sh a cupful
of pearl barley. Cook in a double boiler in five cups of boiling water
for four hours. Just before serving, add a cupful of raisins which have
been prepared by pouring boiling water over them and allowing them to
stand until swollen. Serve hot, with cream.

PEARL BARLEY WITH LEMON SAUCE.--Pearl barley cooked in the same
manner, but without the addition of the raisins, is excellent served
with cream or with a lemon sauce prepared as directed on page 354.

RICE.

DESCRIPTION.--Rice is one of the most abundantly used and most
digestible of all the cereals. It grows wild in India, and it is
probable that this is its native home. It is, however, now cultivated in
most tropical and sub-tropical climates, and is said to supply the
principal food for nearly one third of the human race. It is mentioned
in history several hundred years before Christ. According to Soyer, an
old writer on foods, the Greeks and Romans held rice in high esteem,
believing it to be a panacea for chest and lung diseases.

The grain is so largely grown and used by the Chinese that "fan," their
word for rice, has come to enter into many compound words. A beggar is
called a "tou-fan-tee," that is, "the rice-seeking one." The ordinary
salutation, "Che-fan," which answers to our "How do you do?" means,
"Have you eaten your rice?"

Rice requires a wet soil, and the fields in which the grain is raised,
sometimes called "paddy" fields, are periodically irrigated. Before
ripening, the water is drained off, and the crop is then cut with a
sickle, made into shocks, stacked, threshed, and cleaned, much like
wheat. The rice kernel is inclosed within two coverings, a course outer
husk, which is easily removed, and an inner, reddish, siliceous coating.

"Paddy" is the name given in India to the rice grain when inclosed in
its husk. The same is termed "rough rice" in this country. The outer
husk of the rice is usually removed in the process of threshing, but the
inner red skin, or hull, adheres very closely, and is removed by rubbing
and pounding. The rough rice is first ground between large stones, and
then conveyed into mortars, and pounded with iron-shod pestles. Thence,
by fanning and screening, the husk is fully removed, and the grain
divided into three different grades, whole, middlings, and small whole
grains, and polished ready for market. The middlings consist of the
larger broken pieces of the grain; the small rice, of the small
fragments