THE
CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.
[CHAPTER I.]
INTRODUCTORY.
The philosopher who first perceived and announced the fact that all the physical doings of man consist simply in changing the places of things, made a very profound generalisation, and one that is worthy of more serious consideration than it has received.
All our handicraft, however great may be the skill employed, amounts to no more than this. The miner moves the ore and the fuel from their subterranean resting-places, then they are moved into the furnace, and by another moving of combustibles the working of the furnace is started; then the metals are moved to the foundries and forges, then under hammers, or squeezers, or into melting-pots, and thence to moulds. The workman shapes the bars, or plates, or castings by removing a part of their substance, and by more and more movings of material produces the engine, which does its work when fuel and water are moved into its fireplace and boiler.
The statue is within the rough block of marble; the sculptor merely moves away the outer portions, and thereby renders his artistic conception visible to his fellow-men.
The agriculturist merely moves the soil in order that it may receive the seed, which he then moves into it, and when the growth is completed, he moves the result, and thereby makes his harvest.
The same may be said of every other operation. Man alters the position of physical things in such wise that the forces of Nature shall operate upon them, and produce the changes or other results that he requires.
My reasons for this introductory digression will be easily understood, as this view of the doings of man and the doings of Nature displays fundamentally the business of human education, so far as the physical proceedings and physical welfare of mankind are concerned.
It clearly points out two well-marked natural divisions of such education—education or training in the movements to be made, and education in a knowledge of the consequences of such movements—i.e. in a knowledge of the forces of Nature which actually do the work when man has suitably arranged the materials.
The education ordinarily given to apprentices in the workshop, or the field, or the studio—or, as relating to my present subject, the kitchen—is the first of these, the second and equally necessary being simply and purely the teaching of physical science as applied to the arts.