lemonades of citric acid, gooseberries, cherries, and raspberries.
TIS′SUE (Blis′tering). See Vesicants.
TITA′NIUM. A rare metal, discovered by Klaproth in 1794, and examined by Wollaston in 1822. It is occasionally found at the bottom of the smelting furnaces of iron works, in combination with nitrogen and cyanogen, under the form of minute crystals, having a coppery lustre.
TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE. One to six ounces of flour, break the contents of one egg, and stir in by degrees one pint of milk, taking care to keep the mixture free from lumpiness. Place meat or ox kidney cut in slices in a greased pie dish or tin; then pour the batter over the meat after adding a pinch of salt, and let it bake for an hour to an hour and a quarter. The batter should be allowed to stand before being cooked.
TOAST (Essence of). This is liquid burnt sugar or spirit colouring. Used to make extemporaneous toast-and-water (3 or 4 drops to the glass), and to flavour soups, gravies, &c.
TOAST AND WATER. Toast a crust of bread, taking care not to char it, and put it into a pint of cold water, in a covered vessel. After standing half an hour it will be ready for use.
TOBAC′CO. Syn. Tabacum (Ph. L., E., & D.), L.; Tabac, Fr. The prepared leaf of Nicotiana Tabacum (Linn.), or other species of the same genus. The name was given to this herb by the Spaniards, because it was first seen by them at Tabasco, or Tabaco, a province of Yucatan, in Mexico.
The tobacco of commerce is chiefly obtained from Virginia, and other parts of the United States, and recently from Japan and California, but the finest varieties are imported from Havannah and from the East. The plants are gathered when mature, during hot dry weather, and are hung up in pairs, in sheds, to dry. When sufficiently dry, the leaves are separated from the stems, bound up in bundles, and these are formed into bales, or packed in hogsheads, for exportation.
Prep. To impart to the dried leaves the characteristic odour and flavour of tobacco, and to render them agreeable to smokers and snuffers, it is necessary that they should undergo a certain preparation, or kind of fermentation. If a fresh green leaf of tobacco be crushed between the fingers, it emits merely the herbaceous smell common to most plants; but if it be triturated in a mortar along with a very small quantity of quicklime or caustic alkali, it will immediately exhale the peculiar odour of manufactured tobacco. This arises from the active and volatile ingredients being liberated from their previous combination, by the ammonia developed by fermentation, or the action of a stronger base. Tobacco contains a considerable quantity of
chloride of ammonium, and this substance, as is well known, when placed in contact with lime or potassa, immediately evolves free ammonia. If we reverse the case, and saturate the excess of alkali in prepared tobacco by the addition of any mild acid, its characteristic odour entirely disappears. In the preparation of tobacco previously to its manufacture for sale, these changes are effected by a species of fermentation. Pure water, without any addition, is quite sufficient to promote and maintain the perfect fermentation of tobacco. The leaves soon become hot and evolve ammonia; during this time the heaps require to be occasionally opened up and turned over, lest they become too hot, take fire, or run into the putrefactive fermentation. The extent to which the process is allowed to proceed varies, for different kinds of snuff or tobacco, from one to three months.