usually eaten as an "extra," is really a valuable part of the diet.

Corn is the same satisfactory food whether it is eaten as mush in
New England, _polenta_ in Italy, or _tamales_ in Mexico. Many of
the people of Mexico and Central America live on corn and beans to
a surprising extent. In portions of Italy the rural population have
adopted the grain as their main food. Our corn-meal mush is their
_polenta_, which is served sometimes with cheese, sometimes with
tomato sauce or meat gravy.

_Oats_. An Englishman once taunted a Scotchman with the fact that
while England used oats only for her horses, Scotland fed it to her
men. "Ah!" said Sandy; "but where will you find such horses as you
raise in England and such men as in Scotland!"

The United States, more like England than Scotland, has used oats
mostly for feed. The crop is second only to the corn-crop. Oats are
eaten in the form of oatmeal, which is a finely granulated meal, and
as the common rolled oats which have been steamed and put through
rollers. There is little oat flour on the market at present. A
successful and palatable home-made flour may be prepared by putting
rolled oats through a food-chopper. Any of the forms of oats can be
used in breads of all kinds, but the more finely ground flour can
be substituted in larger proportion. The demand for oat products has
grown so rapidly the last year that mills are running to their limit.
Special machinery is required for its manufacture, so that a great
increase in the supply is not feasible in a short time.

_Barley and Rye_. In using barley and rye for bread we are only going
back to the methods of our forefathers. Barley is supposed to be