Cookery, or the art of preparing good and wholesome food, and of preserving all sorts of alimentary substances in a state fit for human sustenance, of rendering that agreeable to the taste which is essential to the support of life, and of pleasing the palate without injury to the system, is, strictly speaking, a branch of chemistry; but, important as it is both to our enjoyments and our health, it is also one of the least cultivated branches of that science. The culinary processes of roasting, boiling, baking, stewing, frying, broiling, the art of preserving meats, bacon, and hams; the preparations of sauces, pickles, and other condiments; the conserving of fruits; the care and keeping of vegetables; the making of jellies, jams, and marmalades, are all founded upon the principles of this science, and much waste of the material, as well as labour to the parties might often be spared, were those to whom the performance of such tasks is committed, made acquainted with simple chemical truths which would invariably lead to certain results. And, besides, the same knowledge would enable them to attain a much greater degree of perfection in curing and preserving all kinds of animal and vegetable aliments, and in combining the three grand requisites of taste, nutriment, and salubrity, in whatever manner they may be prepared. And, though this art is at present in rude hands, as all branches of chemistry were originally, there is no reason that it should remain so. A kitchen is, in fact, a chemical laboratory; the boilers, stew-pans, and cradle spit of the cook, correspond to the digestors, the evaporating basins, and the crucibles of the chemist. And numerous as the receipts of cookery are, the general operations (like the general process of chemistry) are but few. In some the object aimed at is, to extract the constituent parts of the food, so as to exhibit them in a separate state, or to combine them with other substances, to produce new compounds which differ widely from those from which they originated. In others, the qualities of the substances are simply altered by the action of fire, to render them more palatable and nutritious.
From the multiplicity of circumstances to be attended to in this art, the whole of which is founded upon the principles of chemistry, we may easily see that it must be a very precarious one; and, there is reason to believe, that among the variety of circumstances which produce diseases, the improper modes of cooking food, are often the primary cause. Will it be believed, that in the cookery books which form the prevailing oracles of the kitchens in this part of the island, there are express injunctions to “boil greens with halfpence, or verdigrise, in order to improve their colour!”[1] That our puddings are frequently seasoned with laurel leaves, and our sweatmeats almost uniformly prepared in copper vessels?[2] Why are we thus compelled to swallow a supererogatory quantity of poison which may so easily be avoided? And why are we constantly made to run the risk of our lives by participating in custards, trifles, and blancmanges, seasoned by a most deadly poison extracted from the prunus lourocerasus?[3] Verily, where such detestable systems of cookery are practised, we may exclaim with the sacred historian, that there is “Death in the Pot.”
[1] The Ladies Library, vol. ii. p. 203; and also Modern Cookery, 2nd Edition, p. 94.
[2] Literary Chronicle, No. xxii. p. 348, 1819.
[3] Philosophical Magazine, No. cclviii. vol. 54, p. 317.
Food badly cooked is wasted to no purpose. It seems to have been a complaint familiar in the mouth of our ancestors, and which we have too often seen reason to re-echo in the present day—“That God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks.”
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOOD OF MAN.
No animal eats such variety of food as man; he claims, more justly than any other creature, the title of omnivorous! for since he is distinguished beyond all animals, but the capability of living in the most distant parts of the globe, under every variety of climate which the earth affords, his food could not be confined exclusively to either the vegetable or animal kingdom, because he inhabits regions that afford aliments widely different from each other. Cattle content themselves with green vegetables; rapacious animals live on the flesh of other creatures.
Those of the Linnæan order, glires,[4] live on grain and fruits; each order of birds, keeps, in the same manner, to one sort of food, animal or vegetable. Fishes, reptiles, and insects, also have each their peculiar and exclusive bill of fare, beyond which even hunger will scarcely force them to wander. But however various each class, and order, and species of animated nature may be in the choice of food, man—all-devouring man, will embrace the whole range of the creation, “scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.”
[4] The hare, rabbit, guinea-pig, &c.