BAB′LAH. The rind or shell of the fruit of mimosa cineraria. According to Dr Ure, it contains a considerable quantity of gallic acid,
some tannin, a red colouring principle, and an azotised substance, and is the article imported from the East Indies and Senegal under the name of NEB-NEB.—Used as a cheap dye-stuff for various shades of drab and grey.
BAC′CA (băk′-ă). [L.; pl., bac′cæ, băk′-sē.] A berry.
BACK. [D., bak, a bowl or cistern.] Syn. Bac. In brewing, a large, open, flat reservoir or cistern; commonly that in which wort is cooled. In distillation, the vessel into which the wort is pumped from the coolers, in order to be ‘worked’ with yeast. The LIQUOR-BACK in a brewery, distillery, or rectifying house is the water reservoir or cistern.
BACKS. In the leather trade, the thickest and stoutest portion of the hide, used for sole-leather.
BACON (bā′-kn). [W., baccun, prob. from Ger., bache, a wild sow; “old Fr., for dried flesh or pork”—Craig.] The flesh of swine salted and dried, and subsequently either smoked or not. The term is usually restricted to the sides and belly so prepared; the other parts of the animal having distinctive names. Sometimes, though rarely, the term is extended to the flesh of bears, and of other like animals, cured in a similar manner.
Qual., &c. When bacon has been properly prepared from young and well-fed animals, and is neither ‘stale’ nor ‘rusty,’ it forms a very wholesome and excellent article of food, especially adapted for a light or hasty meal, or as a relish for bread or vegetables. For persons with a weak stomach, and for invalids, great care should be taken to cook it without injuring its flavour, or rendering it indigestible. This is best effected by cutting it into slices of moderate thickness, and carefully broiling or toasting it; avoiding dressing it too hastily, too slowly, or too much. The common practice of cooking it in almost wafer-like slices, until it becomes brown and crisp, renders it not merely indigestible, but also a most fertile source of heartburn and dyspepsia. Fried bacon is remarkably strong, and is hence more likely to offend the stomach than when it is broiled, or preferably toasted before the fire; the last being, of all others, the best way of dressing it so as to preserve its delicacy and flavour. Gourmands, however, often esteem, as ‘une bonne bouche,’ bacon dressed in the flame arising from the dropping of its own fat.
Choice. Good bacon has a thin rind, and an agreeable odour, the fat has a firm consistence and a slightly reddish tinge; the lean is of a pleasing red colour, is tender, and adheres, whilst raw, strongly to the bone. When the fat is yellow, it is either ‘rusty’ or becoming so, and should be avoided. The streaky parts are not only those which are most esteemed, but are the most wholesome.
Bacon should be broiled or toasted in front of the fire. The rashers should be in thin slices, and the rind should be removed. The melted fat from the bacon should never be wasted. To partake of all broiled meats in perfection they should be served up as soon as they are taken off the gridiron.
BACTERIUM (Bacterion, a little rod). Since the publication of the researches of Professor Cohn, of Breslau, upon the nature of this organism, the idea previously entertained by Ehrenberg and others as to its animal origin has been long abandoned, and microscopists now very generally regard it as belonging to the vegetable kingdom. It is probably one of the lowest and most simple forms of vegetable or animal life, and consists of an envelope more or less enclosing protoplasm—the nitrogenous substance from which the cell nucleus is formed. Dr Lionel Beale very carefully crushed a very large bacterium while under observation by the microscope, and when the external membrane was ruptured the protoplasm was seen to escape, and to exhibit what Dr Beale regards as vital movement. In form, bacteria may be either globular, rod-shaped, egg-shaped, or filamentous. Cohn has described a variety presenting the appearance of beaded chains, or aggregations.