The correct appreciation of the true source of
savour has contributed greatly to establish sound prin-
ciples of tasty and wholesome cookery ; to recall men from
122
THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY
overloaded, over-spiced, over-onioned, and over-complicated
dishes to simpler compositions, and to cause them to look
to the selection of the material and the preservation of its
individuality as the first condition of aesthetical food-pre-
paration. Simplidcation is still required even in establish-
ments managed on highly cultivated principles ; for, as an
example, to carefully take all grease out of a consomme by
clarification, and then to pour back into it both grease and
turbidity in the shape of cream, just before sending it to
table, seems overwrought, if not contradictory. On the
whole, such ultimate and snatch-admixtures, in the shape of
sauces, cream, milk, wine, to gravy-soups, appear to us to
Ido bad traditions from times when the thinness of broth
required hiding by spicy and distracting additions.
The Principal Constituents of Meat as Sources of Culinary
Educts.
The savoury extract of meat, which after exposure to
high temperature forms the osmazome of brown gravy, is
contained in the little cylindrical bags of the muscles which
hold the discs or fibres of contractile substance. It may
be either the matter from which the cou tractile matter takes
its nutriment, or it may be matter already used for con-
traction, and destined next to be used for heat production ;
or it may be a mixture of such matters. They have some
distant similarities to the substances produced
from white of egg, fibrin, syntonin, etc., by digestion; they
are alkaloids by their reaction, and toeak acids at the same
time. By this chemical function, which pronounces them
to belong to a class of bodies having powerful effects upon
the nervous system, these bodies are distinguished from the
more neutral substances of the soluble albuminous series.
The main substance of the muscle or flesh considered as an
organ and as food is muscle fibrin or syntonin, the con-
tractile matter just mentioned. This by itself is as taste-
BOUILLON, OR MEAT-BROTH
123
loss as white of egg, and receives its flavour from the
osmazome with which it is surrounded. It is during life in
a peculiar irritable condition, which enables it to alternately
contract and relax its particles ; this irritability ceases soon
after death, and passes into a condition of hard, stable con-
traction, or rigor, the first phenomenon of absolute somatic
death, hence called rigor mortis. A cook may have occa-
sion to take heed of this phenomenon for the following
reason : If meat be set to cook, boil, or roast, before the
rigor has set in, while it is yet warm and quivering imme-
diately after the killing of the animal, it may become as
tender, if it was otherwise of good quality, as meat which
has been long hung ; but meat in the state of 7'igor mortis
I will nearly always become hard or tough during cooking.
I In practice meat is therefore allowed to hang exposed to
! fresh cold air at least until the rigor mortis has disappeared,
Page 87
Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The correct appreciation of the true source of savour has contributed greatly to establish sound principles of tasty and wholesome cookery ; to recall men from
overloaded, over-spiced, over-onioned, and over-complicated dishes to simpler compositions, and to cause them to look to the selection of the material and the preservation of its individuality as the first condition of aesthetical food-preparation. Simplification is still required even in establishments managed on highly cultivated principles ; for, as an example, to carefully take all grease out of a consomme by clarification, and then to pour back into it both grease and turbidity in the shape of cream, just before sending it to table, seems overwrought, if not contradictory. On the whole, such ultimate and snatch-admixtures, in the shape of sauces, cream, milk, wine, to gravy-soups, appear to us to be bad traditions from times when the thinness of broth required hiding by spicy and distracting additions.
The Principal Constituents of Meat as Sources of Culinary
Educts.
The savoury extract of meat, which after exposure to high temperature forms the osmazome of brown gravy, is contained in the little cylindrical bags of the muscles which hold the discs or fibres of contractile substance. It may be either the matter from which the cou tractile matter takes its nutriment, or it may be matter already used for contraction, and destined next to be used for heat production ; or it may be a mixture of such matters. They have some distant similarities to the substances produced
from white of egg, fibrin, syntonin, etc., by digestion; they are alkaloids by their reaction, and toeak acids at the same time. By this chemical function, which pronounces them to belong to a class of bodies having powerful effects upon the nervous system, these bodies are distinguished from the more neutral substances of the soluble albuminous series. The main substance of the muscle or flesh considered as an organ and as food is muscle fibrin or syntonin, the contractile matter just mentioned. This by itself is as taste-
loss as white of egg, and receives its flavour from the osmazome with which it is surrounded. It is during life in a peculiar irritable condition, which enables it to alternately contract and relax its particles ; this irritability ceases soon after death, and passes into a condition of hard, stable contraction, or rigor, the first phenomenon of absolute somatic death, hence called rigor mortis. A cook may have occasion to take heed of this phenomenon for the following reason : If meat be set to cook, boil, or roast, before the rigor has set in, while it is yet warm and quivering immediately after the killing of the animal, it may become as tender, if it was otherwise of good quality, as meat which has been long hung ; but meat in the state of 7'igor mortis I will nearly always become hard or tough during cooking.
I In practice meat is therefore allowed to hang exposed to
! fresh cold air at least until the rigor mortis has disappeared,