The spirit of cookery

I have elsewhere* shown how the learned English trans- lator of Herodotus, V. Beloe, came to a totally erroneous conclusion regarding that passage in the great traveller’s work which refers to the treatment of snare’s milk by the Scythians. ‘ When the milk is drawn [in the manner previously described by Herodotus], they pour it into deep wooden vessels, and order the slaves to agitate it incessantly. That part of the milk which remains above is the most valued, that which is deposited is less esteemed. It is this which causes the Scythians to destroy the eyes of all their prisoners, for they do not cultivate the soil and lead a nomadic life.’ To this passage Beloe adds the observa- tion : ‘ It is clear that Herodotus here describes the making of butter, although he knew no word for the product.’ Now, mare’s milk is quite unsuitable for the production of butter ; firstly, because it contains but little fat ; and secondly, because the fat which can be obtained from it is not butter, but a half-oily, lardlike, bad-tasting substance. Further, the mere making of butter would not be a sufficient reason for blinding slaves. If, however, we assume that the de- scription of Herodotus applied to the viaking of kumys, all difficulties are removed ; kumys must be constantly beaten and stirred for long hours ; for this blind slaves could be used. The upper part of kumys is the alcoholic solution, the lower contains the curdled caseine, which can serve more as a nutriment than as intoxicant. As far as I know, the nomads of the Eussian steppes do not prepare any butter even in the present time, but make large quantities of kumys. Example of the French ‘ Bain-marie.’ We have given two cases of misapprehension on the part of philosophers, one concerning a substance from the * In my German work, ‘ Grundziige der anatomischen und klinischen Chemie.’ Berlin, 1886. i6 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERy vegetable, the other a food-product from the animal king- dom. They illustrate the difficulty of obtaining the necessary qualifications for authorship on food and cookery, even on the part of learned and scientifically-trained men ; lb fortiori, how much greater must be these difficulties on the part of persons not so trained and circumstanced ! And this we find actually to be the case. Cookery-books swarm with errors engendered by the absence of scientific training, and this deficiency is manifest not only in the reciting of prescriptions, but extends in some cases down to the very pots and pans in daily use in every good kitchen ; thus an otherwise excellent writer actually does not know the definition of a water-bath, or, as the French term it, a bain-marie, and persistently signalizes with that name the saucepans intended to stand in the bain-marie, whether they be in or out of water. Example of the German ‘ Kraft Briihen.’