the temperate margin of this limit, and just beyond it, will be a notable proportion of fat, and with it a little addition of nitrogen. Hence an illustration of one of the first efforts to make a dish of rice "complete," is afforded by the addition of butter and a little Parmesan cheese, in the simple risotto, from which, as a starting point, improvement, both for nutritive purposes and for the demands of the palate, may be carried to any extent (see p. 164). Fresh additions are made in the shape of marrow, of morsels of liver, etc., of meat broth with onion and spice, which constitute the mixture, when well prepared, nutritious and highly agreeable. The analogue of this mainly Italian dish is the pilau or pilaff of the orientals, consisting, as it chiefly does, of rice lightly boiled in the broth of a fowl, a basis susceptible of various slight modifications and additions (see p. 167). The curry of rabbit or of poultry and the kedgeree of fish are further varieties which it is unnecessary to describe. Following the same combination to Spain, we find it a popular national dish, not greatly differing from the foregoing, in the polio con arros, which consists of abundance of rice, stewed with meat - broth and containing morsels of fowl, bacon, and sausage, with appetizing spices, and sufficing for an excellent meal.

Rice as food.

Needful additions in the "risotto," asa "pilaff."

Another farinaceous product of world-wide use is the maize or Indian corn. With a fair amount of nitrogen, starch, and mineral elements, it contains also a good proportion of fat, and is made into bread, cakes, and puddings of various kinds. It is nearly complete, but capable of improvement by the addition of nitrogen. Hence, in the United States, where it is largely used, it is often eaten with beans, under the name of "succotash." In Italy it is ground into the beautiful yellow flour which is conspicuous in the streets of almost every town; when made into a firm paste, by boiling in water, and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, a nitrogenous aliment, it becomes what is known as polenta, and is largely consumed with some relish in the shape of fried fish, sardines, sausage, little birds, or morsels of fowl or goose, by which, of course, fresh nitrogen is added. Macaroni has been already alluded to in connection with wheat, from which it is made; although rich in nitrogenous and starchy materials, it is deficient in fat. Hence it is boiled and eaten with butter and Parmesan (a Italienne) and with tomatoes, which furnish saline matters, with good meat gravy or with milk (see p. 163). Nearer home the potato forms a vegetable basis, in composition resembling rice in abundance of starch, but with much less proteids, and requiring therefore additions of nitrogenous and fatty elements. The Irishman's inseparable ally, the pig, is the natural, and to him necessary, complement of the tuber, making the latter a complete and palatable dish. The everyday combination of mashed potato and sausage is an unconsciously made illustration of the same principle. In the absence of pork, the potato eater substitutes a cheap oily fish, the herring. The combination of fatty material with the potato is still further illustrated in our baked potato and butter, in fried potatoes in their endless variety of form, in potato mashed with milk or cream, also as served in the ordinary way with maitre d'hotel butter; finally arriving at the most perfect and finished combination in the pommes de terre sautees au beurre of a first-class French restaurant, where it becomes almost a. plat de luxe. Even the simple bread and butter or bread and cheese of our own country equally owe their form and popularity to physiological necessity; the deficient fat of the bread being supplemented by the fatty elements of each addition, the cheese supplying also its proportion of nitrogenous matter, which exists so largely in its peculiar proteid, caseine. So again, all the suet puddings, "short cake," plum cakes, pie-crust, or pastry, whether baked or boiled, which consist simply of farinaceous food rendered stronger nutriment by the addition of fatty matters contained in the butter, lard, milk, and eggs, inevitably used in making them. All are illustrations of the same principle practically applied by their inventors, without the slightest consciousness that they were fulfilling a natural and essential law of life.

" Fowl with rice."

Maize.

Polenta.

Potato, how Made Complete.

The potato requires fatty matter.

Bread requires butter or cheese.

In the same way almost every national dish might be analyzed, up to the pot-au-feu of our neighbours, the right management of which combines the nutritious quality of flesh with the abundant aroma and flavour of fresh vegetables, together with their useful saline constituents, which enter so largely into this economical and excellent mess (see pp. 138, 139). Among the poorer classes this dish is, of course, intended to supplement a considerable quantity of bread, which contains the efficient complement of carbo-hydrates.

It will be apparent that, up to this point, our estimate of the value of these combinations has been limited, or almost so, by their physiological completeness as foods, and by their economical value in relation to the resources of that great majority of all populations, which is poor. But when the inexorable necessity for duly considering economy has been complied with, the next aim is to render food as easily digestible as possible, and agreeable to the senses of taste, smell, and sight.

All the foregoing dishes are the simplest forms of "complete" food.

Food to be Agreeable also.

'The hard labourer with simple diet, provided his aliment is complete and fairly well cooked, will suffer little from indigestion. There may be a sameness in the small range of foods within his reach; but he cats with appetite and zest, for, after all, "hunger is the best sauce." He cannot be guilty, for want of means, of eating too much, fertile source of deranged stomach with those who have an unlimited supply; physical labour being also in many circumstances the best preventive of dyspepsia. "Live on sixpence a day and earn it," attributed to Abernethy as the sum of his dietary for a gluttonous eater, is a maxim of value, endorsed by millions. But for the numerous sedentary workers in shops, offices, in business and professions of all kinds, the dish must not only be "complete;" it must be so prepared as to be easily digestible by stomachs of moderate power, and it should also be as appetizing and agreeable as circumstances admit.