The Chemistry of Cookery

by W. Mattieu Williams

Another question is opened by these experiments, viz. what is the character and the value of the fibrous solid matter remaining behind after filtering out the clear pea-soup? Has the alkali acted in an opposite manner to the acid in the ripening pear? Is it merely a fibrous refuse only fit for pig-food, or is it deserving of further attention in the kitchen? Should it be treated with dilute acid—say a little vinegar—to break up the fibre, and thereby be made into good porridge? Other questions crop up here as they have been cropping continually since I committed myself to the writing of these papers, and so abundantly that if I could afford to set up a special laboratory, and endow it with a staff of assistants, there would be some years’ work for myself and staff before I could answer them exhaustively, and, doubtless, the answers would suggest new questions, and so on ad infinitum. I state this in apology for the merely suggestive crudity of many of the ideas that I have thrown out.

Before leaving the subject of peas, I must here repeat a practical suggestion that I published in the ‘Birmingham Journal,’ about twenty years ago, viz. that the water in which green peas are boiled should not be thrown away. It contains much of the saline constituents of the peas, some soluble casein, and has a fine flavour, the very essence of the peas. If to this, as it comes from the saucepan, be added a little stock, or some Liebig’s ‘Extract,’ a delicious soup is at once produced, requiring nothing more than ordinary seasoning. With care, it may form a clear soup such as just now is in fashion among the fastidious, but prepared however roughly, it is a very economical, wholesome, and appetising soup, and costs a minimum of trouble.

I must here add a few words in advocacy of the further adoption in this country of the French practice of using as potage the water in which vegetables generally (excepting potatoes) have been boiled. When we boil cabbages, turnips, carrots, &c., we dissolve out of them a very large proportion of their saline constituents; salts which are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of health; salts without which we become victims of gout, rheumatism, lumbago, neuralgia, gravel, and all the ills that human flesh with a lithic acid diathesis is heir to; i.e. about the most painful series of all its inheritances. The potash of these salts existing therein in combination with organic acids is separated from these acids by organic combustion, and is then and there presented to the baneful lithic acid of the blood and tissues, the stony torture-particles of which it converts into soluble lithate of potash, and thus enables them to be carried out of the system.

I know not which of the Fathers of the Church invented fast-day and soupe maigre, but could almost suppose that he was a scientific monk, a profound alchemist, like Basil Valentine, who, in his seekings for the aurum potabile, the elixir of life, had learned the beneficent action of organic potash salts on the blood, and therefore used the authority of the Church to enforce their frequent use among the faithful.

The above remarks when published in ‘Knowledge’ invoked much correspondence, including many inquiries for further information concerning the salts that should be contained in our food, and in what other form they might be obtained.

I therefore add the following, especially as I can speak from practical experience of the miseries that may be escaped by understanding and applying it. I inherit what is called a ‘lithic acid diathesis.’ My father and his brothers were martyrs to rheumatic gout, and died early in consequence. I had a premonitory attack of gout at the age of twenty-five, and other warning symptoms at other times, but have kept the enemy at bay during forty years by simply understanding that this lithic acid (stony acid) combines with potash, forming thus a soluble salt, which is safely excreted. Otherwise it is deposited here or there, producing gout, rheumatism, stone, gravel, and other dreadfully painful diseases, which are practically incurable when the deposit is fairly established. By effecting the above-named combination in the blood the deposition is prevented.

The potash required for the purpose exists in several conditions. First, in its uncombined state as caustic potash. This is poison, for the simple reason that it combines so vigorously with organic matter that it would decompose the digestive organs themselves if presented to them. The lower carbonate is less caustic, the bicarbonate nearly, but not quite, neutral. Even this, however, should not be taken as food, because it is capable of combining with the acid constituents of the gastric juice.

The proper compounds to be used are those which correspond to the salts existing in the juices of vegetables and flesh, viz. compounds of potash with organic acids, such as tartaric acid, which forms the potash salt of the grape; such as citric acid, with which potash is combined in lemons and oranges; malic acid, with which it is combined in apples and many other fruits; the natural acids of vegetables generally; lactic acid in milk, &c.

All these acids, and many others of similar origin, are composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, held together with such feeble affinity that they are easily dissociated or decomposed by heat. This may be shown by heating some cream of tartar or tartaric acid on a strip of metal or glass. It will become carbonised to a cinder, like other organic matter. If the heat is raised sufficiently this cinder will all burn away to carbonic acid and water in the case of the pure acid, or will leave carbonate of potash if cream of tartar or other potash salt is thus burned.

Unless I am mistaken, this represents violently what occurs gradually and mildly in the human body, which is in a continuous state of slow combustion so long as it is alive. The organic acids of the potash salts suffer slow combustion, give off their excess of carbonic acid and water to be breathed out, evaporated, and ejected, leaving behind their potash, which combines with the otherwise stony lithic acid just when and where it comes into separate existence by the organic actions which effect the above-described slow combustion.