(b) The same, browning the cakes on a greased pan in the oven, or under the gas flame, turning if necessary.
(c) Shape in balls, place these in a wire frying basket, lower the basket into hot fat until the balls brown, lift the basket, drain, and drain the balls on paper. Keep hot until it is time to serve.
Laboratory management.—For individual work or work in groups of two, small fish, as perch, may be procured and these may be stuffed and baked in the period.
SHELLFISH
The shellfish are of two classes; the mollusks including clams, mussels (seldom used in this country), oysters, and scallops, and the crustaceans,—lobsters and crabs. None of the mollusks have high nutritive value, but they are a protein food, and add to the variety of the diet. The composition of the oyster is shown in Fig. 65, and it will be noted that the fat percentage is small and the calorie value low.
The oyster is raised in beds in the ocean, or bays often near the river mouth, and it is the neighborhood to the river that makes it possible for the oyster to carry germs of contagion, particularly of typhoid fever, when city sewage poured into the river passes over the oyster bed. Here, too, government protection is essential, and this is a matter that has created so much excitement that conditions are already improved. There is an association of oyster growers who make a point of advertising clean oyster beds, and cleanly methods of handling and transporting.
Oysters vary in size and flavor, the flavor seeming to depend upon the locality. The smaller are sought for serving raw, and the medium and larger for cooking. They are sold by the measure or number when taken from the shell, the latter giving the surer quantity; and the price is usually one cent apiece. They are in season from September to May. The whole flesh of the oyster is soft and edible, even the muscle by which it opens and shuts its shell being tender.
Clams are of two kinds, distinguished differently in different places. They are known as hard and soft, or round and
long, and in Rhode Island the hard round clam still bears the Indian name Quahaug, the soft shell clam being the only “clam.”