ALBERT R. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
 EVERETT FRANKLIN PHILLIPS 
 BEEKEEPING LIBRARY 
 
Of the many excellent papers read at the State Convention, none 
 leased the large gathering of beekeepers assembled more than that of 
 Irs. Dora Stewart of Chico. Her subject, "The Uses of Honey in the 
 lome," is a timely one and for that reason we print it in pamphlet form. 
 
 'he Uses of Honey in the Home 
 
 Mrs. Dora Stuart, Loamlands, Route 4 
 Box 62A, Oiico, Calif. 
 
 ' There is probably no article of food 
 tat has a more varied use in the home 
 (lan honey. Also, there is probably no 
 'article of food, of equal food value, the 
 ^importance of which is so little appreci- 
 lated, and concerning the value of which 
 fthere is so little specific knowledge. 
 I Therefore the subject, "The Uses of 
 Honey in the Home," falls into two 
 natural divisions — the possible uses of 
 honey and the actual uses of honey in 
 the home. 
 
 Before considering the possible uses 
 of honey, a resume of the actual uses 
 of honey is necessary for perspective 
 and as a basis for comparisons. 
 
 My observations on the actual uses 
 of honey in the home must necessarily 
 be based largely on our two years' ei- 
 perienee xJf exclusive retailing of our 
 honey crop at our own door in the out- 
 skirts of Chico, a town of about ten 
 thousand. Two years may seem a short 
 time to our veteran beekeepers; but in 
 that space may be run the gamut of 
 human nature, and a longer period 
 would only mean more human nature of 
 the same kind. 
 .From the scores whp have tasted our- 
 *ares and who return for more, and 
 Irom the even greater numbers who 
 merely taste and do not return, we have 
 gathered a general idea of at least 
 some of the uses of honey in the home, 
 ranging from its use in bribing a small 
 boy to do his chores or take a dose of 
 bad medicine, to its use as a basis for 
 "home brew" for those who are, and 
 
 always will be boys; and from a sub- 
 stitute for syrup, to its use for medici- 
 nal purposes. The customer who 
 FEEDS honey to his family as a legiti- 
 mate or necessary article of diet, is 
 the exception. Such a customer is rec- 
 ognized not only by . the size of his 
 purchase, but by the dispatch with 
 which the transaction is handled. He 
 does not stop to ask what you mix it 
 with, or tell you of the superior brand 
 of honey his grandfather made back 
 East when he was a boy, or detect in 
 your wares a flavor of bee bread, or 
 defer the purchase until he can consult 
 his wife. He wastes neither his own 
 or your time with none of these things. 
 He hands over a cheek and departs with 
 a five-gallon can, or even a case of 
 honey, and leaves you with the feeling 
 that honey is used as a food in that 
 home. 
 
 But such customers are comparatively 
 few, the great majority regarding the 
 use of honey as a prerogative of the 
 rich, not to be indulged in by ordinary 
 folks, except in cases of extreme neces- 
 sity, such as sore throat or the visita- 
 tion of a relative. Eelapses of such 
 afllictions are not altogether unwel- 
 come. Indeed, sore throat has become 
 a fixed habit with quite a number of 
 our customers. One must remember that 
 the use of honey is still popularly con- 
 sidered as an indulgence of appetite, [ 
 and the one who so indulges must be 
 armed with a perfectly good excuse 
 when he is caught in the act of pur- 
 
H7 
 
 chasing even -. amall quantity of it. '^ ' what I want to eat. The best ain't any 
 One pessimist always ' brings a five- CQi too good f er my tamily. ^ 
 
 Bound bucket, but limits his induleence "-> / <r~ Only one of all our customers re- 
 quested recipes for using honey in 
 cooking. And of those on whom recipeg 
 were gently but firmly forced, not one 
 reported results or showed the slightest 
 interest beyond the conventional ' ' How 
 lovely! " and "So sweet of you!" when 
 the recipe was presented. And that was 
 the end of it. 
 
 We have had one call for beeswax 
 from a professional gardener. He uses 
 it in grafting fruit trees. 
 
 I venture the assertion that during 
 1919 more honey was sold in five-gallon 
 tins for HOME CONSUMPTION than 
 has ever been sold in any previous 
 twelve months, and more than will be 
 sold in any twelve months in the very 
 near future. 
 
 There were two reasons: First, the 
 high price of sugar that soared around) 
 30 cents a pound, and, second, the fat 
 pay envelopes of the laborers, who are 
 and always will be the greatest con- 
 so that there might be no delay in put-2|5no /I sumers of any commodity. Many of 
 
 pound bucket, but limits his indulgence 
 to ' ' two pounds, please. The old woman 
 is bad off with another of them colds. ' ' 
 
 A young man comes on a bicycle with 
 a small boy riding on the handle bars 
 and a Mason jar protruding from his 
 hip pocket. "The kid likes it," is his 
 rather shame-faced excuse for an occa- 
 sional purchase of a quart of honey. 
 
 One day, upon returning from down- 
 town, we found a ten-pound bucket and 
 a visiting card on which was written, 
 "Please fill bucket with honey. Will 
 return later. ' ' There was quite a stir 
 in the local honey market. Ten pounds 
 of honey and no questions asked regard- 
 ing color or price! That woman must 
 surely understand the food value of 
 honey, to order so recklessly.. Would 
 she come early or late? And would 
 she prefer light or dark honey? We 
 happened to have an exact counterpart 
 of her bucket, so we filled one with/T) 
 white, and the other with amber honey,lc^ 
 
 ting up the package when she arrived 
 The next day we chose a different hour 
 to do the downtown shopping, and 
 missed her, again. But the third day 
 we made connections. She chose the 
 better grade of honey, and apologized 
 for the purchase. To her, honey was 
 not only an indulgence, but a sinful 
 indulgence. She said, "I feel so selfish 
 to sit down and eat it all by myself, 
 when none of my family will touch it. 
 But it's about all I eat for my break- 
 fast." 
 
 One cannot help wondering if that 
 customer would have enjoyed her honey 
 half so well had she understood she 
 was getting her money 's worth in actual 
 food value, as when it was to her, as she 
 herself expressed it, "a selfish pleas- 
 ure. ' ' 
 
 But I could go on indefinitely.. There 
 is the woman who will not allow honey 
 to come into her home, because it once 
 gave one of the children cramps; an- 
 other who will not buy it because ' ' No 
 one eats it but dad"; it gives one wo- 
 man heartburn, makes another cough, 
 and still another will not buy it because 
 ' ' cheap syrup does just as well for chil- 
 dren. All -kids want is something that 
 tastes sweet." One man driving an 
 expensive seven-passenger car bought 
 one pound of honey as a special treat 
 for his mother, who was visiting in his 
 home. Another purchased a quart to 
 mix with lard to use as a salve to soften 
 the caked udder of his favorite cow. A 
 veterinarian prescribed honey for a sick 
 goat. Then there are those . of both 
 sexes who take the stand, "I work hard 
 for my money, and I am going to have 
 
 s hoped that through those war 
 conditions the knowledge of the use 
 of honey in the home would be- 
 widely disseminated, and its general 
 consumption greatly increased. True, 
 the desire for honey was widely dis- 
 seminated, but a decline in the price 
 of both sugar and wages came before 
 the desire had become a fixed habit. 
 And now we are once more dependent 
 upon some unusual combination of cir- 
 cumstances for the next great impetus 
 toward the general use of honey in the 
 home. Or, perhaps, I should say, we 
 must fall back upon the slower method 
 of education that is being so earnestly 
 carried on in various ways, notablv. 
 through the State Marketing Organiza. 
 tion and the State University. 
 
 It is high time to turn from the neg- 
 ative aspect of this subject to the 
 possible use of honey in the home. Pos- 
 sibilities are always interesting. They 
 provide scope for the imagination, and 
 since home-making has risen to a fine 
 art, imagination is one of the essentials, 
 the same as in other creative endeavors! 
 
 First, then, let us imagine, for in- 
 stance, that indignation over the high 
 price of sugar had precipitated a sequel 
 to the historical Boston Tea Partv, and 
 all the sugar in the country had" 'been 
 cast overboard by the long-suffering 
 consumer. I'll admit that the mere 
 contemplation of such a procedure re- 
 quires an elastic imagination. But if 
 the possible uses of honey in the home 
 are to be tested, even imaginatively 
 sugar must first, by fair means or foiil' 
 be eliminated. So we will apply the 
 war paint, as did oui> forefathers, and 
 
disguised as Indians, do our duty to the 
 last grain and cube, even to the brown 
 sugar used in fudge. 
 
 The next morning — things always be- 
 gin in the morning; besideSj we would 
 have been too excited to eat the night 
 of the party — the next morning, when 
 the smoke of battle has cleared, we be- 
 gin to test out the possibilities of 
 honey. Friend wife will inquire, "How 
 many drops of honey in your coffee, 
 dear?" There will be honey on the 
 grape fruit, and the cereal wUl be 
 served wifh honey. Flapjacks will be 
 smeared with it, and you will be lucky 
 if the eggs are not boiled in it. Cer- 
 tainly eggs have been known to be 
 poached in honey. 
 
 ' ' Everything tastes of honey, ' ' some 
 one wails. 
 
 But we bee folks are cheerful. 
 "Didn't everything taste of sugar, 
 often adulterated sugar, too, before the 
 sequel to the Boston Tea Party?" we 
 retort, even at the risk of coming un- 
 der suspicion as the instigators of the 
 party. 
 
 Serenely we await luucheon, which 
 affords a greater variety in the use of 
 honey. 
 
 How would you like to start off with 
 a fruit salad and a honey French dress- 
 ing, followed by nougat wafers and iced 
 tea, in which, mingled with cracked 
 ice, is a cube of comb honey? Or, per- 
 haps, a cheese custard and honey apple 
 jelly, with honey, bread and butter, j 
 honey ice cream, and honey cookies, fol- ) 
 lowed by hot tea sweetened with honey?Vl 
 Still others might prefer a sprout salad 
 with a honey boiled dressing, honey ris. 
 soles, boiled honey custard, hot choco- 
 late, whipped cream and honey, with 
 rolled honey wafers. 
 
 Meat may be served with any of these 
 luncheon menus, if desired, but if honey, 
 is to be used according to recipes, meat 
 may be safely omitted without impair- 
 ing the food value of the meal. For, 
 according to scientific tests, 7 ounces 
 of honey is equal in food value to 12 
 ounces of round beef steak, 15 ounces 
 of codfish, or of ten eggs, and can be 
 eaten with less tax on the eliminating 
 organs. 
 
 A most nutritious and even attractive 
 
 <linner may consist of the following: 
 
 Creamed Vegetable Soup and Buttered 
 
 Croutons 
 
 Pineapple and Nut Salad, Lipoido 
 
 A Cheese Trifle 
 
 Cornstarch Pudding, Whipped Cream 
 
 Sun-preserved Honey Fruit 
 
 Tea, Coffee or Milk 
 
 This menu has been used in our own 
 home, and we recommend each item. 
 
 Lipoido is a salad dressing originated 
 by Dr. A. J. Gerlaeh of Los Gatos. It 
 
 is made by simply adding one part of 
 lemon juice to one part honey and two 
 parts olive oil, the mixture to be beaten 
 with an egg beater until emulsified. We 
 use this dressing on many of our veg- 
 etable salads as well. 
 
 A cheese trifle in reality is no trifling 
 matter, either to prepare or to digest; 
 but it certainly is dee-licious. It con- 
 sists of eggs poached in honey, served 
 on slices of crisp brown toast that have 
 first been covered with a rich cheese 
 sauce. When we have access to city 
 markets and can procure duck eggs, we 
 prefer them. They are larger, firmer 
 and much easier to poach. 
 
 Sun-preserved honey fruit is an inter- 
 esting field of experiment. We have 
 preserved in this manner more or less 
 successfully a dozen varieties of fruits 
 and berries, including strawberries, 
 blackberries, raspberries, huckleberries, 
 loganberries, figs, pears, peaches, plums, 
 apricots and prunes. Of the berries, we 
 prefer strawberries and raspberries, and 
 of the fruits, figs and plums. Straw- 
 berries, if not overripe when preserved, 
 will come out of the jar whole, and with 
 the flavor of fresh fruit. A jar of rasp- 
 berries that had somehow escaped our 
 notice, was not opened for two years. 
 A moment after the top of the jar had 
 been removed, the fragrance of crushed 
 raspberry filled the room. The same is 
 true of figs and plums; in fact, any 
 fruit preserved by the sun process re- 
 tains its original aroma. 
 
 The necessary equipment for sun- 
 preserving may be very simple — an ordi- 
 nary window sash fitted over the top 
 of a box ten inches deep in front and 
 sixteen inches in the rear, the sides and 
 bottom made of one-inch boards. The 
 whole should be mounted on legs stand- 
 ing in cans of water to keep out the 
 ants. The fruit is placed inside the 
 box in enamel pans, mixed pound for 
 pound with honey. The processing 
 theory is based on the law of endos- 
 mosis and exosmosis; that is, the in- 
 herent tendency of liquids of different 
 densities to intermingle if placed in 
 contact. According to this law, when 
 ripe fruit is placed in the solar pre- 
 server, the thin fruit juices are slowly 
 sucked out of their cells into the syrup, 
 the sun heat evaporates this excess 
 liquid as fast as it is drawn out of the 
 fruit. The syrup thus retains its body 
 and at the same time flows back into 
 the fruit cells and replaces their nat- 
 ural juices. When this replacing is com- 
 plete, the fruit is preserved, and the 
 number of days required depends on the 
 intensity of the sun's heat and the 
 juiciness of the fruit to be preserved. 
 Any surplus syrup, after bottling the 
 preserved fruit, is delicious, served with 
 
stale cake or lady fingers. It is used as 
 a dip with whipped cream and a bit of 
 the honey fruit, preferably a whole 
 strawberry or fig, as a last decoration. 
 
 Honey may be used in canning cooked 
 fruit, as well, and the blend of honey 
 and fruit juice gives a flavor to the 
 canned fruit not easily forgotten. 
 
 A unique confection may be made by 
 removing the pits from dates and filling 
 the cavity with candied honey. Eecipes 
 for eandy where honey is substituted 
 for sugar appear from time to time in 
 the bee journals (where practically 
 only bee folks see them), but I am 
 confining myself to those recipes which 
 we have personally tried out. 
 
 Going back for a moment to the stale 
 cake reference. If honey were used in 
 home made cake, as it is used in the 
 bakeries, there would be comparatively 
 little stale cake to be utilized with 
 honey syrups and whipped cream. It is 
 said the products of bakeshops are not 
 prepared for immediate consumption, 
 but may be found six months hence in 
 a South Sea island, or, perhaps, in the 
 wilds of Alaska, fresh and appetizing, 
 as when first baked. 
 
 Honey cake in our home, when a new 
 hiding place can be found for it, is also 
 fresh when six months old. One sec- 
 tion of a large cake was hidden bo 
 effectively that it was not discovered 
 until we sold our home and were pack- 
 ing our belongings for removal two 
 years after the cake was baked. An 
 hour in the steamer rejuvenated the 
 cake, which was consumed with whipped 
 cream and fruit, our usual camouflage 
 for kitchen operations. 
 
 For six years we have purchased no 
 sugar except for the purpose of feeding 
 bees. So the sequel to the Boston Tea 
 Party has not been such a make-believe 
 to us, after all. And we have suffered 
 no hardship, any more than our ances- 
 tors who depended on maple sugar and 
 honey for their sweets, suffered hard- 
 ship. 
 
 With such an array of possibilities for 
 using honey in the home, why is the re- 
 tail market slack f Is it ignorance or 
 indifference on the part of the purchas- 
 ing public, or bothi 
 
 California beekeepers have met in 
 convention annually since 1890. No 
 doubt at each meeting they have told 
 one another that honey is pretty good 
 truck to eat, and that the public should 
 buy more of it and eat more of it; that 
 it is healthy, economical and profitable — 
 to the beekeepers. To increase the de- 
 mand for honey, there have been sug- 
 gestions to call for it in public eating 
 places, and the steady advertising of it 
 by the use of honey labels and other 
 literature that brings honey to the at- 
 
 tention of the buying public. All these 
 things have done their bit toward ex- 
 tending the use of honey in the home; 
 but hotels and restaurants do not make 
 investments on the strength of an ocea-j 
 eional call for honey. They will not lay 
 in a supply of honey until the public 
 roars for it. And. the general public 
 will not clamor for it until they have 
 found out how to use it and know its 
 value as a food. 
 
 The question before us bee folks is 
 how to increase the demand for honey, 
 not for shipment to some far away port, 
 but for consumption in the homes of 
 our friends and neighbors. Apiculture 
 as a craft is increasing, consequently 
 more honey is being produced each year. 
 The study of the honey bee and its hab- 
 its is being fostered in the schools. In 
 a recent bee journal is an account of 
 beekeeping being taught in the grades 
 and the high schools of Louisiana, while 
 the universities have elaborately 
 planned courses in apiculture. 
 
 But isn't that rather getting the cart 
 before the horse? Of what use will be 
 an increase in honey production if, 
 through ignorance of its use, consump- 
 tion lags behind? 
 
 That brings us to the remedy — the 
 public schools. All movements of im- 
 portance are fostered in the schools. 
 Prohibition was encouraged by prize- 
 winning essays among the children of 
 various grades. The need of manual 
 training was felt, and immediately 
 schools were equipped with sliops; and 
 at present Americanism is claiming the 
 attention of the whole system of Amer- 
 ican schools. 
 
 The one avenue to the kitchen of 
 practically every home in the United 
 States is the domestic science depart- 
 ment of the public school, and particu- 
 larly the domestic science departments 
 of the normal schools and the universi- 
 ties, where teachers for the lower 
 schools are trained. And in the REM- 
 EDY I again draw my conclusions from 
 personal experience in our own locality. 
 
 Chico boasts a state normal school of 
 the very first rank. Its domestic sci- 
 ence department rarely mentions honey, 
 and then only as a delicacy, except dur- 
 ing the hectic period of the war, when 
 the students were taught to make 
 honey cookies and other dainties 
 enumerated in the food bulletins issued 
 by the United States government. How 
 are the domestic science departments 
 of your home schools! Are they teach- 
 ing the use of honey and thereby cre- 
 ating a demand for a natural, healthful 
 sweet, and one not easily adulterated! 
 Watch the schools. There is where the 
 neJrt generation gets its notions of food 
 to be served in the home. 
 
The uses of honey in the home. 
 
 3 1924 003 251 570 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no knovvn copyright restrictions in 
 the United States ofi thte use of the text. 
 
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