7. A brown sauce or meat gravy may be made in the same way, using beef fat, and (as the liquid) water that has been poured into the pan in which the meat is cooked. When you are familiar with cooking there is an easier way for thickened meat gravies, as follows:
Pour off some of the fat from the meat pan. Set the pan upon the stove and stir in the flour,—about two tablespoonfuls for the ordinary roasting pan. When the flour is thoroughly mixed in, add about a pint of water, cold or warm, and stir again. Pour this mixture through a strainer. With practice you can make an excellent gravy in this way. It requires judgment to proportion the flour and liquid to the material in the pan.
The Sugars
Sugars are of common occurrence in the vegetable world in the fruits and juices of many plants. Pure grape juice may contain as high as 25 per cent of glucose though usually it is not so concentrated. Glucose is also found in considerable amount in sweet corn and onions. It is not so sweet as
cane sugar (sucrose). Fructose is one of the sweetest of sugars, and helps to give honey its great sweetness.
Lactose or milk sugar is found chiefly in milk. It is the least sweet of all the sugars. If there were as much cane sugar in milk, we should soon grow tired of it because it would be too sweet. It is sometimes added to milk to make its fuel value higher, especially in case the milk has been diluted, as in the diet of babies and invalids.
Maltose or malt sugar is formed from starch in germinating seeds.
Sucrose or cane sugar is most commonly manufactured from sugar cane and sugar beets. To a much smaller extent it is made commercially from the sugar maple, sorghum cane, and sugar palm, and it is found in considerable amount in some common fruits and vegetables.
Its manufacture forms a great industry, and its consumption is enormous, some ten million tons coming into commerce annually, and this does not represent the total consumption.
Figure 48 shows the composition of several common sugars. Notice that the granulated sugar is a pure foodstuff, being 100 per cent carbohydrate, while all the others contain traces of protein, ash, and water. Sugar is a fuel food, exclusively, like olive oil and other pure fats.