Rice should be so cooked that the grains, though thoroughly softened, lie quite separate, but it is seldom or never met with cooked to perfection out of India, and by no means always there. The stodgy, sticky mass turned out by the ordinary English cook, or French chef, obstinately resists admixture with the gastric juice, and instead of being the lightest, is converted into a very heavy article of food.
The secret, I understand, consists in putting the well-washed rice into boiling water to which a crystal of alum has been added, and completing the cooking in this. The alum water is then washed off with several changes of cold water, the rice drained, and finally warmed up over a very gentle fire.
Tinned provisions.
—A good many familiar home luxuries can only reach our distant possessions in the form of tinned stores, but there is a tendency to rely too much on them. At their very best they cannot approach well-cooked fresh food in wholesomeness and palatability; and frugality in their employment may be always regarded as one of the distinguishing marks of a good housekeeper, for, speaking generally, the less tins are used the better.
The various classes of food, however, vary greatly in the extent of deterioration produced by the process of tinning. Most vegetables and fruits preserve well in this way, and at any rate I cannot recall any instance of their having been proved to do harm. Meat and fish that have been highly smoked or salted, as well as fish preserved in oil, also appear fairly safe; but tinned fresh meat, and fish of all sorts are luxuries that should be avoided by prudent persons, unless driven to their consumption by scarcity. Tinned soups, containing as they usually do a considerable amount of salt, appear generally safe; and are better in the case of emergencies than the so-called meat extracts, which at best merely act as stimulants. Despite all that specious advertisements and uninformed testimonials may blazon forth to the contrary, it is an impossible feat to pack a cow in a cup, and, though there is a considerable concentration of undesirable excrementitious matter, the actual nutritive value of these preparations is less than that of an equal bulk of the meat from which they are produced.[3] They, of course, have their uses, but must not be depended upon for nourishment in prolonged cases, where they are in every way inferior to properly made beef tea. In ordinary cookery their use is quite indefensible, on account of the strain thrown upon the excretory organs in the elimination of the excrementitious matters of which they are so largely composed.
[3] Vide “Patent Foods and Patent Medicines,” by Robert Hutchison, M.D. (John Bale, Sons, and Danielsson, price 1s.). Although written mainly for the medical profession, this very able little pamphlet might be widely read by the too easily gullible general public with great advantage. The writer shows that some of the expensive “meat juices” are nothing more than diluted white of egg, and that even when genuine, their nutritive value is no higher than the fraudulently substituted egg albumen. Dr. Hutchison’s recipe for “meat” juice is not only amusing, but is well worthy of reproduction for its practical value, as it may save people from wasting many of the half crowns which they now contribute to enable the manufacturers of puffed rubbish to make the hoardings and country-side hideous with their advertisements.
“You can manufacture ‘meat juice’ yourself at a very low cost. Here is a bottle of it which I made this morning. Take the white of egg, add an equal quantity of water, and strain through muslin, then flavour the mixture with any quantity of Liebig’s extract dissolved in a little warm water which you think suitable. By that means you get a preparation extremely rich in coagulable albumen which you can produce at one penny per ounce; and it is one of which the patient can swallow a pailful, if he can get it down, without it doing him any harm. So I see no necessity to buy any of the juices in the market so long as hens exist. That which you make in this way is as good as what you buy, for egg albumen is as nutritious as meat albumen, and it is vastly inferior to it in price.”
The Question of Alcohol
does not, I think, need any special treatment here, as I doubt if its bearings are in any way altered by a change of latitude. Equally in the tropics and on polar expeditions, the majority of persons are, to say the least of it, none the worse for total abstinence; but excess is neither more nor less fatal in the one than in the other locality, and you will everywhere find a few to whom alcohol in strict moderation is useful. One would hesitate to say that this minority would be actually harmed by abstinence, but I am, on the other hand, equally sceptical as to the harmfulness of strict moderation; for, despite the very strong evidence of insurance statistics as to the superior longevity of total abstainers, it must be remembered that the so-called moderate drinkers must necessarily include a considerable number of those who would define moderation as the avoidance of getting drunk, and that the teetotaller is, ipso facto, usually one who is inclined to take more than usual care of his health.