We could hardly eat the different kinds of grains and meals and flours in proper amounts at all, unless they were cooked; indeed they require much longer and more thorough baking, or boiling, than meats. The amount of cooking required should always be borne in mind when counting the cost of a diet, as the fuel, time, and labor consumed in cooking vegetable articles of diet often bring up their expense much more nearly to that of meats than the cost of the raw material in the shops would lead us to expect.
Cooking Sterilizes Food. A third, and probably on the whole, the most valuable and important service rendered by cooking is, that it sterilizes our food and kills any germs, or animal parasites, which may have been in the body of the animal, or in the leaves of the plant, from which it came; or, as is far the commoner and greater danger, may have got on it from dirty or careless handling, or exposure to dust. While it was undoubtedly the great improvement that cooking makes in the taste of food that first led our ancestors—and probably chiefly induces us—to use the process, it is hardly probable that they would have continued to bear the expense, trouble, and numerous discomforts of cooking, had they not noticed this significant fact: that those families and tribes that had the habit of thoroughly cooking their food, suffered least from diseases of the stomach and intestines, and hence lived longer and survived in greater numbers than the "raw fooders." We are perfectly right in spending a good deal of time, care, and thought on cooking, preparing, and serving our food, for we thus lengthen our lives and diminish our sicknesses. Civilized man is far healthier than any known "noble savage," in spite of what poets and story-tellers say to the contrary.
The Three Methods of Cooking. The three[11] chief methods of cooking—baking, or roasting; boiling, or stewing; and frying—have each their advantages as well as disadvantages. No one of them would be suitable for all kinds of food; and no one of them is to be condemned as unwholesome in itself, if intelligently done; although all of them, if carelessly, or stupidly, carried out, will waste food, and render it less digestible instead of more so. In the main, the methods that are in common use for each particular kind of food, or under each special condition, are reasonable and sensible—the result of hundreds of years of experimenting. The only exceptions are that, on account of its ease and quickness, frying is resorted to rather more frequently than is best; while boiling is more popular than it should be, on account of the small amount of thought and care involved in the process.
Roasting, or Baking. Roasting, or baking, is probably the highest form of the art of cooking, developing the finest flavors, causing less waste of food value, and requiring the greatest skill and care. On general principles, we may say that almost anything which can be roasted or baked, should be roasted or baked.
On the other hand, roasting or baking has the disadvantage of taking a great deal of fuel and of time, and of being exceedingly fatiguing and annoying for the cook, making the labor cost high; and it cannot be used where a meal is needed in a hurry. If the process is carelessly done and carried too far, it may also waste a great deal of the food material, either by burning or scorching, or by the commoner and almost equally wasteful process of turning the whole outside of the roast—particularly in the case of meat—into a hard, tough, leathery substance, which it is almost impossible either to chew or to digest.
Boiling. The advantages of boiling are that it is the easiest of all forms of cookery, and within the grasp of the lowest intelligence; that, on account of keeping the food continually surrounded by water, it leads to less waste and is far less likely than either baking or frying to result in destroying part of the food if not carefully watched; and that it can be used in cooking many cheap, coarse foods, such as the mushes, graham meal, corn meal, hominy, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, etc., which furnish the bulk of our food.
On the other hand, from the point of view of fuel used, it is the most expensive of all forms of cooking; and unless a fire is being kept up for other purposes, which allows boiling or stewing to go on on the back of the stove as an "extra," without additional expense, careful experiments have shown that the prolonged boiling needed by many of these cheaper and coarser foods, especially such as are recommended by most diet reformers, brings their total cost up to that of bread, milk, eggs, sugar, and the cheaper cuts of meat,—all of which are more wholesome and more appetizing foods.
A KNOWLEDGE OF COOKING IS A VALUABLE PART OF A GOOD EDUCATION
The supposed saving in boiling meat, that you get two courses, soup and meat, out of one joint, is imaginary; for, as we have seen, the soup or water in which meat has been boiled contains little, or nothing, of the fuel value, or nourishing part of the meat; and all the flavor that is saved in this is lost by the boiled meat, rendering it not only much less appetizing, but also less digestible. You cannot have the flavor of your food in two places at once. If you save it in the soup, you lose it from the meat.