The easiest way in housekeeping and cooking

Perfect butter is golden in color, waxy in consistency, and with a sweetness of odor quite indescribable, yet unmistakable to the trained judge of butter. It possesses the property of absorption of odors in a curious degree ; and if shut in a tight closet or a refrigerator with fish, meat, or vegetables of rank or even pronounced smell, exchanges its own delicate aroma for theirs, and reaches us bereft once for all of what is the real charm of perfect butter. For this reason absolute cleanliness and dainti- ness of vessels containing milk or cream, or used in an}' way in the manufacture of butter, is one of the first laws of the dairy. (xAee, the East-Indian form of butter, is simply fresh batter clarified by melting, and is used as a dressing for the meal of rice. Butter, tliough counted as a pure fat, is in reality made up of at least six fatty principles, there 98 THE CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL FOOD. being sixty-eight per cent of margarine and thirt}' per cent of oleine, the remainder being volatile compounds of fatt}^ acids. In the best specimens of butter there is a slight amount of caseine, not over five per cent at most, though in poor there is much more. It is the onlj^ fat which may be constantly eaten without harm to the stomach, though if not perfectly good it becomes an irritant. The Drippings of roasted meat, more especially of beef, rank next in value ; and Lard comes last on the list, its excessive use being a serious evil. Eaten constantly, as in pastry or the New-England doughnut, it is not only indigestible, but becomes the source of forms of scrofulous disease. It is often a convenient substitute for butter, but if it must be used, would better be in connection with the harmless fat. Eggs come last ; and as a young animal is developed from them, it follows that they contain all that is neces- sary for animal life, though in the case of the chicken the shell also is used, all the earthy matter being absorbed. In a hundred parts are found fourteen of nitrogen, ten and a half of fatt}^ matter, one and a half of saline matter, and seventy-four of water. Of this water the largest part is contained in the white, which is almost pure albumen, each particle of albumen being enclosed in very thin- walled cells ; it is the breaking of these cells and the admission of air that enables one to beat the white of egg to a stiff froth. The fat is accumulated in the yolk, often amounting to thirty per cent. Raw and lighth'-boiled eggs are eas}^ of digestion, but hard-boiled ones decidedly not so. An egg loses its freshness within a day or so. The shell is porous ; and the always-feed- ing and destroying oxj'gen of the air quickly gains admis- THE CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL FOOD. 99 sion, causing a gradual decomposition. To preserve them, they must be coated with lard or gum, or packed in either salt or oats, points down. In this way they keep good a long time, and while hardly desirable to eat as boiled eggs, answer for many purposes in cooking. 100 THE CHEMISTRY OF VEGETABLE FOOD. CHAPTER XI. THE CHEMISTRY OF VEGETABLE POOD. WE come now to the vegetable kingdom, the princi- pal points that we are to consider arranging them- selves somewhat as follows : — Farinaceous seeds, Oleaginous seeds, Leguminous seeds, Tubers and roots, Herbaceous articles, Fruits, Saccharine and farinaceous preparations.