This confection is easily made from purely vegetable ingredients, and has the pleasing consistency and flavor of the Turkish pastes. The gelatine that is used comes from an aquatic plant—instead of from the usual source. It can now be obtained in specialty stores and in some of the grocery stores of the larger cities.

Cut one-half of an ounce of Japanese gelatine into fine pieces, and pour over it two cupsful of warm water. Ordinary gelatine can not be substituted. Let it stand for at least two hours. The results will be much better if the soaking is allowed to take a whole night. Set this gelatine water on the fire and stir it until it comes to a boil and the gelatine is wholly dissolved.

Mix one pound of sugar and one-half of a pound of glucose; into them strain the gelatine. Set the resulting mixture on the fire and cook it until it is very stringy as it drops from the paddle. When stirring, scrape the bottom of the kettle well as the mixture sticks very easily.

Run a half pound of figs through a grinder. When the gelatine mass is cooked, as above, remove it from the fire, add a few drops of oil of lemon or a teaspoonful of lemon extract, and thoroughly mix in the figs. Dust a marble slab with confectioner's sugar, place candy bars in position, and pour the mass between them so as to form about one-half inch thick. If the candy is allowed to cool a little before it is poured out, and is carefully stirred, the figs will not separate and come to the top. Dust the top with the sugar and let it remain over night.

To finish the confection, cut it into squares by simply pressing the knife down through it. Roll the pieces in confectioner's sugar, and pack them in an air-tight box.

Seaweed.—This gelatine called for by this receipt is also known as Japanese isinglass, agar-agar, and kanten. It is peculiar to Japan. It is made from seaweed, the great unused resource of the western world. The Orient alone to any extent uses seaweed as a food, and, of the Orient, only Japan shows appreciation of its agricultural and commercial value. Kanten is the product of five hundred manufacturing plants in Japan, with an annual output of over three million pounds. The usual commercial gelatine is made from animal tissues—skin, ligaments, tendons, or the matrix of bones, particularly of horns and hoofs. Seaweed as a source for gelatine appeals somewhat more to the imagination!

Kanten is made from the gelidium family of seaweed which grows in deep water upon the rocks. Coolies dive for the seaweed. They wash and dry it by the seaside, and sell it at seven or eight cents a pound to the factories for gelatine manufacture. The perfect purity of kanten is proved by its use as a culture medium in bacteriological work.

Gelidium grows on both coasts of America from Canada to the Gulf. This is true, also, of red laver which is largely used as a food in Japan and unknown here. In Japan it is baked or toasted until crisp and used in sauces and soups. It is palatable, and nutritious, being rich in proteids. Red laver is not abundant in Japan and is being cultivated. Sea farming is becoming an important industry under the supervision of the government. The red laver beds are now rented out by the season to the sea farmers with average crop returns of one hundred and fifty dollars per acre.

Kelp, also, is utilized in Japan, not alone for glue, sizing and iodine, but as a food—kombu. In this country, it is sometimes used to fertilize the low-lying, barren lands near the shore.

In the marketing of the vegetable sea food known as Irish moss, New England comes to the fore. This is a delicious food product used much as corn starch for blancmange, jellies, custards, and puddings.

In a book relating to candy-making, why this information concerning the unappreciated food value of seaweed? Because the discovery of the possibilities that cheap and common vegetables can well serve as the basis for the best candy may well be supplemented by the utilization of seaweeds, valuable as a food, but now wasted. In the midst of her work, the candy-cook may well stop to think that it is by putting cheap and common things to new uses that the race will make material progress.