Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 69

Have a little lamb Summer soups Austin American-Statesman food Buy an entire lamb, have the butcher section it off into legs, chops, a rack or shoulder, and split the cost with your friends and neighbors. G3. Just because summer is approaching does not mean you can't have soup. Eaten cold, a bowl of soup on a steamy day is a perfect nutritious refresher. G2.

Thursday, May 1 7, 1 979 1 Economy, trust from Fannie Farmer a cook of certain standards own mixes uniformity of the new measurements, dependability of the recipes and completeness of the volume which made it a success. The 567-page book Included chapters on meats, deserts, vegetables, soups, pickles and preserves, a section on nutrition, chafing dish recipes and even dishes for the sick. K- t- ft5, I 'V jo i -pi. if By HELEN MOORE Knight Newt Servic With a cup, spoons and a pen, Fannie Farmer brought a revolution to the kitchens of America. She designed the measuring cups, spoons and recipe system in common use today by American cooks, then went on to write cookbooks that were unique in her time and that set the pattern for the ones ever since.

Today's cook might find It Impossible to make a cake without a definite recipe or standard measures. But in the years before 1896, this was the usual state of cooking. Old recipes called for butter the size of a walnut, a saltspoon of a spice, a wineglass of liquid, a cup of flour (there were no standard "cups," and that could mean almost anything.) If grandmother didn't think to hand down her special cup or spoon with her the results were never the same. Instructions often were sketchy or nonextstant. Small wonder the saying of the time declared: "Cooks are born, not made." European measures by weight had never really caught on with American cooks, and Farmer's volume measures, which were easy and inexpensive to use, quickly became standard.

nephew Dexter Perkins, who supervised revisions. fl V- 0)S By MARIAN BURROS Washington Post Servict Prepared convenience foods have never been a bargain. But their price has risen so much in the last year that there is now even more reason to consider making them at home. According to the May issue of Consumer Buying Alert, the brainchild of White House consumer adviser Esther Peterson, only the price of meat has risen faster than the price of prepared convenience foods over the past year. What's more, the Buying Alert says prepared foods are not necessarily convenient and don't always contain the same amount of high-protein ingredients found In meals prepared at home.

It suggests cooking from scratch when possible. Frozen TV-type dinners, according to the White House pamphlet, cost 15 to 100 percent more than similar dinners prepared at home. And in most cases, the difference is much greater, since a comparison chart of 24 items in the Buying Alert is based on faulty data provided by the Department of Agriculture. The White House might have been better off with someone else's research: USDA's methodology leaves a lot to be desired. With rare exceptions, it Ignores both cost and nutritional differences between homemade and commercially prepared foods with the result that convenience foods appear to be a better value than they are.

Assistant Agriculture Secretary Carol Foreman, distressed that her agency did not supply the White House with the correct data, has called the methodology "inappropriate," especially, she said, in light of the fact that "criticism has been made of the deparment's data in the past on this Issue." Several years ago USDA began a comparison study of processed foods such as chicken chow mein, beef stew and fried rice with standard home recipes for the same dishes. Its study purported to show how much cheaper the commercially prepared products were. What it neglected to take into account was the difference between the Ingredients. While chicken chow meln In a can might have Vk ounces of chicken, homemade chicken chow meln had 6 ounces. Canned beef stew might contain 4 ounces of beef; the homemade version had twice as much.

The flaw in USDA results was pointed out In The Washington Post more than four years ago. According to one of the USDA staff working on the continuing project, adjustments have now been made to take these differences into account. But Betty Peterkin, the USDA nutritionist who prepared the table for the White House Buying Alert, included these adjustments only in the case of four TV dinners fried chicken, haddock, mea-tloaf and turkey with dressing. Even then the meatloaf component of the homemade meatloaf dinner was not the same as the frozen prepared product, which contained TVP (textured vegetable protein), a meat extender that reduces the cost of ground beef considerably. Other products, such as fish sticks, lasagna and fried rice, were simply weighed and the weight of these products compared to the weight of the home-prepared products.

Foreman said "It's Inappropriate that the department did not compare the costs of producing the products from similar recipes adjustments should have been made." Midge Shubow, director of public information in See Make was just taken for granted that at some point In their lives women just wandered into the kitchen and started cooking. Cooking schools sprung up, and newspapers and magazines started having cooking columns and recipes in them. The whole thing just turned into a tremendous boom. "Fannie Farmer certainly popularized level measures and no one after her could put out a cookbook without using them," Shapiro said. Farmer was in great demand as a cooking lecturer-demonstrator one of the first.

She lectured at vard Medical School and taught nurses In many New England hospitals how to prepare food for the sick. She wrote a monthly column in Woman's Home Companion magazine and wrote four other books including "Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent" and "Chafing Dish Possibilities." Little has been written about Fannie Farmer and details of her life and works are hard to come by. But several forthcoming books may bring her into better focus. The 12th edition of "The Fannie Farmer Cook Book," revised by Marion Cunningham and Jerl Leber and published by Alfred Knopf, will appear in August. Two other books in progress, by Dana Lynn Wilson of Brookline, and by Laura Shapiro of Seattle, will be more biographical in nature.

Anne Willan's 1977 book, "Great Cooks and Their Recipes," McGraw-Hill, $19.95) contains an excellent chapter on Fannie Farmer. Farmer was born in Boston In 1857, the oldest of four girls in a staunch, close-knit New England family. While she was still very -young, the family moved to Med-ford, just outside Boston, where she went to school. As a teenager, she became very 111. Some say it was polio; others, a stroke.

The illness left her lame and in delicate health and dashed her hopes of finishing high school, because in those days a person with a physical impairment was expected to stay at home. There are several stories as to how she became interested in cooking. One has it that she was encouraged to take up cooking when she could no longer attend school. For whatever reasons, it's a fact that when she was 30 years old, Fannie Farmer began a two-year course at the Boston Cooking School. She was an excellent student, and after graduation she was invited to stay on as a teacher.

Four years later, in 1891, she became principal. According to author Anne Willan, Farmer was an exacting, enthusiastic and capable teacher who urged her students to experiment with new dishes. In 1896, Farmer published her famous "The Boston Cooking School Cook Book," which has been revised 11 times through the years and has sold more than three million copies in many languages and in braille. In 1896, the book sold for this year's edition will be around $12. The copright for the book was owned by Fannie Farmer and later by her Dr.

Marjorle Inman, professor In the School of Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University in West Lafayette, says that shortly after 1900, measuring cups and spoons following Fannie Farmers' design were being sold in some places. By the 1920s the measuring devices were being sold in S.S. Kresge Co. stores." According to some stories, Farmer's rise to fame began when one of her students at the Boston Cooking School questioned the "heaping" spoons or cups that were commonly used In recipes of the day. "Why couldn't they be level?" asked the student.

Farmer, according to "Great Cooks and Their Recipes," was always looking for ways to take the guesswork out of cooking and was quick to sense the possibilities. The size of the container and the method could make a substantial difference in many baked dishes. After she realized the value of standard measures, she started re-testing recipes. It Is not known exactly how she invented her measurements, but when Fannie Farmer's first cookbook appeared in 1896, it contained sketches of metal cups divided into thirds and quarters. Her first printed recipes followed the style of measurements and instructions we use today.

It was the During the later editions the book changed its title from "The Boston Cooking School Cook Book" to "The Fannie Farmer Cook Book." According to Laura Shipiro of Seattle, Farmer started her school at an opportune time: Changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution during the last half of the 19th Century and the early 20th Century had begun to transform the homemaker from a producer to a consumer. No longer did she have to produce or preserve her own food. Women gradually became better educated. It was an era of great interest In cooking and eating: 10- to 12-course meals were popular. Better cooking utensils, more work surfaces and new kitchen appliances, such as the Dover beater (common egg beater) and the gas stove made the preparation of food easier.

Better methods of transportation brought a larger variety of foods to the market place. Shapiro, who is working on a book about turn-of-the-century cooking, says Farmer's success was keyed to improved technology and the changing role of women brought on by the Industrial Revolution. "There was a whole new emphasis on cooking and especially on the idea you could open a cookbook and learn and that there were rules and regulations," she said. "Up to that time it But it was the idea of a standard, marked measure and leveling the Ingredients oft in the cup or spoon that was basic to the success of her recipes. It made the cook more conscious of accuracy and its effect on the finished product.

"Correct measurements are absolutely necessary to insure the best results," Farmer wrote. "Good judgment, with experience, has taught some to measure by sight, but the majority need definite guides." Grocers shop food institute: A super supermarket and then some Onion soup recipes for elite's readers Ellie Rucker leftovers with cheese i PA It was a supermarket for supermakets. Your grocer may have done a little shopping in Dallas earlier this month as the Food Market Institute brought more than 15,000 exhibitors to the Dallas Convention Center's two mammoth showroom floors. It was an opportunity to scope out the competition, new products, the latest from Rubbermaid or the same weary frozen foods by Banquet. The look, mood and content of the supermarkets of the future were laid out in a dizzying aisle-to-aisle configuration of showcases and booths.

On display were pantyhose, circular magazine racks with improved whirls, bushel baskets, lettuce packaging, baby food, cheap makeup, plasticware gorged like cut crystal, electronic labelers, deli scales and garage-sized freezers. Jeno's, Tony's and Totino's pizza had food editors clicking off the comments: good sauce, bad crust, dry pepperoni, too spicy, too bland, not bad, crust too thin I like it thick sputter, gulp. Tony's won. Getting the casual convention stroller's attention was part of the show. Neon, sirens, Playboy bunnies and blipping machines inundated the senses as throngs streamed through the displays of new freezer cases, bakery shelves, cash registers and computer scanners.

The sense of taste got the biggest workout. Proper tasting is an art developed quickly. For the overly curious, sampling each free morsel without getting full before arriving at the last exhibit Is no mean feat. On the other hand, some products were not worth the chew. By and large, most exhibitors had been here before.

This year they may have come with a new product added to their old line. The try-out on the convention sweetness. Slim Set, a new jell mix from MCP Foods (major competitor General Foods), enables the dieter or diabetic to create low-calorie jams and jellies with fresh fruit without compromising the texture you'd ordinarily lose when using sugar substitutes. Canning demands continue for other items as well. A Mason jar lid lets the canner know if air is seeping through the seal.

Atop the lid's metal disc is a metal nub that sucks down when the seal works, but pops up audibly if air slips through. The deaf can see it; the blind can hear or feel whether the button is up or down. Shopping bags we carry in our arms may be dropped in lieu of Union Carbide's new plastic tote with handles that can be held two at a time per arm. Despite the design for ease in hauling groceries from store to car, this is a petroleum product whose expense to the grocer may show up our receipts. Besides, you can't recycle plastic or use these bags on Halloween.

The cash register industry Is ringing with tlon, but forget the bells. The sound of money is little more than a chirp. Numbers wink In a digital dialogue beyond the consumers' grasp. But we better get used to it. A machine from Data Terminal Systems will handle food stamps and dispense coins no backroom computer necessary, no plug-ins.

Burroughs has designed a complete checkout and conveyor system that will scan, code and bag. This in itself and only time will tell may be a human error. It will be interesting to see what your grocer bought at the FMI convention. Become suspicious if you notice your neighborhood store is overstocked with hooks, lines and sinkers. ELAINE CORN Dear Ellie, please can you get the recipe for the French onion soup from Cafe Camille or have you run it before and I missed it? Tim Bartlett Nope, this is the first time.

It is good and we were curious about that recipe, too. FRENCH ONION SOUP From Cafe Camille: 10 medium yellow onions Vi pound margarine cup all purpose flour cup burgundy wine 1 cup beef base (concentrated) 1 gallon chicken stock strained 1 gallon water 4-6 bay leaves pinch of sugar Parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, croutons Slice onions thin. In a pan, melt margarine. Add flour, stir into margarine well, add onions, cover pan, cook about 20 minutes until onions are brown, stirring frequently on low heat. Add bay leaves, burgundy, chicken stock and mix well.

Mix beef base concentrate with one gallon water and add to mixture. (Beef broth is better if you have it.) Simmer about 15 minutes. Add pinch of sugar. Serve in bowl, add croutons on top, a dash of par-mesan cheese and cheddar cheese. Set bowl under broiler to melt cheese.

sumer response. So the man who made Imitation walnuts out of peanuts should take a hint. Those choking sounds were real. El Chico learned a valuable lesson: what's in a name counts. Its Mexican pizza of a large flour tortilla with two mingling cheeses and a sprinkling of green chiles is basically a good tasting product, but it has failed to sell in the Italian or Mexican freezer cases of the regionally dissected supermarket.

"I guess we ought to change the name," said an El Chico rep. When told what he had here was a quesa-dilla, he scratched his head, not understanding the word for the open-faced version of what ostensibly Is a Mexican grilled cheese sandwich. Without tomatoes, oregano and pepperoni, "I think the word pizza threw everybody off," he said. Back to the drawing boards. Another victim of a misapplied title points out the gravity with which consumers regard a product.

Tombstone pizza turned heads, but didn't get a chance to do the same for the stomach. Few people would go near anything so morose. A new yogurt beautifully named La Yogurt (can you feel your tongue moving as if you had yogurt in your mouth when you say La Yogurt?) is rich and creamy and billed as a third yogurt type after Swiss and sundae French. It's from New Jersey, labeled 100 percent "natural," but it smacks of a tejltale white sugar floor is somewhat of a simulation for real-life con-.