VI.—VEGETABLES.
Never eat boiled vegetables. No one ever hears of a flesh-eater boiling his staple article of diet and throwing away the liquor. On the contrary, when he does indulge in boiled meat, the liquor is regarded as a valuable asset, and is used as a basis for soup. But his meat is generally conservatively cooked—that is, it is baked, roasted, or grilled, so that the juices are retained. If he has to choose between throwing away the meat or the water in which it has been boiled, he keeps the liquor—witness "beef-tea." For some unknown reason he does not often treat his vegetables in the same way, and suffers thereby the loss of much valuable food material.
The vegetarian—being avowedly a thinker and a pioneer—would, it might be imagined, treat what is now one of his staple articles of diet at least as carefully as the out-of-date flesh-eater. But no! For the most part, his vegetables are boiled, and when the best part of the food constituents and all the flavour have been extracted, he dines off a mass of indigestible fibre—mere waste matter—and allows the "broth" to be thrown down the sink, with the consequence that many vegetarians are pale, flabby individuals who succumb to the slightest strain, and suffer from chronic dyspepsia.
The remedy is simple. Treat vegetables as you used to treat meat. Bake or stew them in their own juice. (See recipe for Vegetarian Irish Stew.) At the least, steam them. A little of the valuable vegetable salts are lost in the steaming, but not much. Better still, use a double boilerette. A very little water is put into the inner pan and soon becomes steam, so that by the time the vegetable is cooked it has all disappeared.
No exact time can be given for cooking vegetables, as this varies with age and freshness. The younger—always supposing it has just come to maturity—and fresher the vegetable, the quicker it cooks.
It should not be forgotten that orthodox cooks put all green and root vegetables, except potatoes, to cook in boiling water. This rule should not be neglected when steaming vegetables—the water should be fast boiling.
I will conclude with a few remarks about preparing greens, cauliflowers, etc. The general practice is to soak them in cold salted water with the idea of drawing out and killing any insects. But this often results in killing the insects, especially if much salt is used, before "drawing them out." A better plan is to put the trimmed cabbage or cauliflower head downwards into warm water for about half an hour. As I trim Brussels sprouts I throw them into a pan of warm water, and the insects crawl out and sink to the bottom of the pan. It is astonishing how many one finds at the bottom of a pan of warm water in which sprouts are soaked.