With information ranging from food and nutrition to specific recipes for different maladies this is not just another cookbook. In it are chapters devoted to body chemistry and digestion, infant feeding, child feeding, cooking for the sick, how to prepare and serve food trays for the ill, and more. Fannie Farmer regarded the book as one of her great achievements.
She writes, "This work is designed to meet the demands made upon me by the numberless classes of trained nurses whom it has been my pleasure and privilege to instruct during my thirteen years of service as a teacher of cookery.
"It is earnestly hoped that, besides meeting this long felt need, it will do a still broader work in thousands of homes throughout the land, where it will be of inestimable help to the mothers upon whom so much of the welfare of the family depends.
"The opening chapters are equally valuable to those who care for the sick and those who see in correct feeding the way of preventing much of the illness about us.
"Emphasis has been laid on the importance of diet from infancy to old age. The classification, composition, nutritive value, and digestibility of foods have been carefully considered with the same constant purpose of being a help to those who arrange dietaries. The chapter on infant feeding is an authoritative guide to aid in the development of the baby, while child feeding is considered with like care. Considerable matter has been introduced with reference to diet in various diseases, and the recipes for the diabetic have involved much thought and labor.
"The hundreds of thoroughly tested recipes cover the whole range of the subject of cookery for the sick and convalescent They are, for the most part, individual, thus requiring but a minimum of time for their preparation, while many have their caloric value given.
"I wish to express my sincere thanks for the sympathy, encouragement, and help I have received from pupils, superintendents of nurses, professors, and physicians, which have made this work possible."
