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Culinary Chemistry,
EXHIBITING
THE
SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES
OF
COOKERY,
WITH CONCISE INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING GOOD AND WHOLESOME
PICKLES, VINEGAR, CONSERVES, FRUIT JELLIES,
MARMALADES,
AND VARIOUS OTHER ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES EMPLOYED
IN
Domestic Economy,
WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND NUTRITIVE
QUALITIES OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD.

WITH COPPER PLATES.

By FREDRICK ACCUM,

Operative Chemist, Lecturer on Practical Chemistry, on Mineralogy, and on Chemistry applied to the Arts and Manufactures; Member of the Royal Irish Academy; Fellow of the Linnæan Society; Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and of the Royal Society of Arts Berlin, &c. &c.

London:
Published by R. ACKERMANN, 101, Strand;
1821.

INTRODUCTION.

The publications which I have presented to the world, having been almost exclusively confined to subjects connected with the Fine Arts, I feel it in some measure incumbent on me to explain the cause of my having undertaken to be the publisher of this volume. It has arisen from a distressing event, in which its very ingenious, useful, and elaborate Author, happened to be involved. The work was in some degree of advancement, when the sudden and most unexpected misfortune to which I have alluded, threw him at once into a state of discouragement, that gave a check to all his exertions. I, who had known him long, and had every reason, from a most intimate acquaintance, to think well of him, both in his private as well as professional character, co-operated with many of his friends, some of whom are in the superior ranks of life, to encourage him in the renewal of his former energy—but I could succeed no further than in prevailing upon him to complete this little work on Culinary Philosophy, which promised to be highly useful in some of the leading objects of Domestic Economy. When it was ready for publication, the prejudice which had been excited against him, rendered his former publishers averse from presenting it to the public. I therefore felt myself under a kind of indispensable engagement—nor am I ashamed of it, as the work was brought to a state of publication by my interference, though out of my usual line of business, to become its publisher. I accordingly, under these circumstances, made it my own by purchasing the copy-right. Nor, from its scientific novelty, and promised utility, have I the least hesitation in presenting Mr. Accum’s Work to the Public.

R. ACKERMANN.

PREFACE.

LONDON,
COMPTON STREET, SOHO.

The following pages are intended to exhibit a popular view of the philosophy of cookery, to enable the reader to understand the chemical principles, by means of which alimentary substances are rendered palatable and nutritious. The subject may appear frivolous; but let it be remembered that it is by the application of the principles of philosophy to the ordinary affairs of life, that science diffuses her benefits, and perfects her claim to the gratitude of mankind.

The art of preparing good and wholesome food is, undoubtedly, a branch of chemistry; the kitchen is a chemical laboratory; all the processes employed for rendering alimentary substances fit for human sustenance, are chemical processes; and much waste of the materials, as well as labour to the parties, might often be spared, were those who practise this art, made acquainted with some simple chemical truths which invariably would lead to certain results.

I have, in the first place, premised, as introductory to what follows, some general observations on the various kinds of alimentary substances commonly used for food; in which I have noticed their chemical constitution, and comparative nutritive qualities.

After these preliminary statements, I have proceeded to explain the summary processes of the culinary art, as practised in the English kitchen, to render obvious the chemical effects produced by the operations of roasting, boiling, stewing, broiling, frying, and other means employed for dressing food.

I have given concise, but accurate directions for preparing good and wholesome pickles, and other condiments employed in domestic economy.

I have pointed out the rules to be attended to in the art of conserving recent fruits, and other vegetable substances, in the state of what are called preserves, marmalades, fruit jams, and jellies, to enable the reader to prepare those kinds of comfitures with economy and success.

I have given concise directions for preserving butcher’s meat, fish, and fowl, after being cooked, to render them fit for sea store, or domestic use, at a future time.

I have stated the most approved processes for curing bacon, hams, smoked beef, and salted fish; to which I have added instructions for the choice of butcher’s meat, and the best methods of constructing pantries, larders, and meat safes.

I have pointed out the loss of weight which different kinds of meat suffers in the usual operations of cooking.

I have described the most approved methods for preserving recently gathered fruits in their natural state, as nearly as possible, with directions for constructing fruit rooms, and the circumstances to be attended to in storing esculent roots and other vegetables.

I have animadverted on certain material errors, sometimes committed through ignorance or negligence, in the preparation of food, and various delicacies of the table; and I have also given hints that will be found useful, with regard to the practice of making tea and coffee. And lastly, I have made some remarks on the construction of kitchen fire-places, to which I have added designs, exhibiting the most approved cooking apparatus, calculated for the use of private families or public establishments.

In resuming the whole, I have endeavoured (and I hope with some degree of success,) to communicate to those to whom the superintendance of a family is entrusted, such useful culinary information as may lead to beneficial consequences.

FREDRICK ACCUM.

1821.

CONTENTS.

Cookery.

COOKERY IS A BRANCH OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE.

Cookery, or the art of preparing good and wholesome food, and of preserving all sorts of alimentary substances in a state fit for human sustenance, of rendering that agreeable to the taste which is essential to the support of life, and of pleasing the palate without injury to the system, is, strictly speaking, a branch of chemistry; but, important as it is both to our enjoyments and our health, it is also one of the least cultivated branches of that science. The culinary processes of roasting, boiling, baking, stewing, frying, broiling, the art of preserving meats, bacon, and hams; the preparations of sauces, pickles, and other condiments; the conserving of fruits; the care and keeping of vegetables; the making of jellies, jams, and marmalades, are all founded upon the principles of this science, and much waste of the material, as well as labour to the parties might often be spared, were those to whom the performance of such tasks is committed, made acquainted with simple chemical truths which would invariably lead to certain results. And, besides, the same knowledge would enable them to attain a much greater degree of perfection in curing and preserving all kinds of animal and vegetable aliments, and in combining the three grand requisites of taste, nutriment, and salubrity, in whatever manner they may be prepared. And, though this art is at present in rude hands, as all branches of chemistry were originally, there is no reason that it should remain so. A kitchen is, in fact, a chemical laboratory; the boilers, stew-pans, and cradle spit of the cook, correspond to the digestors, the evaporating basins, and the crucibles of the chemist. And numerous as the receipts of cookery are, the general operations (like the general process of chemistry) are but few. In some the object aimed at is, to extract the constituent parts of the food, so as to exhibit them in a separate state, or to combine them with other substances, to produce new compounds which differ widely from those from which they originated. In others, the qualities of the substances are simply altered by the action of fire, to render them more palatable and nutritious.

From the multiplicity of circumstances to be attended to in this art, the whole of which is founded upon the principles of chemistry, we may easily see that it must be a very precarious one; and, there is reason to believe, that among the variety of circumstances which produce diseases, the improper modes of cooking food, are often the primary cause. Will it be believed, that in the cookery books which form the prevailing oracles of the kitchens in this part of the island, there are express injunctions to “boil greens with halfpence, or verdigrise, in order to improve their colour!”[1] That our puddings are frequently seasoned with laurel leaves, and our sweatmeats almost uniformly prepared in copper vessels?[2] Why are we thus compelled to swallow a supererogatory quantity of poison which may so easily be avoided? And why are we constantly made to run the risk of our lives by participating in custards, trifles, and blancmanges, seasoned by a most deadly poison extracted from the prunus lourocerasus?[3] Verily, where such detestable systems of cookery are practised, we may exclaim with the sacred historian, that there is “Death in the Pot.”

[1] The Ladies Library, vol. ii. p. 203; and also Modern Cookery, 2nd Edition, p. 94.

[2] Literary Chronicle, No. xxii. p. 348, 1819.

[3] Philosophical Magazine, No. cclviii. vol. 54, p. 317.

Food badly cooked is wasted to no purpose. It seems to have been a complaint familiar in the mouth of our ancestors, and which we have too often seen reason to re-echo in the present day—“That God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOOD OF MAN.

No animal eats such variety of food as man; he claims, more justly than any other creature, the title of omnivorous! for since he is distinguished beyond all animals, but the capability of living in the most distant parts of the globe, under every variety of climate which the earth affords, his food could not be confined exclusively to either the vegetable or animal kingdom, because he inhabits regions that afford aliments widely different from each other. Cattle content themselves with green vegetables; rapacious animals live on the flesh of other creatures.

Those of the Linnæan order, glires,[4] live on grain and fruits; each order of birds, keeps, in the same manner, to one sort of food, animal or vegetable. Fishes, reptiles, and insects, also have each their peculiar and exclusive bill of fare, beyond which even hunger will scarcely force them to wander. But however various each class, and order, and species of animated nature may be in the choice of food, man—all-devouring man, will embrace the whole range of the creation, “scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.”

[4] The hare, rabbit, guinea-pig, &c.

With the lion and the wolf he will eat of fresh slain animals; with the dogs and the vulture he will feed on putrid flesh;[5] with the ox and the guinea-pig he will devour raw vegetables, under the name of salads; with the squirrel and the mouse he will feast on nuts and grain; with birds of prey he feeds on fowl of almost every species; with fishes he feeds on fish; and with insects and reptiles he sometimes lives on insects and reptiles. Nor is he satisfied even with this abundant variety, but must go to the mineral kingdom for salt, as a condiment before he can furnish out his meal.

[5] Every person knows in what a putrid state game is often eaten.

NATIONS LIVING WHOLLY UPON VEGETABLE FOOD.

The variety of alimentary substances used not only by individuals, but among whole nations, are prodigiously diversified, and climate seems to have some effect in producing the diversity of taste, though it must in a great measure depend upon the natural productions of particular countries, their religion, and their commercial intercourse.

A vegetable diet seems suitable to the hot countries under the Equator, and we accordingly find nations there, who have completely adopted it, and who abstain so much the more from all animal food, in as much as it is an article of their religious faith.

Potatoes, chesnuts, and the leguminous and cereal seeds, satisfy the want of the Alpine peasant, and numerous tribes solely feed on vegetables and water. In the most remote antiquity, we read of whole nations in Africa, and of the Indian priests, who lived entirely on vegetable substances. Some wandering Moors subsist almost entirely on gum senegal.

NATIONS LIVING WHOLLY ON ANIMAL FOOD.

The nations which live on animal food are very numerous.

The Ethiopeans, Scythians, and Arabians, ate nothing but flesh.

The miserable inhabitants of New Holland lived wholly on fish when that country was first discovered, and other tribes on the Arabian and Persian gulph.

In the Faro islands, in Iceland and Greenland, the food arises from the same source.

The shepherds in the province of Caracas, on the Oronoko, live wholly on flesh. The Tartars in Asia, and some savage nations in North America, live on raw and half putrid flesh, and some barbarous tribes eat their meat raw.

It appears to be the effect of climate and religion that makes the Hindoo adopt vegetable rather than animal food; it is the effect of natural production that makes the Greenlander relish whale-blubber and train-oil. It is to one or other of these causes that we must refer all such diversity of national tastes, though it would be difficult in many cases to separate the influence of each. We see the Englishman enjoying his under-done roast beef and his plum-pudding; the Scotsman his hodge-podge and his haggis; the Frenchman his ragouts, omlets, and fricandeaus; the German his sour-crout, sausages, and smoaked hams, the Italian his maccaroni; and the Tartar his horse-flesh.[6] “De gustibus non est disputandum.”—There is no disputing about tastes. They are too many, and too various, to be objects of rational discussion.

[6] An article of food which has lately been seriously recommended by Mr. Grey to Europeans as a most advantageous measure of political economy.

SINGULAR KIND OF ALIMENTS OF VARIOUS NATIONS.

Besides the before-mentioned diversities of national and individual taste for different kinds of substances, used as aliments, there are other kinds of food which we at least think more singular. Some of the tribes of Arabs, Moors, the Californians, and Ethiopians, eat tad-poles, locusts, and spiders.

In some places the flesh of serpents, that of the coluber natrix for example, is eaten; and the viper is made into broth. Several other reptiles are used as food by the European settlers in America, such as the rana bombina and rana taurina, two species of toads.

In the East, the lacerta scincus is considered a great luxury, and also an approdisiac. Even the rattle snake has been eaten, and the head boiled along with the rest of the body of the animal.

The horse, ass, and camel, are eaten in several regions of the earth, and the seal, walruss, and Arctic bear, have often yielded a supply to sailors.

On the singular taste of epicures it is not necessary to speak. Mæcenas, the prime minister of Augustus, and refined patron of Horace, had young asses served upon his table when he treated his friends; and, according to Pliny,[7] the Romans delighted in the flavour of young and well fattened puppies. This strange practice subsists still in China, and among the Esquimaux. Plump, and well roasted bats, laid upon a bed of olives, are eaten in the Levant as a dainty.

[7] 2 Book 29, c. 4.

The Roman luxury, garum, which bore so high a price, consisted of the putrid entrails of fishes, (first of the garum,) stewed in wine, and a similar dish is still considered as a great luxury, in some parts of the East. Some modern epicures delight in the trail of the woodcock, and even collect with care the contents of the intestines which distill from it in the process of roasting.

“The Irishman loves usquebah,
The Scot loves ale called blue cap,
The Welshman, he loves toasted cheese,
And makes his mouth like a mouse trap.”

Apicius,[8] among other whimsical personages of ancient Rome, presented to his guests ragouts, exclusively composed of tongues of peacocks and nightingales. This celebrated epicure, who instituted a gormandizing academy at Rome, having heard that shrimps and prawns of a superior flavour were to be met with on the coasts of Africa than on the Italian shore, freighted a ship, and sailed in search of these far famed marine insects. This person spent more than £.60,000 merely to vary the taste of culinary sauces.

[8] Three brothers of that name were celebrated at Rome, on account of their unparallelled love of good eating.

Vitellus was treated by his brother with a dinner, consisting of 2,000 dishes of fish, and 7,000 of poultry—surely this is not doing things by halves.

A Mr. Verditch de Bourbonne[9] is said to have bought 3,000 carps for the mere sake of their tongues, which were brought, well seasoned and learnedly dressed, to his table, in one dish.

[9] Cours Gastronomique.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN EPICURE AND A GLUTTON.

However extravagant and whimsical the rational pleasures of the table may appear to a sober and sensible mind, we must, in justice to epicures, cursorily observe, that there exists a material difference between a gormand or epicure, and a glutton.[10] The first seeks for peculiar delicacy and distinct flavour in the various dishes presented to the judgment and enjoyment of his discerning palate; while the other lays aside nearly all that relates to the rational pleasures of creating or stimulating an appetite of the cates, and looks merely to quantity; this, has his stomach in view, and tries how heavy it may be laden, without endangering his health.

[10] Tabella Cibaria, a latin poem, relating to the pleasures of Gastronomy, and the mysterious art of Cooking, page 15.

“The gormand never loses sight of the exquisite organs of taste, so admirably disposed by Providence in the crimson chamber, where sits the discriminating judge, the human tongue.

“The glutton is anathematised in the Scripture with those brutes quorum deus venter est. The other appears guilty of no other sin than of too great, and too minute, an attention to refinement in commercial sensuality.”

Our neighbours on the other side of the channel, so famous for indulging in the worship of Comus, consider the epicure again under two distinct views, namely: as a gormand, or a gourmet. The epicure or gormand is defined—a man having accidentally been able to study the different tastes of eatables, does accordingly select the best food and the most pleasing to his palate. His character is that of a practioner. The gourmet speculates more than he practises, and eminently prides himself in discerning the nicest degrees, and most evanescent shades of goodness and perfection in the different subjects proposed to him. He may be designated a man, who, by sipping a few drops out of the silver cup of the vintner, can instantly tell from what country the wine comes, and its age.

The glutton practices without any regard to theory.

The gormand, or epicure, unites theory with practice.

The gourmet is merely theoretical.

IMPORTANCE OF THE ART OF COOKERY.

As man differs from the inferior animals in the variety of articles he feeds upon, so he differs from them no less in the preparation of these substances. Some animals, besides man, prepare their food in a particular manner. The racoon (ursus lutor) is said to wash his roots before he eats them; and the beaver stores his green boughs under water that their bark and young twigs may remain juicy and palatable.

The action of fire, however, has never been applied to use by any animal except man; not even monkies, with all their knacks of imitation, and all their fondness for the comforts of a fire, have ever been observed to put on a single billet of wood to keep up the fuel.

Domesticated animals, indeed, are brought to eat, and even to relish, food which has been cooked by the action of heat.

The variety of productions introduced by our different modes of preparing and preserving food is almost endless; and it appears particularly so when we compare the usages, in this respect, of various countries.

The savage of New South Wales is scarcely more knowing in the preparation of food, by means of fire, than his neighbour, the kangaroo, if the anecdote told by Turnbull be true, that one of these savages plunged his hand into boiling water to take out a fish.

Some writers have humorously designated man to be “a cooking animal,” and he really is so. It is one of the leading distinctions which Providence has seen meet for wise purposes to establish, when it was said that he might eat of the fruit of every tree, and the flesh of every clean beast.

When we contemplate the aliments used by men in a civilized state of existence, we soon become convinced that only a small part of our daily food can be eaten in its natural state. Many of the substances used as aliments, are disagreeable, and some even poisonous until they have been cooked. Few of them are to be had at all seasons, although produced at others in greater abundance than can be consumed.

The importance of a proper and competent knowledge of the true and rational principles of cookery, must be obvious, when it is considered that there is scarcely an individual, young or old, in any civilized country, who has not some time or other suffered severely from errors committed in the practice of this art.

“A skilful and well directed cookery abounds in chemical preparations highly salutary. There exists a salubrity of aliments suited to every age. Infancy, youth, maturity, and old age, each has its peculiar adapted food, and that not merely applicable to the powers in full vigour, but to stomachs feeble by nature, and to those debilitated by excess.”[11]

[11] Ude’s Cookery, p. 25.—Ibid, 23.

Without abetting the unnatural and injurious appetites of the epicure, or the blameable indulgences of the glutton, we shall not perhaps be far out in our reckoning, if we assert, that almost every person is an epicure in his own way.

There are amateurs in boiling potatoes, as particular in the details, as others in dressing beaf-stakes to the utmost nicety of a single turn. Lord Blainey, still more nice, informs us, that hams are not fit to be eaten unless boiled in Champaign. Helluos are not confined to salmon’s bellies, but are to be found among the rudest peasants who love porridge or frumenty—

A salmon’s belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call’d, declares all help too late;
“Mercy!” cries Helluo, “mercy, on my soul!
Is there no hope?—Alas! then bring the jowl.”

Pope’s Moral Essays.

Precision in mixing ingredients is as often and as closely laid down for the coarsest dish of the peasant as for the most guarded receipe of the Lady Bountiful of the village. The pleasures of the table have always been highly appreciated and sedulously cultivated among civilized people of every age and nation; and, in spite of the Stoic, it must be admitted, that they are the first which we enjoy, the last we abandon, and those of which we most frequently partake.

“Cookery is the soul of every pleasure, at all times and to all ages. How many marriages have been the consequence of a meeting at dinner; how much good fortune has been the result of a good supper, at what moment of our existence are we happier than at table? there hatred and animosity are lulled to sleep, and pleasure alone reigns.”

Pythagoras, in his golden verses, gives complete proof, that he was particularly nice in the choice of food, and carefully points out what will occasion indigestion and flatulency. He is precise in commanding his disciples to “abstain from beans.” Apicius, declares that he never knew a philosopher who refused to partake of a feast.

In later times, Dr. Johnson is well known to have been exceedingly fond of good dinners, considering them as the highest enjoyment of human life. The sentiments of our great moralist are a good answer to those who think the pleasures of the table incompatible with intellectual pursuits or mental superiority. “Some people,” says the Doctor, “have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat; for my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully, and I look upon it that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind any thing else.” Boswell, his biographer, says of him, “I never knew a man who relished good eating more than he did: and when at table, he was wholly absorbed in the business of the moment.” It was one of the objects which displeased him so much in his Northern tour, that the Scots were rather ignorant of the more refined arts of cookery. A lady in the Isle of Mull, anxious to gratify him for once in a dinner, had an excellent plum-pudding prepared, at some expense, and with the utmost care; but, to her great mortification, the doctor would not taste it, because, he said, “it is totally impossible to make a plum-pudding at all fit to eat in the Isle of Mull.”

Another instance of this philosopher’s illiberal prejudice against Scotch cookery, may also be mentioned. A lady, at whose table the Doctor was dining, enquired how he liked their national dish, the hotch potch, of which he was then partaking. “Good enough for hogs,” said the surly philosopher. “Shall I help you to a little more of it?” retorted the lady. To Dr. Johnson we can add the names of two distinguished physicians, Darwin, and Beddoes, both of whom were most outrageous in their published works against the pleasures of good living; they followed however a very different practice, from what they prescribed to others, as none were more fond of good dinners than these guardians of health.

Cardinal Wolsey, we should have thought, would have had something else to mind than cooking and good eating. But no person was more anxious than he, even in the whirl of the immense public business which he had to transact, to have the most skilful cooks; for all Europe was ransacked, and no expense spared, to procure culinary operators, thoroughly acquainted with the multifarious operations of the spit, the stew-pan, and the rolling-pin.

Sir Walter Scott, has been most happy in the illustration of our ancient manners with respect to good eating, in the character of Athelstan, in the Romance of Ivanhoe.

Count Rumford has not considered the pleasure of eating, and the means that may be employed for increasing it, as unworthy the attention of a philosopher, for he says, “the enjoyments which fall to the bulk of mankind, are not so numerous as to render an attempt to increase them superfluous. And even in regard to those who have it in their power to gratify their appetites to the utmost extent of their wishes, it is surely rendering them a very important service to shew them how they may increase their pleasures without destroying their health.”

In the olden time, every man of consequence had his magister coquorum, or master cook, without whom he would not think of making a day’s journey; and it was often no easy matter to procure master cooks of talent.

By a passage of Cicero[12] we are led to understand, that among other miseries of life, which constantly attended this consular personage and eloquent orator, he laboured under the disappointment of not having an excellent cook of his own; for, he says, “coquus meus, præter jus fervens, nihil potest imitari.” Except hot broth, my cook can do nothing cleverly.

[12] Fam. ix. 20.

The salary of the Roman cooks was nearly £1000.[13] Mark Antony, hearing Cleopatra, whom he had invited to a splendid supper, (and who was as great a gormand as she was handsome,) loudly praise the elegance and delicacy of the dishes, sent for the cook, and presented him with the unexpected gift of a corporate town.—Municipium.

[13] Tabella Cibaria, ps. 19 and 20.

Even in our own times great skill in cookery is so highly praised by many, that a very skilful cook can often command, in this metropolis, a higher salary than a learned and pious curate.

His Majesty’s first and second cooks are esquires, by their office, from a period to which, in the lawyer’s phrase, the memory of man is not to the contrary. We are told by Dr. Pegge, that when Cardinal Otto, the Pope’s Legate, was at Oxford, in the year 1248, his brother officiated as magister coquinæ, an office which has always been held as a situation of high trust and confidence.

We might defend the art of cookery on another principle, namely—on the axiom recognized in the Malthusian Political Economy, that he who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor to his country and to human nature. Whether or not Malthus is quite right in this, we are not competent to decide; we leave that to Say, Godwin, Ricardo, and[14] Drummond. But certainly it must in many cases be of the utmost consequence, for families in particular, when embarrassed in circumstances, to make food go twice as far as without the art and aid of rational cookery it could do. We would particularly press this remark, as it is founded on numerous facts, and places the art of cookery in a more interesting point of view than any of the other circumstances which we have been considering.

[14] Principles of Currency, and Elements of Political Economy—1820.

Cookery has often drawn down on itself the animadversions of both moralists, physicians, and wits, who have made it a subject for their vituperations and their ridicule.

So early as the time of the patriarch Isaac, the sacred historian casts blame upon Esau for being epicurean enough to transfer his birth-right for a mess of pottage.

Jacob is blamed for making savoury meat with a kid for his father, with a view to rob Esau of the paternal blessing.

Diogenes, the Cynic, meeting a young man who was going to a feast, took him up in the street and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into evident danger had he not prevented him. The whole tribe, indeed, of the Stoics and Cynics, laughed at cookery, pretending, in their vanity and pride, to be above the desire of eating niceties. Lucian, with his inexhaustible satire, most effectually and humourously exposed these their pretences.

In our own times, we have had writers of eminence who have attacked the use of a variety of food as a dreadful evil. “Should we not think a man mad,” says Addison, “who at one meal will devour fowl, flesh, and fish; swallow oil, and vinegar, salt, wines, and spices; throw down sallads of twenty different herbs, sauces of an hundred ingredients, confections, and fruits of numberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural effects must such a medley produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy, that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, and other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes.”

All this, and the like is, no doubt, very plausible, and very fine, and, like many other fine speeches of modern reformers, it is more fine than just. It is indeed as good a theory as may be, that cookery is the source of most, or all, of our distempers; but withal it is a mere theory, and only true in a very limited degree. The truth is, that it is not cookery which is to blame, if we surfeit ourselves with its good dishes; but our own sensual and insatiable appetite, and gluttony, which prompt us to seek their gratification at the expense even of our health.

Savages, whose cookery is in the rudest state, are more apt to over-eat themselves than the veriest glutton of a luxurious and refined people; a fact, which of itself, is sufficient to prove, that it is not cookery which is the cause of gluttony and surfeiting. The savage, indeed, suffers less from his gluttony than the sedentary and refined gormand; for, after sleeping, sometimes for a whole day, after gorging himself with food, hunger again drives him forth to the chace, in which he soon gets rid of the ill-effects of his overloaded stomach. Surely cookery is not to blame for the effects of gluttony, indolence, and sedentary occupations; yet it does appear, that all its ill effects are erroneously charged to the account of the refined art of cooking.

The defence of cookery, however, which we thus bring forward to repel misrepresentation, applies only to the art of preparing good, nutritious, and wholesome food.

We cannot say one word in defence of the wretched and injurious methods but too often practised, under the name of cookery, and the highly criminal practices of adulterating food with substances deleterious to health. On this subject we have spoken elsewhere.[15]

[15] A treatise on adulterations of food, and culinary poisons, exhibiting the fraudulent sophistications of bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, tea, coffee, cream, confectionary, vinegar, mustard, pepper, cheese, olive oil, pickles, and other articles employed in domestic economy, and methods of detecting them.—Third edition, 1821.

“A good dinner[16] is one of the greatest enjoyments of human life; but the practice of cookery is attended with not only so many disgusting and disagreeable circumstances, and even dangers, that we ought to have some regard for those who encounter them for our pleasure.”

[16] The Cook’s Oracle.—Preface, p. xxxv.

DIETETICAL REMARKS ON THE CHOICE AND QUANTITY OF FOOD.

Almost every person who can afford it, eats more than is requisite for promoting the growth, and renewing the strength and waste of his body. It would be ridiculous to speak concerning the precise quantity of food necessary to support the body of different individuals. Such rules do not exist in nature. The particular state or condition of the individual, the variety of constitution, and other circumstances, must be taken into account. If, after dinner, we feel ourselves as cheerful as before, we may be assured that we have made a dietetical meal.

Much has been said of temperance. The fact is, that there is an absolute determined standard of temperance, the point of which must be fixed by every man’s natural and unprovoked appetite, while he continues in a state of health. As long as a person who pursues a right habit of life, eats and drinks no more than his stomach calls for and will bear, without occasioning uneasiness of any kind to himself, he may be said to live temperate. The stomach revolts against the reverse of it; indeed, the stomach is the grand organ of the human system, it is the conscience of the body, and like that, will become uneasy if all is not right within; it speaks pretty plainly to those who lead an intemperate life.

“We may compare,” says Doctor Kitchener, “the human frame to a watch, of which the heart is the main spring, the stomach the regulator, and what we put into it, the key, by which the machine is set a-going; according to the quantity, quality, and proper digestion of what we eat and drink will be the action of the system: and when a due proportion is preserved between the quantum of exercise and that of excitement, all goes well. If the machine be disordered, the same expedients are employed for its re-adjustment, as are used by the watch-maker; it must be carefully cleaned and then judiciously oiled. To affirm that such a thing is wholesome, or unwholesome, without considering the subject in all the circumstances to which it bears relation, and the unaccountable idiosyncrasies of particular constitutions is, with submission, talking nonsense. Every man must consult his stomach; whatever agrees with that perfectly well, is wholesome for him, whilst it continues to do so whenever natural appetite calls for food.”

Celsus spoke very right when he said that a healthy man ought not to tie himself up by strict rules, nor to abstain from any sort of food; that he ought sometimes to fast, and sometimes to feast. When applied to eating, nothing is more true than the proverb—

“Bonarum rerum consuetudo pessima est.—Syrus.

“The too constant use, even of good things, is hurtful.”

It is certainly better to restrain ourselves, so as to use, but not to abuse, our enjoyments; and to this we may add the opinion of doctor Fothergil, which the experience of every individual confirms, namely, that “the food we fancy most, sits easiest on the stomach.”

What has been so far stated on the choice and quantity of food to be taken at a time, of course, relates only to persons in a state of health; the diet of the delicate, the sickly, and the infirm, must be regulated by the physician, and even the aged require particular kinds of food.

“Experience[17] has fully convinced me, (says an eminent Physiologist), that the latter stages of human life, are often abridged by unsuitable diet.”

[17] Carlisle on the disorders of Old Age, ps. 2 and 27. This book exhibits an excellent view of the most suitable diet for aged, weak, and sickly people.

“The most numerous tribe of disorders incident to advanced life, spring from the failure or errors of the stomach, and its dependancies, and perhaps the first sources of all the infirmities of inability, may be traced to effects arising from imperfectly digested food.”

EXTRAORDINARY GREAT EATERS, AND OBSERVATIONS ON ABSTINENCE.

In some persons, an extraordinary great appetite seems to be constitutional.

Charles Domery, aged 21 years, when a prisoner of war, at Liverpool, consumed in one day

and five bottles of porter; and although allowed the daily rations of ten men, he was not satisfied.

Another extraordinary instance has been recorded by Baron Percy:—A soldier of the name of Tarare, who, at the age of 17, could devour in the course of 24 hours, a leg of beef weighing 24lbs. and thought nothing of swallowing the dinner dressed for fifteen German peasants. But those men were remarkable not only for the quantity of food they consumed, but also for its quality, giving a preference to raw meat, and even living flesh and blood.

Domery, in one year, eat 174 cats, dead and alive; and Tarare was strongly suspected of having eaten an infant.

Man can sustain the privation of food for several days, more or fewer in number, according to circumstances—the old better than the young, and the fat better than the lean. The absolute want of drink can be suffered only a short time, they have been strikingly described by Mungo Park and Ali Bey, as experienced in their own persons.

The narratives of ship-wrecked mariners also prove, with how very little food life may be supported for a considerable length of time; and the history of those impostors who pretend to live altogether without food or drink, display this adaptation of the wants of the body to its means of supply in a still more striking manner; for, even after the deception, in such cases as that of Ann Moore, is exposed, it will be found that the quantity of aliment actually taken was incredibly small.

Captain Woodard has added to his interesting narrative many instances of the power of the human body to resist the effects of severe abstinence. He himself and his five companions rowed their boat for seven days without any sustenance but a bottle of brandy, and then wandered about the shores of Celebes six more, without any other food than a little water and a few berries. Robert Scotney lived seventy-five days alone in a boat with three pounds and a half of meat, three pounds of flour, two hogsheads of water, some whale oil, and a small quantity of salt. He also used an amazing quantity of tobacco. Six soldiers deserted from St. Helena in a boat, on the 10th of June 1799, with twenty-five pounds of bread and about thirteen gallons of water. On the 18th, they reduced their allowance to one ounce of bread and two mouthfuls of water, on which they subsisted till the 26th, when their store was expended. Captain Inglefield, with eleven others, after five days of scanty diet, were obliged to restrict it to a biscuit divided into twelve morsels for breakfast, and the same for dinner, with an ounce or two of water daily. In ten days, a very stout man died, unable to swallow, and delirious. Lieutenant Bligh and his crew lived forty-two days upon five day’s provisions.

In the tenth volume of Hufland’s Journal, is related a very remarkable, and well-authenticated case of voluntary starvation. A recruit, to avoid serving, had cut off the fore-finger of his right hand. When in hospital for the cure of the wound, dreading the punishment which awaited him, he resolved to starve himself; and on the 2nd of August began obstinately to refuse all food or drink, and persisted in this resolution to the 24th of August. During these twenty-two days he had absolutely taken neither food, drink, nor medicine, and had no evacuation from his bowels. He had now become very much emaciated, his belly somewhat distended, he had a violent pain in his loins, his thirst was excessive, and his febrile heat burning. His behaviour had also become timid. Having been promised his discharge, unpunished, he was prevailed upon to take some sustenance, but could not, at first, bear even weak soup and luke-warm drinks. Under proper treatment, he continued to mend for eight days, and his strength was returning, when, on the 1st of September, he again refused food and got a wild look. He took a little barley-water every four or five days to the 8th; from that day to the 11th, he took a little biscuit with wine; but again from the 11th September to the 9th October, a period of twenty-eight days, he neither took food, drink, nor had any natural evacuation. From the 9th to the 11th he again took a little nourishment, and began to recruit; but, on the 11th, he finally renewed his resolution to starve himself, and persevered until his death, which took place on the 21st November, after a total abstinence of 42 days.

REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOM OF EATING FLESH.

We are told, that in the first ages of the world, men lived upon acorns, berries, and such fruits as the earth spontaneously produced, and that in the Shepherd state of society, milk, obtained from flocks and herds, came into use. Soon afterwards the flesh of wild animals was added to the food, and the juice of grape to the drink of the human species. Hogs were the first animals, of the domestic kind, that were eaten by men, for they held it ungrateful to eat the animals that assisted them in their labour. “We are happy to find, (says the author of an elegant poem[18]) that it was not on account of the solidity, wholesomeness, delicacy, and other excellent qualities of his flesh, that the ox was worshipped on the banks of the Nile, and in the gorgeous temples of Memphis; for, although professedly friends to gastronomy, moderated by a decided aversion to any thing like sensuality, we are of opinion that man is less fit to feed upon carnal than vegetable substance.”

[18] Tabella Cibaria, p. 33.

“The noble horse, fierce and unsubdued, was still roaming with all the roughness and intractability of original freedom, in his native groves, who already domesticated, the honest steer had willingly lent the strength of his powerful shoulders to the laborious strife of the plough. This had not only raised altars to him under the name of Apis, but even placed him among the first constellations of the Zodiac above the watchful eyes of the Chaldeans. In the reign of Erichtonius, fourth king of Athens, Diomus was offering to Jupiter the first fruits of the earth. Whilst the priests were busied apart in preparing some necessaries to the solemnity, an ox, passing by, browsed of all that had been gathered on the altar for the sacrifice. Diomus, in his disappointment and passion, slew him on the spot. The Gods, instead of countenancing his religious zeal, sent forth immediately all the horrors of a pestilence upon the Athenians, which did not cease until they had instituted a festival called “The Death of the Ox.”[19]

[19] Nonius de re Cibaria.

“Porphyrius traces the custom of eating meat to Pygmalion, king of Tyre, in Phœnicia. Although the Jews were allowed to eat the flesh of the immolated beasts, in the golden age, man had not found courage and appetite enough to eat the flesh of an innocent animal; but soon after, this cruelty extended to nearly all quadrupeds, except those who were carnivorous. Tradition states, that Prometheus was the first who killed a bullock, Ceres a pig, and Bacchus a goat, for the uses of their tables. It is obvious that pigs, by turning up the new-sown fields for the sake of the grain, and goats browzing the tender sprouts of the vine-tree, were respectively inimical to Ceres and Bacchus. As for the killing of the first bullock by Prometheus, we leave to other commentators to explain.”

COMPARATIVE ALIMENTARY EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD.

Animal food alone is ill adapted to form the whole of our aliment. The inquiries of physiologists have determined, that animal food is highly stimulant, and like all other stimulants, after the excitement has been brought to its acmé, debility must by necessity succeed. This, however, is not so much the case where fresh meat is used as when the meat is salted; but this may be, because our examples, with regard to fresh meat, are less marked than in the case of salted provision. For few instances occur in which fresh meat forms the whole food, exclusive altogether of fruits or other vegetable aliment. Salted meat often constitutes a great proportion of the food in long sea voyages, in the long dreary winters in Lapland, and amongst the inhabitants of besieged towns.

When this practice is continued for any length of time, oppression and langour begin to be felt, indigestion is brought on, and hurried breathing and a quick pulse on taking the slightest exercise, the gums become soft and spongy, the breath becomes fœtid, and the limbs swoln. Such are the dreadful effects produced by salted provisions, when a proper proportion of vegetable food is not used along with them.

The fact is, that nations, whose food is entirely vegetable, are less active and energetic than those whose diet is more nutritive. The inhabitants of Ireland, in the most humble walks of life, for example, who live almost exclusively on potatoes, are said to be more indolent and sluggish, when compared with their neighbours in England, who would think such diet to be no better than a prison allowance of bread and water.

In the East, where rice forms the great article of food with some tribes, the people are far from being robust or able to undergo much fatigue in labour or in war. The striking fact, that the English soldiers and sailors surpass all those of other nations in bravery and hardihood, is sufficient, we think, to demonstrate the effect of a considerable proportion of animal food.—For, though it be said, that a great number of our soldiers are Irishmen, yet our argument holds good, since, all these when in the army, or navy, live exactly in the same manner as the English themselves. The change of diet, indeed, is in these brave men very obvious; for the Irish and Scots soldiers are often more hardy than the English; not as it is supposed because they have been innured to greater hardships in their youth, but because their diet being more generous than it was at that period, its effects become more obvious than in those who have always had animal food.

When we examine the structure of the digestive organs of the inferior animals which live wholly on vegetable food, we find that they are very differently constituted from man, and much more so from the animals of prey. If the organs for digestion of the ruminant animals are more complicated, it should seem to follow, that vegetable aliment is more difficult to digest; otherwise, nature, who never works in vain, would not have provided for them such a series of stomachs. Hence we infer, that since man has not this apparatus peculiar to ruminant animals, it must be plain that nature did not intend him to live exclusively on vegetables. If we consider the human teeth, we shall be led to the same conclusion, for they are not either like the teeth of ruminant animals or those of beasts of prey, but intermediate between the two. We have incisor teeth like animals of the order glires: such as the hare, the rabbit, and the guinea-pig; canin teeth like those of the order feræ: such as the dog, the tiger, and the lion; and grinders, like herbivorous quadrupeds: such as the horse, the sheep, and the cow.

Food, then, composed of animal and vegetable substances, seems to be the best adapted for our organs of mastication and digestion, though it would not be easy to say precisely what proportions of these are most agreeable to the intentions of nature. We may safely conclude, however, that the vegetable food ought to exceed the animal in quantity. The direction given by Dr. Fothergill is the most judicious we have met with. “I have only” says he “one short caution to give. Those who think it necessary to pay any attention to their health at table, should take care that the quantity of bread, of meat, of pudding, and of greens, should not compose each of them a meal, as if some were only thrown in to make weight; but they should carefully observe, that the sum of all together do not exceed due bounds, or encroach upon the first feeling of satiety.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOUS KINDS OF ANIMAL SUBSTANCES COMMONLY USED FOR FOOD.

Of the different classes of animals used for food, quadrupeds compose the greatest proportion, and there is no part of their bodies which does not contain nutritive parts, and that has not been used as food in some way or other. Even bones affords an alimentary jelly fit for human food.

The largest portion of our aliment, however, is derived from the voluntary muscles of animals, or what is more strictly called, the flesh, consisting of all the red fibrous substance which covers the bones. It should seem that this is both the most nourishing and the most easily digested of animal substances. The red colour arises from the blood of minute vessels which run in every direction among the fibres; but whether this is the cause of the red muscle being more nutritious is not well ascertained. Thence the flesh of quadrupeds is more largely consumed than of any other class of animals; and, indeed, those in common use in most parts of Europe possesses all the alimentary properties in the highest perfection. All animal flesh seems more or less stimulating; and, in general, the more so the darker its colour is—but it does not absolutely follow that it is also more nutritious.

There is a considerable difference in the qualities of muscular flesh, according to the size of the animal, and also according to its activity. The small mountain sheep, for example, which has to encounter fatigue to procure its food, has flesh of a different quality and flavour from the large and lazy creature, which feeds luxuriously and fattens rapidly, in the rich pastures of the plain country. The beef of the western islands also, is more esteemed, on account of the same circumstance, than that of the fat and brawny oxen which we see in the London market. It is for this reason, we have no doubt, that the flesh of the horse, the rhinocerus, and elephant, is not used as food except in cases when other food is not to be procured. In the circumstance of activity altering the qualities of flesh, we may be allowed to instance the superiority of venison to beef, in flavour and tenderness, and easiness of digestion.

The age of animals is another circumstance which has great influence on the qualities of their flesh. The flesh of young animals is composed of less rigid fibres, and has fewer vessels which carry red blood running through it, and besides, it has less of the peculiar flavour of its particular species than the flesh of older animals. Gelatine is more abundant in the young, and fibrin in the old; hence the former is more bland and tender. Veal and lamb, for example, are more tender and gelatinous than beef or mutton; sucking pigs, chickens, and ducklings, are also much more delicate than the grown animals. The beef of an old cow, however well fed, is quite tough and unpalatable, while that of a very young heifer is much relished. Although, however, very young animals be so much more tender, yet they are insipid and flabby.

In the case of pork, age is not required, as in other sorts of butcher meat, to mellow the fibre. It is an aliment containing much nourishment; but to some palates its flavour is disagreeable, though by most people it is relished. It was much used by the ancient athletæ, as half raw beef steaks are now by our men of the fancy.

Sucking pigs are killed when three weeks old; and for pork, pigs are killed from six to twelve months old. It requires them to be older for making brawn. The flesh of young venison is not so good as when four years old or more; though that of the fawn is very tender and succulent.

But even in the fœtal state, the flesh of animals, if recently taken from a healthy mother, may be used. In the London market the fœtus of the cow is regularly sold to the pastry-cooks for the purpose of making mock turtle soup, of which it often forms the principal portion.

Veal, however, is reckoned not so good when killed before it be eight or ten weeks old. The most remarkable quality of flesh of this kind is, its almost wholly dissolving in boiling water, forming in the warm state a bland and gelatinous soup, and when cold, concreting into a tremulous transparent jelly. It is less animalized, or more properly speaking, contains less animal fibre than almost any other flesh; hence its tendency to become ascescent when made into broth and jelly, which is not the case with beef or mutton broth. The parts of older animals, which contain a larger portion of gelatine, are in this respect similar to young flesh. Cow-heel and sheep’s-head are well known instances. It may be remarked that such food is less nutritious, and unless very much boiled, is less digestible than muscular flesh; but as it is also more light and less stimulating, it is frequently given to delicate people who cannot take any thing stronger.

Tripe is intermediate between what we have just described and the muscular flesh of grown animals, insomuch as there is in the stomach of ruminant animals a considerable proportion of vessels, transmitting red blood, and of muscular fibres, and accordingly it is to be inferred that tripe is more nutritive; it is certain it is more palatable and savory.

As to other parts of animals, which are abundantly furnished with red blood, though destitute of muscle, we cannot speak so decidedly. Some of the glands are coarse and rank flavoured, from the peculiar secretions which they produce, and are only used by poor persons; others are esteemed as delicacies, and seem not to be unwholesome. As examples of the latter, we may mention sweet bread or pancreas, one of the glands belonging to the digestive organs; and the liver of some species of birds, and of young quadrupeds.

The liver of the goose reckoned a great delicacy in Sicily, and they have there a a method of enlarging this organ while the bird is alive, but it is so cruel, that Brydon, who mentions it, declines giving the particulars, lest our epicures in England should have the inhumanity to give it a trial. The spleen is an instance of the former case, being strongly ill flavoured.

Another circumstance which produces difference of quality in flesh, is the sex of the animal, the genital organs having in this respect a very remarkable influence, as appears from the effect of destroying these by castration. This renders the flesh of the male similar, and in some cases, as in mutton, superior to that of the female, which is always more tender, and of finer fibre than that of the uncastrated male. By destroying also the ovaries of the females, their flesh is rendered more delicate, though this operation is not often practised. The sow is the animal which is most usually operated upon with this view; the flesh of the uncastrated boar is very coarse and bad. Even in calves the difference is observable, and veal is greatly improved by castrating the males. The same practice greatly improves fowl, as in capons. Venison is rank, tough, lean, and ill flavoured, and not fit to be eaten when killed during the rutting season, in September and October; and salmon, when about to spawn, are also bad, and prohibited, we believe, by our laws, to be caught or sold.

The mode of feeding animals, designed for the table, has also great influence on the quality of the flesh, so much so, that nice judges can distinguish whether mutton, if from the same breed of sheep, has been fed on grass or on turnips; and can tell, still more accurately, on tasting the fat of pork, whether the pigs have been fed on sour skimmed milk, brewers grains, or pease flour. It was the practice sometime ago, but now almost laid aside, to feed calves and oxen on oil cake. This did certainly fatten them, but the fat was rather rancid in most cases, and never of good flavour. The truth seems to be, that, though generally, the lean of fat animals is the most tender and palatable, yet that this is not so much the case when the fat is rapidly produced by artificial management in the feeding.

Sheep become very rapidly fat in the first stage of the rot, in consequence, perhaps, of their desire for food being greatly increased by the disease; and, taking advantage of this, it is said that some butchers are in the practice of producing rot artificially, which is certainly very blameable. Some amateurs of mutton are fond of such as has died of a sort of colic, called in the North braxy, that produces a very peculiar flavour in the meat, which is always, however, roasted, and never stewed or boiled. Such tastes are, to say the least of them, surely unnatural.

It is, perhaps, owing to the different quality and quantity of food, as much as any thing, that the season of the year has an effect upon the flesh of animals; the heat or cold of the weather, and in some cases, the periodical return of sexual attachment, must also be taken int to be out of seasono account. In the instances of veal and lamb, the words, in season, and out of season, refer, perhaps, more to plenty and scarceness than to any quality in the meat; for as soon as any thing is so plentiful in the market as to cause a fall in the price, and bring it within reach of the poor, then the wealthy classes pronounce it to be out of season.

This is the case with some sorts of birds which migrate at certain times of the year, the woodcock for example, and are on that account to be valued when they can be procured. Such as breed here, the solan goose for example, can be procured in the young state before they take their flight to their unknown retreat.

It has been roundly asserted, that there is no bird, and no part of any birds, which may not be safely used as food. Many species, however, are very oily, tough, or bad flavoured, and it is not at least very desirable to eat any animal which feeds on prey or carrion; even though this did not, as it does, taint their flesh. The qualities of the flesh of birds differ very much, both in the several species, and in particular parts of the same bird.

The flesh of birds which live on grain, is for the most part preferred to those which feed on insects or fish.

The pheasant, the turkey, as well as partridge, and moor game, are more esteemed than goose, duck, or woodcock.

Many of the water birds, however, are preferred, though from the nature of their food, they are apt to taste strongly of fish, and to become too fat and oily: to remedy these defects, skilful cooks sometimes bury them under ground for some days, and carefully remove all the skin, and as much as possible of the fat and oil from the inside, before dressing them.

Of the several sorts of birds, those of larger size are coarser and more tough than the smaller sorts; bustards, and larks, and ortolans, for example, than swans, or turkeys, and geese. This difference is also rendered greater in proportion to their age.

With regard to the particular parts of the same birds, the flesh of the wing, and the part of the breast nearest the wing, consisting of the muscles exerted in flying, are more dry, tender, and of a whiter colour than the muscles of the leg. This, however, is not the case with black game, in which the more superficial of these muscles are dark-coloured, while those deeper seated are pale; and the same is sometimes seen in other birds. The belly and the muscles of the thigh, when young enough, or when long kept and properly cooked, are both palatable, juicy, and sufficiently tender. The tendons of these muscles, however, are very tough, and at a certain age become cartilaginous and even bony.

Birds in a domestic state do not readily become fat, if allowed to go at large; for this purpose, they should be confined in coops, and supplied with as much wholesome food as they can eat. Poulterers even cram them with food. Domestic water fowls, must, while fattening, be kept from the water, otherwise they will acquire a strong fishy taste, and besides, will always remain lean. In general, over fatness may be considered as a sort of oleagenous dropsy, and seldom or never is met with in a state of nature.

All the soft parts of fish contain gelatine and fibrous substance, and are, consequently, in the edible sorts, nutritious. The fibrous portions are not, except in a few species, red, like the muscular flesh of land animals, but white and opake when dressed. If cooked fish looks bluish and semi-transparent, it is not in season. It is fortunate for us, that few if any poisonous fish are found in our seas, being chiefly confined to the tropics.

The roe of the greater number of fishes is eaten: caviar is the roe of the sturgeon.

Cods sounds, or the swim bladder of the larger cod, are reckoned a great delicacy when properly preserved. It is not usual for the skin of any animal to be eaten, though the skin of some sorts of fish which are pulpy and gelatinous are relished—as the skin of calves head is used for mock turtle soup. The flavour of fish depends greatly on their food, which, it is supposed, is the main cause of the difference between fresh and salt water fish, and between the same sorts of fish taken in different lakes and rivers, and on different parts of the coast.

Some shell fish, such as muscles and cockles, are occasionally found to disagree with some particular constitutions, but it is not true that this arises from their feeding on copper banks; some say, that it is from the persons eating the beard or fibres, by which the muscles attach themselves to the rocks, which is not, we think, probable.

The limpet (Patella vulgata), the periwinkle (turbo littoreus) and whilk (murex antiquus), are used as food, boiled by the common people in various districts of this country.

The crustaceous shellfish of sufficient size, are very generally esculent. These chiefly belong to the family of Cancer. Hence, several species of crabs, both short and long tailed, are eaten. The lobster, the crawfish, the shrimp, and the prawn belong to this class.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOUS KINDS OF VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES COMMONLY USED FOR FOOD.

The vegetable substances used for food are, if we include fruits, much more numerous than those derived from the animal kingdom. The chief of these, however, are the different sorts of grain and pulse, the farina or flour of which, contains a large proportion of starch, gluten, and mucilage, and but little woody fibre, and is consequently highly nutritious, and easily digested. To this class of plants we are also indebted for the food of the animals whose flesh is most generally used. In pulse, as well as in rye and oats, there is, besides the principles just mentioned, a considerable portion of sugar, which adds to their nutritive qualities.

We would class the different sorts of nuts, next to grain and pulse, in the proportion of nutriment which they afford; starch and mucilage are their chief elements, but these are combined with a kind of oil which is not of easy digestion, and makes them disagree with most people when too liberally used. Almonds, filberts, walnuts, and cocoa, are the nuts in most request. Chocolate is a preparation of this kind, which is very nutritious to those with whom it agrees.

Next to grain, pulse, and nuts, we may place the farinaceous roots, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes. Of these, the first, contains the most nourishment, which depends on the great proportion of starch with which it abounds. Other pot-herbs possess little nourishment. Cabbage and greens, for example, are chiefly composed of fibre, mucilage, and water, and the same is true of onions, leeks, celery, lettuce, and broccoli.

Of fruits, those which are most farinaceous and mucilaginous, and which are sweet from the sugar contained in them, are the most nutritious. The pear should seem to answer this description the nearest, but experience proves that this fruit is of less easy digestion than the apple, whose greater acidity corrects the heavy quality of the saccharine matter with which the pear abounds.

GENERAL OPERATIONS OF COOKERY.

Few of the substances which we use for food are consumed in the state in which they are originally produced by nature. With the exception of some fruits and salads, all of them undergo some preparation. In most cases, indeed, this is indispensable; for, otherwise, they would not only be less wholesome and nutritive, but less digestible. The preceding observations, therefore, are only applicable to the materials when cooked, and not to the crude vegetables and raw flesh in the undressed state.

The general processes of cookery resolve themselves into the various modes of applying heat under different circumstances. They are the following—roasting, frying, broiling, baking, stewing, and boiling. These operations not only soften the raw materials, and render them alimentary, but the chemical constitution of the cooked substance suffers also such alterations, that its constituent parts can often no longer be recognised.

ROASTING ON A SPIT

Appears to be the most ancient process of rendering animal food eatable by means of the action of heat.

Spits were used very anciently in all parts of the world, and perhaps, before the plain practice of hanging the meat to a string before the fire. Ere the iron age had taught men the use of metals, these roasting instruments were made of wood; and as we find it in Virgil,[20] slender branches of the hazel tree were particularly chosen—

————“Stabit sacer hircus ad aram
“Pinguiaque in verubus torrebimus extra colurnis.”
The altar let the guilty goat approach,
And roast his fat limbs on the hazel broach.”

[20] Georgics II. 545.

Roasting is the most simple and direct application of heat in the preparation of food. The process is, for the most part, confined to animal substances, though several fruits, such as apples, chesnuts, and some roots, are in this manner directly subjected to fire.

But in dressing animal food, butcher’s meat, venison, fowl, and fish, roasting is one of the most usual processes, and it is, we believe, the best for rendering food nutritive and wholesome. The chemical changes also which roasting induces, are sufficiently slight, as a careful analysis will procure from meat, properly roasted, nearly all the elements which are to be found in it in the raw state. Slight as the change is however in a chemical, it is considerable in a culinary, point of view. The texture of the meat is more relaxed and consequently it is more tender; it is also more sapid and high flavoured. It is absolutely essential that the meat intended for roasting, has been kept long enough for the fibres to become flaccid, without which precaution the best meat does not become tender. If the meat be frozen, it should be thawed, by putting it into cold water, before it is put on the spit.

The process of roasting requires some care to conduct it properly. The meat should be gradually turned before the fire, in order to effect its uniform exposure to the rays of heat. A covering of paper prevents the fat from taking fire, and frequently basting the meat with gravy or melted fat, prevents it from being scorched or becoming dry, bitter, and unpalatable. It is necessary to be very careful in placing the meat to be roasted at a proper distance from the fire. If it is put too near, the surface will be scorched and burnt to a cinder, while the inner portion will be quite raw; and, if it be too distant, it will never have either the tenderness or the flavour it would have had by proper care. At first, it should be placed at some distance, and afterwards be gradually brought nearer the fire, to give the heat time to penetrate the whole piece equally; and, the larger the joint is, the more gradually should this be done. Poultry, in particular, should be heated very gradually.

When the joint is of an unequal thickness, the spit must be placed slanting, so that the thinnest part is further removed from the fire.

The less the spit is made to pass through the prime part of the meat, the better. Thus, in a shoulder of mutton, the spit is made to enter close to the shank-bone, and passed along the blade-bone of the joint.

When the meat is nearly sufficiently roasted, it is dusted over with a coating of flour; this, uniting with the fat and other juices exuded on the surface, covers the joint with a brown crust, glazed and frothy, which gives to the eye a prelude of the palatable substance it encrusts.

The process, as just described, is very similar, whatever may be the sort of meat roasted, whether joints, and the several species of fowl, or game. Fish is not usually dressed in this way, though the larger sorts are sometimes roasted. Those who relish eels and pike prefer them roasted to any other mode of dressing them.

It is a general practice to move the spit back when the meat is half done, in order to clear the bottom part of the grate, and to give the fire a good stirring, that it may burn bright during the remainder of the process. The meat is deemed sufficiently roasted when the steam puffs out of the joint in jets towards the fire.

To facilitate the process of roasting, a metal screen, consisting of a shallow concave reflector, is placed behind the meat, in order to reflect the rays of heat of the fire back again upon the meat. This greatly hastens the process. The screen is usually made of wood, lined with tin. It should be kept bright, otherwise, it will not reflect the rays of heat.

ROASTING ON A STRING

Is usually performed by means of the useful contrivance called a bottle jack, a well-known machine, so named from its form. It only serves for small joints, but does that better than the spit. It is cheap and simple, and the turning motion is produced by the twisting and untwisting of a string. The sort of roasting machine, called the Poor Man’s Spit, is something of the same nature, but still more simple. The meat is suspended by a skein of worsted, a twirling motion being given to the meat, the thread is twisted, and when the force is spent, the string untwists itself two or three times alternately, till the action being discontinued, the meat must again get a twirl round. When the meat is half done, the lower extremity of the joint is turned uppermost, and affixed to the string, so that the gravy flows over the joint the reverse way it did before.

ROASTING IN AN OPEN OVEN.

A Dutch or open oven is a machine for roasting small joints, such as fowls, &c. It consists of an arched box of tin open on one side, which side is placed against the fire. The joint being either suspended in the machine on a spit, or by a hook, or put on a low trevet placed on the bottom of the oven, which is moveable. The inside of the oven should be kept bright that it may reflect the heat of the fire. This is the most economical and most expeditious method of roasting in the small way.

ROASTING IN A CLOSED OVEN.

Roasting in a closed oven, or baking, consists in exposing substances to be roasted to the action of heat in a confined space, or closed oven, which does not permit the free access of air, to cause the vapour arising from the roasted substance to escape as fast as it is formed, and this circumstance materially alters the flavour of roasted animal substances.

Roasters and ovens of the common construction are apt to give the meat a disagreeable flavour, arising from the empyreumatic oil, which is formed by the decomposition of the fat, exposed to the bottom of the oven. This inconvenience has been completely remedied in two ways, by providing against the evil of allowing the fat to burn; and secondly, by carrying out of the oven by a strong current of heated air, the empyreumatic vapours, as fast as they are formed.

Such are the different processes of roasting meat.

Rationale.—The first effect of the fire is to rarify the watery juices within its influence which make their escape in the form of steam. The albuminous portion then coagulates in the same manner as the white of an egg does, the gelatine and the osmazome[21] become detached from the fibrine, and unite with a portion of the fat, which also is liquified by the expansive property of heat. The union of these form a compound fluid not to be found in the meat previously. This is retained in the interstices of the fibres where it is formed by the brown frothy crust, but flows abundantly from every pore when a cut is made into the meat with a knife. In consequence of the dissipation of the watery juices, the fibrous portion becomes gradually corrugated, and, if not attentively watched, its texture is destroyed, and it becomes rigid. Chemists prove that the peculiar odour and taste of roasted meat depends on the development of the principle which has been called osmazome, or the animal extractive matter of the old chemist, a substance which differs very much from every other constituent part of animal matter chemically, in being soluble in alcohol—and to the senses, in being extremely savoury or sapid. It is upon this principle, which seems to admit of considerable varieties, that the peculiar grateful flavour of animal food, (whether in the form of broth or roasted,) and of each of its kinds, depends. Osmazome exists in the largest quantity in the fibrous organs, or combined with fibrine in the muscles, while the tendons and other gelatinous organs appear to be destitute of it. The flesh of game, and old animals, contains it in greater quantity than that of young animals abounding in gelatine.

[21] Derived from οσμη, smell, and ζωμος, broth.

The tenderness produced by roasting, we account for, from the expansion of the watery juices into steam, loosening and dissevering the fibres one from another, in forcing a passage through the pores to make their escape by. This violence, also, must rupture all the finer network of the cellular membranes, besides the smaller nerves and blood vessels which ramify so numerously through every hair’s-breadth of animal substance. This dissolution of all the minute parts of the meat, which must take place before a particle of steam can escape, will most clearly account both for the tenderness and the altered colour of roasted meat. The action of heat, also, upon the more solid parts of the bundles of fibres, will, independent of the expansion of the juices, cause them to enlarge their volume, and consequently make the smaller fibres less firmly adhesive.

BROILING.

Another process in which meat is subjected to the immediate action of fire is broiling, which at first sight seems not to differ from roasting. The effect on the meat is, however, considerably different. The process consists in laying chops or slices of meat on clear burning coals, or a gridiron placed over a clear fire. It is indispensable that the chops or slices be moderately thin, otherwise the outside will be scorched to a cinder before they are cooked within; from one fourth to three fourths of an inch is a proper thickness.[22] It is also necessary that the fire be moderately brisk, without smoke or flame, lest the meat should acquire a smoky taste. When a gridiron is used it ought to be thoroughly heated before the slices or chops are laid on it, to prevent them from sticking to the bars. In order to broil them equally, they must be turned from time to time till the cook can easily pierce them with a fork or sharp skewer, which is the test of them being sufficiently cooked. It is improper, however, to cut into the chops to ascertain whether they are broiled enough, because it lets out the gravy.

[22] It is recommended by cooks to previously beat the raw slices with a mallet, but this practice is a bad one.

Coke is the best fuel for broiling, for it does not emit any smoke, and gives a clear and moderate heat; a mixture of coke and charcoal is exceedingly well calculated for the broiling process.

Those gridirons of the usual appearance and form, that have the bars fluted or hollowed on the upper side, by which means, the fat that comes from the meat that is cooked on them, is prevented from falling into the fire, and causing flame and smoke are the best; for all the grease that runs down the bars is received into a small trough, which prevents it from being wasted or lost. The upright gridiron is a still better invention, as the meat cooked on it, is entirely free from smoke, and the melted fat is still more easily saved, and kept more clean.

Rationale.—The heat being very quickly and directly applied, not gradually as in roasting and baking, the surface of the meat is speedily freed from its watery juices, and the fibres become corrugated, forming a firm and crisp incrustation of fibre and fat. This crust effectually prevents the escape of the juices from within; namely, the gelatine, and the osmazome, which are more rapidly expanded by the heat than in roasting, and consequently must more violently dissever the small fibres among which they are lodged, the effect, however, is more mechanical than chemical, for it does not appear that any new combination is formed, nor much disorganization produced. Accordingly, it is found that broiled meat is more sapid, and contains more liquid albumen, gelatine, and free osmazome, than the same meat would do if boiled or roasted. It is this greater degree of juicyness, sapidity, and tenderness, that constitutes the peculiarity and perfection of this mode of cooking, compared with roasting, baking, or frying in a pan.

Every sort of meat, however, is not fit for broiling. The chemistry of the process will point out the sorts best adapted for it. The flesh, for example, of old animals, which is deficient in gelatine and albumen, would be too much dried by roasting. The larger muscles, also, which abound in fibrous substance, such as the rump of beef, are well fitted for broiling. The flesh of game is likewise less juicy and gelatinous, and forms a very savoury dish when broiled. The process is peculiarly fit for most sorts of fish, which roasting or baking would render dry and shrivelled, and in many cases boiling would make it too soft and pulpy. Fresh caught char, and trout,[23] are in the highest perfection when dressed in this way.

[23] The best way of eating mackerel, is to broil it in buttered paper upon the gridiron; and, when properly done, to put fresh butter in the inside, with chopped parsley, pepper, and salt, which melts, and adds an exceedingly good flavour to the fish.

On the other hand, the flesh which abounds in watery juices and gelatine is not well adapted for broiling. The flesh of all young animals is of this kind; and accordingly lamb, veal, and sucking pig; the flesh of the fawn and kid do not answer to be broiled but roasted. The same is true of all the parts of an animal, whatever be its age, which abound more in gelatine, albumen, and fat, than in red muscular fibre.

Broiled beaf steaks were the established breakfast of the Maids of Honour of Queen Elizabeth. At an earlier period they gave strength and vigour to those who

“———————————————drew,
“And almost joined the horns of the tough yew.”

FRYING.

Frying is a process somewhat intermediate between roasting and boiling. Indeed, in one sense, it may be termed boiling, as it is the application of heat to the substance to be cooked, through the medium of melted fat, raised to the boiling temperature. The effect on the meat is very peculiar, and easily distinguished from every other mode of cooking. The meat is prepared in the same way as in broiling, by cutting it into chops, or slices, of not more than half an inch or three quarters in thickness. A sufficient quantity of mutton or beef suet, butter, lard, or oil, being melted in a pan, and made boiling-hot, the meat is laid in it. It is not necessary that the meat be wholly immersed in the boiling fat; if it be immersed in part, it will be quite sufficient. When flesh is the substance to be fried, the pieces, previously to their being put into the pan, are sometimes brushed over with eggs and crumbs of stale bread, flour, or any other farinaceous substance. This application may also be made when the meat is nearly cooked. The intention of it is to cover the meat with a thin brown crust, the savour of which increases the relish of the dish. Fish are, for the most part, treated in this manner when fried. It answers well with trout, whitings, flounders, and soles. When this application is made to the meat previously to its being put into the pan, the peculiar flavour of the meat is more effectually retained. One of the best preparations for this purpose is oatmeal, flour, or crumbs of stale bread, made into a liquid paste with the yolk and white of eggs.

Vegetable, as well as animal substances, are subjected to this process, though it is always at the expense of their wholesome and nutritive qualities; and not always to the improvement of their taste and flavour.

As in the case of animal substances, all the juices are, by frying, extracted from the vegetables; with this difference, however, that their place is not supplied by the melted fat; for the starch of the vegetables (potatoes for example) is rendered insoluble in water by the fat, and exhibits a corneous appearance and texture. Fried potatoes are the most familiar instance of the process. When cut into thin slices and fried in oil, butter, or lard, they are rendered semi-transparent. Cabbage, or the stalks, leaves, and fruits of other vegetable substances, previously boiled and then fried, shrink, and become more easy to break, in proportion as the water is driven off from them, as this, during their previous boiling, dissolves the saccharine and amylaceous matter which rendered them supple and juicy. These principles are much better prepared and improved by boiling; they are very much deteriorated by the boiling fat in the frying pan.

The melted fat, or oil, should always be brought to the boiling point, or nearly so. The proper temperature is ascertained by putting into the fat a few sprigs of parsley, a thin slice of turnip, or a piece of bread, and if any of these substances become crisp without acquiring a black colour, the fat is hot enough for frying; if it be made hotter, it becomes blackened, and the meat acquires a burnt and unpleasant flavour. Any sort of hard fat, such as beef suet, is the best fitted for frying meat; because, fat of this description can be brought to a higher temperature, without suffering decomposition, than either lard, butter, or oil. There are, however, particular kinds of meat which answer better with some one or other of these than with any of the rest. Fish, for example, is best fried in oil.

A rich brown colour is communicated to the fried substance, by pressing it, when nearly cooked, against the bottom of the pan.

The fire for frying should be kept sharp and clear, to keep the melted fat at a sufficient high temperature, and without this precaution the fried substance cannot be browned. If the temperature of the fat is not hot enough, the fried meat will be sodden. Fish cannot be fried of a good colour, and crisp, and firm texture, unless the fat is boiling hot.

Frying, though one of the most common culinary occupations, is one of those that is least commonly performed.

Eggs are often fryed.

“Fresh butter, hissing in the pan, receives the yolk and white together in its burning bosom. One minute or two and all the noise is over; and, sprinkled with pepper, salt, and a few drops of vinegar, they appear perfectly fit for the table. The salamander is often held over them, and accelerates the culinary process.”

Rationale.—The process of frying is considerably different from those which we have formerly been examining. In frying, the high temperature of the melted fat has the effect of extracting (at least from the outer surface) all the gelatine, osmazome and albumen, the place of which is, in part, supplied by the melted fat entering between the fibres, and gradually filling up the interstices. It is this circumstance which prevents the fibres of fried meat from becoming hard and dry, and preserves them in a tender and supple state. Meat which has been fried, shrinks more in bulk than when boiled or roasted, in consequence of the melted fat having a stronger influence in dislodging the animal juices. It is this also which gives the meat the structure which has not unaptly been compared to leather.

Taste informs us, independently of our rationale, that fried meat is less gelatinous and less savoury than when simply boiled or roasted. It is also less tender. The gelatine and other juices of the animal fibre, which are extracted during the process may be discovered, after the melted matter in the pan is suffered to settle, in the form of a rich, brown, savoury jelly, which separates spontaneously from the rest of the substance.

STEWING.

Stewing differs from roasting and broiling, in the heat being applied to the substance through a small portion of a liquid medium; and, from boiling and frying, in the process being conducted by means of an aqueous, and not by means of an oily fluid. It is necessary that the fire be moderate; for a strong heat suddenly applied would be very injurious. The liquids employed as the medium for applying the heat are usually water, gravy, or broth, the quantity of which must be such as shall prevent the meat from burning and adhering to the pan. It is not requisite that the liquid be made to boil in stewing. It should only be raised nearly to a simmering heat, which will retard the fluid being evaporated too quickly. The closeness of the vessel will also prevent the waste of the liquid. If it diminish too quickly, it must, from time to time, be replenished.

The management of the fire in cooking, is, in all cases, a matter of importance, but in no case is it so necessary to be attended to as in preparing stews or made dishes; not only the palatableness, but even the strength or richness of all made dishes, seems to depend very much upon the management of the heat employed in cooking them.

The most proper sorts of animal food for stewing, are such as abound in fibrine, and which are too dry or too tough for roasting. When beef or mutton is rather old and too coarse flavoured, and not tender enough for the spit or the gridiron, it may, by stewing, be not only rendered tolerably palatable, but even sometimes savoury and good. But the stewing process is not confined to flesh of this sort; for veal and other young flesh which abounds in gelatine, when properly stewed, is much relished.

The vegetables most usually stewed are carrots, turnips, potatoes, pease, beans, and other leguminous seeds. Some fruits are also cooked in this way.

Rationale.—Stewing is nothing else than boiling by means of a small quantity of an aqueous fluid, and continuing the operation for a long time to render the substance tender, to loosen its texture, to render it more sapid, and to retain and concentrate the most essential parts of animal or vegetable food.

If the stew-pan be close shut, it is evident that none of the nutritive principles can escape, and must either be found in the meat itself or in the liquid. The water or gravy in which the meat is stewed, being capable of dissolving the gelatine and albumen, the greater part of them become separated during the simmering process. Now, since the firm texture of the bundles of fibres of the meat is owing to the solid gelatine and albumen glueing them, as it were, together, when they are dissolved and disengaged, the meat must become greatly disorganized. These principles, as well as the fat and osmazome, are partly disengaged from the meat, and become united with the gravy. It is to these, indeed, that the gravy owes all its richness and excellence. The muscular fibres and the tendons acquire a gluey appearance and texture, and the whole forms a savoury gelatinous stew, gravy, or soup.

No scorching or browning of the meat takes place if the process is properly conducted; for the temperature to which it is exposed does not exceed the boiling point of water.

In the stewing of vegetables, saccharine matter is formed, the starch and mucilage are rendered soluble, and of course, set free the woody fibre, which either floats through the liquid or adheres together very slightly. It accordingly constitutes either a pasty fluid, or converts the vegetables to a soft pulp; sometimes their original shape being preserved entire, and at other times not.

BOILING.

Boiling is a much more common operation than any of those we have considered, with the exception perhaps of roasting. It consists, as every body knows, in subjecting the materials of food to the influence of heat, through the medium of boiling water, or of steam.

The water employed for boiling meat or pulse should be soft, and the joint should be put on the fire immersed in cold water, in order that the heat may gradually cause the whole mass to become boiled equally.

If the piece of meat is of an unequal thickness, the thinner parts will be over-done before the more massy portion is sufficiently acted on by the boiling water.

Salted meat requires to be very slowly boiled, or simmered only, for a quick and rapid ebullition renders salted provisions extremely hard.

Frozen substances should be thoroughly thawed, and this is best effected by immersing them in cold water.

Count Rumford has taken much pains to impress on the minds of those who exercise the culinary art, the following simple but pratical, important fact, namely, that when water begins only to be agitated by the heat of the fire, it is incapable of being made hotter, and that the violent ebullition is nothing more than an unprofitable dissipation of the water, in the form of steam, and a considerable waste of fuel.

From the beginning of the process to the end of it the boiling should be as gentle as possible. Causing any thing to boil violently in any culinary process, is very ill-judged; for it not only does not expedite, in the smallest degree, the process of cooking, but it occasions a most enormous waste of fuel, and by driving away with the steam many of the more volatile and more savoury particles of the ingredients, renders the victuals less good and less palatable: it is not by the bubbling up, or violent boiling, as it is called, of the water that culinary operations are expedited.

One of the most essential conditions to be attended to in the boiling of meat is, to skim the pot well, and keep it really boiling, the slower the better. If the skimming be neglected, the coagulated albuminous matter will attach itself to the meat, and spoil the good appearance of it.

It is not necessary to wrap meat or poultry in a cloth, if the pot be carefully skimmed. The general rule of the best cooks is to allow from 20 to 30 minutes slow simmering to a pound of meat, reckoning from the time the pot begins to boil.

The cover of the boiling pot should fit close, to prevent the unnecessary evaporation of the water, and the smoke insinuating itself under the edge of the cover, and communicating to the boiled substance a smoky taste.

Cooks often put a trevet, or plate, on the bottom of the boiling pot, to prevent the boiled substance sticking to the pot.

Rationale.—When flesh or fish is boiled in an open vessel, or one not closely covered, the fibrous texture is rendered more tender: at the same time its nutritive quality is not much diminished. For the temperature of the water or steam, never exceeding 212°, is insufficient to produce the partial charring, which roasting and broiling effect. But, as in stewing, the gelatine, albumen, osmazome, and fat, are developed and disengaged, and becoming united with the liquid in the vessel, form a soup, or broth. The paler colour of boiled meat is owing to the blood being separated and diffused in the water. In frying, the boiling fat or oil enters into the interstices of the fibres, which the disengaged animal juices have left empty. In boiling, in a similar way, the hot water takes the place of the blood, gelatine, fat, and albumen, which have been dissolved and separated from the fibres. The fibres are in this manner soaked and washed, first by the boiling water, and afterwards by the soup or broth which is formed, till the whole texture assume a softened consistence, and pale appearance. It is this, rather than any softening of the fibres themselves, which seems to be the real effect produced, unless, with some, we consider the fibres as nothing more than minute and close-set bundles of blood vessels. This doctrine, however, the experience of every cook will disprove; for if the boiling be long continued, the fibres of the meat will alone remain, and so far from becoming more soft and pulpy, they will become dry and juiceless. If indeed the boiling point of the water be artificially increased above 212°, by pressure applied to the surface of the liquid, the fibres may be reduced to a pulp, quite homogeneous. When this is done by Papin’s digester, or by any other apparatus of the same kind, and when the process under such circumstances is long continued, the hardest bones may be converted into jelly.

It is only by boiling that the more gelatinous parts of flesh can be completely extracted unaltered from such parts as are cartilaginous, ligamentous, or tendinous.

COMPARISON OF THE CHEMICAL CHANGES PRODUCED ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD, IN THE DIFFERENT PROCESSES OF COOKERY.

The principal operations of cookery which we have just examined and explained, all agree in this, that they effect some chemical change on the materials operated upon, by which they are rendered more digestible, more wholesome, and consequently more nutritive.

In such of the operations as are performed by the direct application of heat to the flesh of animals, namely, roasting, baking, frying, and broiling, the meat loses the vapid and nauseous taste and odour which it possesses in a raw state, and becomes savoury, juicy, and grateful to the taste. These effects arise from the development of the gelatine and osmazome from the smaller vessels, and their being rendered soluble; while, at the same time a portion of the fat is liquified, and combines with them after they are disengaged.

The fibres again, on the surface of the meat, are partly scorched, and form a crust, which, except in the interstices of the corrugations, is impermeable, and consequently prevents the savoury gravy that is disengaged from the fibres from oozing out or becoming evaporated. It is thus only disengaged from its chemical union with the fibres, and remains mechanically united with them in the meat, after it is cooked, as we see upon cutting into the fibrous portion.

The effect produced on the fat is somewhat different. The direct application of fire to this portion of the meat soon melts part of the substance, and raises it to the boiling point, or nearly so; the water which it contains is consequently given off in the form of steam, and it carries with it a quantity of osmazome. It is this which occasions the peculiar odour that arises from meat while roasting.

The vapid taste is also corrected by the empyreuma, combined with a minute quantity of ammonia, which is soon developed on the surface of the fat, by the partial charring—not of the fat itself, but of the cellular membrane in which it is enveloped. This structure may easily be perceived on a slight examination of a piece of recent fat; all the membranous or skinny portions being only the receptacles or nests for the fat itself. And since these membranes are for the most part exceedingly thin and easily ruptured, and since heat increases the volume of the fat which they contain, the application of heat in roasting or broiling will soon make all the membranes burst which are within its influence, and thus give a free passage for the juices to unite with each other.

There is, according to these statements, but little loss of the substance of meat when roasted or broiled, and the chemical changes produced are so slight, that nearly all its nutritive elements must be preserved and concentrated in the cooked meat.

When there is a watery medium used, through which heat is applied to animal food, as for example, in the process of stewing or boiling, a portion of the fat, gelatine, and osmazome, is dissolved, and mixes with the water. Nutritive matter is consequently lost, or, at least, it is transferred from the meat to the broth or soup.

In the operation of stewing there is less of this transfer made; and, besides, as the medium is scarcely kept at a boiling heat, less of the nutritive juices are dissolved. When, however, the broth or gravy in which meat is boiled is made use of, as well as the meat itself, boiling is the most economical practice; for though nothing be added except the water, this itself, if it contains no nourishment, at least fills the stomach, and serves to diffuse more widely the nutritive juices of the meat which it holds in solution or in mixture.

But though boiling be thus the most economical practice, it is not always to the taste of individuals, or even of whole nations to use the broth or soup. The English and Irish, for example, rarely follow this practice, while the Scots, French, and Germans, prefer it to all other modes of cooking. In general, then, it should seem, that roasting as it is the simplest, is also the best mode of rendering the flesh of animals fit for human food. Roasted meat is wholesome and highly nourishing; and when there is not too much of the empyreumatic crust formed, it is for the most part easily digested. In these respects, broiled meat differs little from such as is roasted. What is fried is always less tender. It is often found that roasted or broiled meat sits more easily on the stomach, and is sooner digested by those whose digestive organs are feeble or diseased, than fried or boiled meat, or broths and stews.

The effects of the processes of cookery on vegetable substances, though usually very slight and simple, are in some instances both striking and unexpected. For example, some sorts of vegetables are extremely acrid and even poisonous in their crude state, and altogether unfit for human food; yet, by simply boiling them in water, they become bland, sweet, and wholesome. Several species of arum (cuckoo-pint), which are very acrid, and would be dangerous to use raw, become quite palatable pot-herbs when boiled. Their acrimony must reside in a very volatile principle, which, during the boiling, makes its escape, or is chemically altered; but the nature of this principle has not yet been accurately investigated by chemists. A more familiar example than this is found in onions, leeks, and garlick, whose acrimony and strong odour can be almost destroyed, or rather driven off by a sufficiently long application of heat, either directly, or through the medium of water. Many other instances could be given, but we shall content ourselves with one more.

Every body knows that potatoes, in a raw state, are nauseous and unpalatable. It is not, perhaps, so generally known that the potatoe, (solanum tuberosum,) belongs to the night-shade genus of plants, which are all more or less poisonous. If potatoes were used raw, in any quantity, they would be deleterious to man; nor does it disprove this that cattle eat them with impunity, as sheep and goats eat plants much more strongly poisonous to man, such as hemlockdropwort, [oenanthe crocata;] and waterhemlock, [phelandrium aquaticum].

By boiling or roasting, however, all the unpalatable and all the unwholesome qualities of the potatoe are changed, and it becomes farinaceous, wholesome, digestible, and highly nutritious. Yet, although this change is remarkable, and could scarcely have been anticipated, very little is lost and nothing is added to the potatoe by either roasting or boiling, yet its immediate constituent parts have evidently suffered a very great chemical alteration, chiefly, in consequence it should seem, from the farinaceous substance being acted on by water.

Vegetables, when used as food, are most commonly boiled, and seldom baked or roasted. Salads, indeed, are eaten raw, without any application of heat. The chemical action of heat on pot-herbs, on esculent roots, and leguminous seeds, does not appear to be confined to the mere softening of their fibres, or to the solution or coagulation of some of their juices and component parts; for we have just now seen that their flavour, and other sensible qualities, as well as their texture, suffer a remarkable chemical change, which greatly improves their alimentary properties.