Culinary Chemistry / The Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy, with Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food.

by Friedrich Christian Accum

OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOUS KINDS OF VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES COMMONLY USED FOR FOOD.

The vegetable substances used for food are, if we include fruits, much more numerous than those derived from the animal kingdom. The chief of these, however, are the different sorts of grain and pulse, the farina or flour of which, contains a large proportion of starch, gluten, and mucilage, and but little woody fibre, and is consequently highly nutritious, and easily digested. To this class of plants we are also indebted for the food of the animals whose flesh is most generally used. In pulse, as well as in rye and oats, there is, besides the principles just mentioned, a considerable portion of sugar, which adds to their nutritive qualities.

We would class the different sorts of nuts, next to grain and pulse, in the proportion of nutriment which they afford; starch and mucilage are their chief elements, but these are combined with a kind of oil which is not of easy digestion, and makes them disagree with most people when too liberally used. Almonds, filberts, walnuts, and cocoa, are the nuts in most request. Chocolate is a preparation of this kind, which is very nutritious to those with whom it agrees.

Next to grain, pulse, and nuts, we may place the farinaceous roots, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes. Of these, the first, contains the most nourishment, which depends on the great proportion of starch with which it abounds. Other pot-herbs possess little nourishment. Cabbage and greens, for example, are chiefly composed of fibre, mucilage, and water, and the same is true of onions, leeks, celery, lettuce, and broccoli.

Of fruits, those which are most farinaceous and mucilaginous, and which are sweet from the sugar contained in them, are the most nutritious. The pear should seem to answer this description the nearest, but experience proves that this fruit is of less easy digestion than the apple, whose greater acidity corrects the heavy quality of the saccharine matter with which the pear abounds.