FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 371

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Tlie reader may compare the preparation of Dressed Cream and Compoiind Cream, called en Mousse,' with the spon- gadas. Stratification of ices is an Italian diversion ; the Naples ices were mostly coloured white, red, and ijellow, in layers. This practice may be imitated with all suitable frozen mate- rials. On this subject the Precepto7'al des Menus Poyaux 588 THE SPIRIT OF COOKER) ponr V Amide 1822 contains in three paragraphs, Nos. 716 to 718, distinct directions. There was also a restriction that if by accident the stratification {panaclmre) could not he obtained by employing ices, the names of which were contiguous to each other in the schedule added to No. 718, then the stratification was to be omitted, and the ices were to be served ‘ as cheenes,’ moulded in the aorhetiere and turned out. CHAPTER LIII. PREPARATIONS OF EOGS. The egyu most commonly used in practical cookery are those of the common foiul, more rarely those of geese, ducks, or turkeys, and very rarely the eggs of wild birds, considered as luxuries, such as those of plovers. Eggs of fish are consumed as caviar. Many physiologists, following the precedent of Payen, have an exaggerated opinion of the nutritive value of eggs, considered as food for the adult. They forget, e.g., that the phosgAiorized ingredients are mainly materials for the construction of the brain and nerves of the chick, and that considered as merely meta- bolic materials they are of indifferent value, just as they are destitute of any savoury taste. The ^ullite of egg is almost pure, and contains only some salts and minute quantities of carbo-hydrate besides its albumin. The yolk, on the other hand, is more complicated. It contains an albumin - like substance which has been termed vitellin (17 per cent.) ; organic substances in combination with phosphoric acid, so called pliosphatides (8^ per cent.) ; organic substances in union with a sugar, galactosides ; a yellow colouring matter, ovo - hitein, which gives three absorption bands in the blue of the spectroscope ; a con- INGREDIENTS AND BOILING OF EGGS 589 siderable percentage of Hcutrcil jQ/t, olein, and mciTcjcvvin (21 per cent, of yolk) ; 0,-adi cliolesterin, nearly ^ per cent. Of fowls’ eggs, ten go, on an average, to the pound of 500 grm. ; therefore an average hen’s egg weighs 50 grm. A goose’s egg weighs fi’om 120 to 180 grm. Of the weight of the fowl’s egg, 7 grm. are shell, 27 grm. white, and 16 grm. yolk; or, in 100, shell = 14, white = 54, yolk = 32 parts. The white of hens’ eggs contains 85-75 per cent, of loater, 12-67 per cent, of dry alhumin, 0-25 per cent, of fat and sugar, and 0-59 per cent, of salts. The yolk con- tains 50-82 per cent, of water, 16-23 per cent, of nitrogenized matter, 31-75 per cent, of olein, margarin and phosjAia- tides, 0-13 per cent, of carbo-hydrates, and 1-09 per cent, of salts. From the returns of the octroy of Paris, it appears that in 1871 every inhabitant of that town consumed 128 eggs per year. Later estimates give the consumption of eggs for Paris as 18 grm. per head per day, or 131 eggs per head per year. An inhabitant of Munich consumes 182 eggs per year, and every head in London 73 eggs per year. On the other hand, the inhabitants of London consume much more meat per head than either the inhabitants of Paris or of Munich.