little farther from the fire, decreasing the distance between the grate and the joint until (the exterior being hardened) the flesh is heated nearly uniformly all through ; and then bringing it and keeping it near the fire, lest remaining too far from it should destroy its crisp firmness, and make it unpleasantly soft and soddened. If too little cooked or underdone, meat is indigestible. If too much cooked or dried up, it is not less so. Over-cooking expels the fluids and contracts the fibres. It is sometimes absurdly urged that underdone indigestible meat is to be preferred because it is in itself more nutritious than the digestible or better-cooked flesh. But this is not dealing with flesh as food ; for if it were, cooking would be altogether dispensed with, because raw meat contains more of the nutritious elements than underdone meat. ‘ The spit and the stewpan,’ as Dr. Paris says in his book on 1 Diet,’ ‘ spare the stomach the drudgery of loosening the texture and softening the fibres of food and it is the cook’s business not only to send food to table as full of nourishing qualities as it can be, but to see that such qualities are in a fit condition to do their beneficent work of repairing, restoring, and reinvigorating most effectually. The cook should be a more useful, and so far a more important person than the physician ; and very often the depreciation of artists is the chief cause of an art’s degradation. I am sure this is often true of the art of cookery. Boiling1. Well-boiled meat is not so common as it should be, and one of the reasons is the persistence with which the old-fashioned notion of putting the joint into cold water is still clung to by many writers on this subject. Mrs. Glasse is often referred to as the most old-fashioned and unscien- tific of cooks, but she at any rate steered clear of this blunder ; whereas ‘ Murray’s Modem Cookery Book ’ says, ‘ All meat for boiling should be first entirely covered with cold water.’ One of the best authorities and the most scientific (Liebig) says, ‘ If the flesh be introduced into the boiler when the water is in a state of brisk ebullition, and if the boiling be kept up for a few minutes and the pot then placed in a warm place, so that the temperature of the water is kept at 158° to 165°, we have the united conditions for giving to the flesh the qualities which fit it for being eaten.’ If you wish to rob meat of its most nourishing and wholesome properties, put it in cold water, which receives them, leaving the meat quite unfit for eating, even if it does, to quote a writer of ‘ Cookery for the People,’ make the water ‘ a foundation for soup— that is, stock’! What could be more wasteful ? If you want ‘stock,’ make it with cheaper material than joints of meat intended for the table. ‘ When meat is eaten,’ says Dr. Bernay in his ‘ Household Chemis- try,’ ‘ the albumen should be retained in it, for not only does it 2—2 20 ENGLISH AND FRENCH COOKERT.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

little farther from the fire, decreasing the distance between the grate and the joint until (the exterior being hardened) the flesh is heated nearly uniformly all through ; and then bringing it and keeping it near the fire, lest remaining too far from it should destroy its crisp firmness, and make it unpleasantly soft and soddened. If too little cooked or underdone, meat is indigestible. If too much cooked or dried up, it is not less so. Over-cooking expels the fluids and contracts the fibres. It is sometimes absurdly urged that underdone indigestible meat is to be preferred because it is in itself more nutritious than the digestible or better-cooked flesh. But this is not dealing with flesh as food ; for if it were, cooking would be altogether dispensed with, because raw meat contains more of the nutritious elements than underdone meat. ‘ The spit and the stewpan,’ as Dr. Paris says in his book on 1 Diet,’ ‘ spare the stomach the drudgery of loosening the texture and softening the fibres of food and it is the cook’s business not only to send food to table as full of nourishing qualities as it can be, but to see that such qualities are in a fit condition to do their beneficent work of repairing, restoring, and reinvigorating most effectually. The cook should be a more useful, and so far a more important person than the physician ; and very often the depreciation of artists is the chief cause of an art’s degradation. I am sure this is often true of the art of cookery. Boiling. Well-boiled meat is not so common as it should be, and one of the reasons is the persistence with which the old-fashioned notion of putting the joint into cold water is still clung to by many writers on this subject. Mrs. Glasse is often referred to as the most old-fashioned and unscientific of cooks, but she at any rate steered clear of this blunder ; whereas ‘ Murray’s Modem Cookery Book ’ says, ‘ All meat for boiling should be first entirely covered with cold water.’ One of the best authorities and the most scientific (Liebig) says, ‘ If the flesh be introduced into the boiler when the water is in a state of brisk ebullition, and if the boiling be kept up for a few minutes and the pot then placed in a warm place, so that the temperature of the water is kept at 158° to 165°, we have the united conditions for giving to the flesh the qualities which fit it for being eaten.’ If you wish to rob meat of its most nourishing and wholesome properties, put it in cold water, which receives them, leaving the meat quite unfit for eating, even if it does, to quote a writer of ‘ Cookery for the People,’ make the water ‘ a foundation for soup— that is, stock’! What could be more wasteful ? If you want ‘stock,’ make it with cheaper material than joints of meat intended for the table. ‘ When meat is eaten,’ says Dr. Bernay in his ‘ Household Chemistry,’ ‘ the albumen should be retained in it, for not only does it 2—2

English and French cookery