The Chemistry of Cookery

by W. Mattieu Williams

In comparing the nutritive value of cheese with that of flesh, the retention of this phosphate of lime corresponds with the retention of some of the juices of the meat, among which are the phosphates of the flesh.

These phosphates of lime are the bone-making material of food, and have something to do in building up the brain and nervous matter, though not to the extent that is supposed by those who imagine that there is a special connection between phosphorus and the brain, or phosphorescence and spirituality. Bone contains about eleven per cent. of phosphorus, brain less than one per cent.

The value of food in reference to its phosphate of lime is not merely a matter of percentage, as this salt may exist in a state of solution, as in milk, or as a solid very difficult of assimilation, as in bones. That retained in cheese is probably in an intermediate condition—not actually in solution, but so finely divided as to be readily dissolved by the acid of the gastric juice.

I may mention, in reference to this, that when a child or other young animal takes its natural food in the form of milk, the milk is converted into unpressed cheese, or curd, prior to its digestion.

Supposing that, on an average, cheese contains only one-half of the 6 per cent. of phosphate of lime found, as above, in the casein, and taking into consideration the water contained in flesh, the bone, &c., we may conclude generally that one pound of average cheese contains as much nutriment as three pounds of the average material of the carcass of an ox or sheep as prepared for sale by the butcher; or otherwise stated, a cheese of 20 lbs. weight contains as much food as a sheep weighing 60 lbs. as it hangs in the butcher’s shop.

Now comes the practical question. Can we assimilate or convert into our own substance the cheese-food as easily as we may the flesh-food?

I reply that we certainly cannot, if the cheese is eaten raw; but have no doubt that we may, if it be suitably cooked. Hence the paramount importance of this part of my subject. A Swiss or Scandinavian mountaineer can and does digest and assimilate raw cheese as a staple article of food, and proves its nutritive value by the result; but feebler bipeds of the plains and towns cannot do the like.

I may here mention that I have recently made some experiments on the dissolving of cheese by adding sufficient alkali (carbonate of potash) to neutralise the acid it contains, in order to convert the casein into its original soluble form as it existed in the milk, and have partially succeeded both with water and milk as solvents; but before reporting these results in detail I will describe some of the practically-established methods of cooking cheese that are so curiously unknown or little known in this country.

In the fatherland of my grandfather, Louis Gabriel Mattieu, one of the commonest dishes of the peasant who tills his own freehold and grows his own food is a fondu. This is a mixture of cheese and eggs, the cheese grated and beaten into the egg as in making omelettes, with a small addition of new milk or butter. It is placed in a little pan like a flower-pot saucer, cooked gently, served as it comes off the fire, and eaten from the vessel in which it is cooked. I have made many a hearty dinner on one of these, plus a lump of black bread and a small bottle of genuine but thin wine; the cost of the whole banquet at a little auberge being usually less than sixpence. The cheese is in a pasty condition, and partly dissolved in the milk or butter. I have tested the sustaining power of such a meal by doing some very stiff mountain climbing and long fasting after it. It is rather too good—over nutritious—for a man only doing sedentary work.

A diluted and delicate modification of this may be made by taking slices of bread, or bread and butter, soaking them in a batter made of eggs and milk—without flour—then placing the slices of soaked bread in a pie-dish, covering each with a thick coating of grated cheese, and thus building up a stratified deposit to fill the dish. The surplus batter may be poured over the top; or if time is allowed for saturation, the trouble of preliminary soaking may be saved by simply pouring all the batter thus. This, when gently baked, supplies a delicious and highly nutritious dish. We call it ‘cheese pudding’ at home, but my own experience convinces me that we make a mistake in using it to supplement the joint. It is far too nutritious for this; its savoury character tempts one to eat it so freely that it would be far wiser to use it as the Swiss peasant uses his fondu—i.e. as the substantial dish of a wholesome dinner.