3. Cooking gives foods greater variety. The same food may be cooked by various methods and be given very different tastes and appearances; on the other hand, it may be combined with a large number of other foods, so as to increase the variety of the dishes in which it is used. The large number of recipes found in cook books show the attempts that have been made to obtain variety in cooked dishes by the combining of different foods.
4. Cooking sterilizes foods either partly or completely. Many foods need partial or complete sterilization for safety. They must be completely sterlized if the germs that produce fermentation or putrefaction and thereby spoil food would be destroyed. This is done when fruits and vegetables are canned for keeping. Foods that are exposed to dust, flies, and improper handling should be thoroughly cooked in order to destroy any pathogenic germs that might be present. By such germs are meant disease-bearing germs. They differ from germs that produce fermentation and putrefaction, or spoiling, and that must in general be considered as a help, for these play an important part in the raising of bread and the preparation of various foods, as is pointed out later.
5. Cooking develops flavor in many foods. In the case of some vegetables, the flavoring substance is given off in the air by certain methods of cooking and a better flavor is thereby developed.
METHODS OF COOKING
COOKING PROCESSES
26. Food is cooked by the application of heat, which may be either moist or dry. While it is true that the art of cooking includes the preparation of material that is served or eaten raw, cooking itself is impossible without heat; indeed, the part of cooking that requires the most skill and experience is that in which heat is involved. Explicit directions for carrying on the various cooking processes depend on the kind of stove, the cooking utensils, and even the atmospheric conditions. In truth, the results of some processes depend so much on the state of the atmosphere that they are not successful on a day on which it is damp and heavy; also, as is well known, the stove acts perfectly on some days, whereas on other days it seems to have a stubborn will of its own. Besides the difficulties mentioned, the heat itself sometimes presents obstacles in the cooking of foods, to regulate it in such a way as to keep it uniform being often a hard matter. Thus, a dish may be spoiled by subjecting it to heat that is too intense, by cooking it too long, or by not cooking it rapidly enough. All these points must be learned, and the best way to master them is to put into constant practice the principles that are involved in cookery.
27. Without doubt, the first step in gaining a mastery of cookery is to become familiar with the different methods and processes, the ways in which they are applied, and the reasons for applying them. There are numerous ways of cooking food, but the principal processes are boiling, stewing, steaming, dry steaming, braizing, fricasseeing, roasting, baking, broiling, pan broiling, frying, and sautéing. Which one of these to use will depend on the food that is to be cooked and the result desired. If the wrong method is employed, there will be a waste of food material or the food will be rendered less desirable in flavor or tenderness. For example, it would be both wasteful and undesirable to roast a tough old fowl or to boil a tender young broiler.
The various methods of cookery just mentioned naturally divide themselves into three groups; namely, those involving dry heat, those requiring moist heat, and those in which hot fat is the cooking medium.