In each of the processes of cooking, such as boiling, roasting, frying, stewing, steaming, baking, it is necessary to observe certain elementary rules which can easily be taught.
Boiling. In boiling meat, everything depends on whether the object is to keep the juices within the meat or to get them out; in other words, whether the meat is intended to be eaten, or simply used for the purpose of making a rich, flavorful bouillon or soup. If the meat is to be eaten, it is plunged at once into boiling water, which coagulates the protein on the outside and prevents the loss of the juices. The bigger the chunk, the better.
If the meat is not to be eaten, it is put into a pot of cold water and the temperature is raised gradually. In this case the richest broth is obtained if the meat is cut up into small pieces and cooked a long time.
It is almost universally believed that "soup meat" (usually beef) boiled in this way has lost most of its nutritive qualities and that these have gone into the soup. In reality, it is all a matter of Flavor. We prefer the soup to the meat boiled in it, merely because the Flavor of the meat has been transferred to the soup. The nutritive matter remains in the meat; the soup stock has very little of it—from one to five per cent. only. It is evident, therefore, as Dr. Wiley points out, that "the soup stock is valuable as a condiment and flavoring and not as a food."
The same is true of beef extract, which is simply a concentrated soup stock—thirty-four pounds of beef boiled down into one pound.
Here we have the whole philosophy of soup making and soup eating, reduced to the simplest terms. Soup contains the essence of meat Flavor, and we eat it at the beginning of a meal because this Flavor stimulates the appetite, which in turn causes the digestive juices to flow freely. The richer the soup is in Flavor, the more it stimulates the appetite. The beef extracts sold in little jars are, if made by reputable firms, among the most valuable appetizers—invaluable, in fact, in a country in which the science of making savory soup is so little understood or practised as it is in the United States.
The makers of meat extracts have laid themselves open to censure by making extravagant claims as to the nutritive properties of these extracts, instead of dwelling principally on their importance as flavorful appetizers. This, to be sure, they could hardly have been expected to do until the all-importance of Flavor in Food had been impressed on the public in a special monograph.
WHEREIN LIES THE VALUE OF VEGETABLES?
Except for the making of soup stock, and of extracts and beef tea, boiling of meats is not much in vogue in America. Vegetables, on the other hand, are usually boiled—and thereby hangs a melancholy tale.
Boiled they should be, but not in the careless, unscientific way generally practised in America and England, where they usually are served at table entirely denatured, that is, deprived of their Flavors.