Meat gravy is best left by itself, without any addition except salt, and without any dilution except with a little broth in case it should be too concentrated. From this it follows that gravy, as it is obtained only in limited quantity, must also be served in small quantities ; if it be concentrated enough, a thin covering of the morsel is sufficient to indue it with the taste sought for. Long gravies are made at the cost of quality by undue dilution, and whenever gravy is required in quantity it should be produced expressly from new materials. But iixQ made saiices, however practically concentrated the stock may be from which they are to be produced, require the addition of a material, by which their body is carried, made adhesive, transportable on the morsel, and unctuous on the tongue. This material is dextrine, a transformation product of starch, and starch itself, in brown sauces dextrine bereft of a portion of its constituent water, a caramel of dextrine. This material may be prepared in many ways, but in the kitchen is made by heating starch, or flour, in any available fat, butter, lard, or oil. In this process the fat only serves as a carrier of heat to a degree much exceed- ing the heat of boiling water ; it mostly takes no part in the subsequent stages of the cooking, and when the dextrin and dehydrated or brown dextrin are once produced, much trouble is taken to again remove the fat from the sauce pre- pared with its aid. Auiylum, or flour browned or coloured 228 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY in hot fat, is called roux, from its red colour. But colour is not essential to the quality of flour heated in fat to become a binding material, for dextrine is colourless ; but this colour- less binding material has no name of its own in culinary language ; it passes by the name, involving a contradiction in terms, of white rotix. Like the figure 1, which is the beginning of a number, so a white roux is the beginning of a roux actual. It would be useless to try to eliminate terms established by daily use in kitchens, and we there- fore deal with them as we find them, reserving our belief in the unlimited improvability of mankind, particularly that portion of it which is devoted to cooking. Now, these dextrines, red and white, on coming in contact with hot water swell up into more or less viscous, or gela- tinous, or adhesive masses, and impart to the liquids with which they are mixed a consistency reminding of paste. This consistency has the mixed advantages of solidity, or at least cohesion, and quick divisibility by dilution. The material which causes the viscosity or cohesion of the par- ticles of what is by itself a water-like broth, which gives it the physical body, as it is termed, is in culinary language called a thickening or binding, or liaison in ifrench, in English sometimes called leason. Besides these floury or dextrine leasons, there are the leasons made with eggs, also applicable to sauces. And here we may add that all these varieties of leasons or thickenings are applicable to sauces, soups, ragouts, and entrees.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Meat gravy is best left by itself, without any addition except salt, and without any dilution except with a little broth in case it should be too concentrated. From this it follows that gravy, as it is obtained only in limited quantity, must also be served in small quantities ; if it be concentrated enough, a thin covering of the morsel is sufficient to indue it with the taste sought for. Long gravies are made at the cost of quality by undue dilution, and whenever gravy is required in quantity it should be produced expressly from new materials. But made sauces, however practically concentrated the stock may be from which they are to be produced, require the addition of a material, by which their body is carried, made adhesive, transportable on the morsel, and unctuous on the tongue. This material is dextrine, a transformation product of starch, and starch itself, in brown sauces dextrine bereft of a portion of its constituent water, a caramel of dextrine. This material may be prepared in many ways, but in the kitchen is made by heating starch, or flour, in any available fat, butter, lard, or oil. In this process the fat only serves as a carrier of heat to a degree much exceeding the heat of boiling water ; it mostly takes no part in the subsequent stages of the cooking, and when the dextrin and dehydrated or brown dextrin are once produced, much trouble is taken to again remove the fat from the sauce prepared with its aid. Amylum, or flour browned or coloured in hot fat, is called roux, from its red colour. But colour is not essential to the quality of flour heated in fat to become a binding material, for dextrine is colourless ; but this colourless binding material has no name of its own in culinary language ; it passes by the name, involving a contradiction in terms, of white rotix. Like the figure 1, which is the beginning of a number, so a white roux is the beginning of a roux actual. It would be useless to try to eliminate terms established by daily use in kitchens, and we therefore deal with them as we find them, reserving our belief in the unlimited improvability of mankind, particularly that portion of it which is devoted to cooking. Now, these dextrines, red and white, on coming in contact with hot water swell up into more or less viscous, or gelatinous, or adhesive masses, and impart to the liquids with which they are mixed a consistency reminding of paste. This consistency has the mixed advantages of solidity, or at least cohesion, and quick divisibility by dilution. The material which causes the viscosity or cohesion of the particles of what is by itself a water-like broth, which gives it the physical body, as it is termed, is in culinary language called a thickening or binding, or liaison in ifrench, in English sometimes called leason. Besides these floury or dextrine leasons, there are the leasons made with eggs, also applicable to sauces. And here we may add that all these varieties of leasons or thickenings are applicable to sauces, soups, ragouts, and entrees.

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