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Treasures of our Memorial Library Food for Thought Seeking a subject for another episode of monthly musings, your scribe paused to consider what general subjects may be considered to be of interest to all people. Soon the idea of "FOOD" cropped up, and I wondered if this broad topic, and our library's coverage of it, might rightly be considered among the "Treasures of Our Library". A few minutes scanning our shelves quickly convinced me that here is a great mine of information and "How To" instruction on a vital subject, well deserving of the title "Treasure". In a few moments I realized that food is a so vital, all-encompassing a subject that one is soon forced to restrict its consideration to limited spheres at a time. In a matter of minutes, months or years, for example, one can readily restrict study of many facets, or just one facet of this limitless subject. One might focus attention endlessly on narrow fields, such as Raw Foods, or Cooked Foods, essential mineral constituents of foods, or the specific food requirements of astronauts on long space flights. How extensive, I wondered, are materials on such interrelated subjects offered on our library's shelves? Just a few minutes of inspection, guided by our patient and knowledgeable librarians, led me towards ever-widening horizons. Here I found a treasure of priceless scope and variety, offering a plethora of information on a huge kaleidoscope of subjects, all more or less related to food. For example, I learned that our library offers about three thousand cookbooks, with a tremendous variety of sizes and scope, and many duplicates. And what a range of subjects!! Here is a minuscule list: Medieval cooking, French, Indonesian, Chinese, Spanish, German cooking and so on, ad infinitum. The bewildering range of cookbooks only hints at the endless extent of other subjects to be found here, all related to food. Let's take a quick glance at a few of the related titles. Quite a few are primers on cooking by children! Then, in rapid scans, I note the following titles: "What's On My Plate?" - "Pioneer Recipes" - "Additives" -"What's Cooking?" - The Complete Book of Food" -"Jane Brody's Nutrition Book" - "The Kellogg Nutrition Symposium" -"The Dictionary of Food and What's In It For You" -"Vitamins in Your Life" -"The World Encyclopedia of Food" - "The Dietary Standard for Canada". There I had to stop for breath. But a few minutes of reflection convinced me I could readily find here materials on a vast range of related subjects, such as food rationing in wartime, healthful food for invalids, starvation in the Third World, herbal gardens, and so on and on. So, let us rejoice in the high levels of competence and endeavour in agriculture and food handling - to say nothing of marketing - which characterize our parts of the world, and be suitably grateful for our good fortune. Treasures of our Memorial Library Ted Hill