History and present status of instruction in cooking in the public schools of New York city

Water in cooking. — Soft water is best for cooking purposes, when the object is to soften hard vegetables or to make soup or stew of meat, and also to extract the flavor of tea and coffee. Water is the greatest solvent. But suppose we want to cook tender green vegeta- bles or onions, if soft or rain water is used all the pretty green color and the flavor will be dissolved out. So for these, use hard spring water or put salt in it to harden it. We proved this by boiling one onion in salt or hard water and another in soft water. The latter was all broken up and had no taste. The first one was perfect in shape and had a delicious sweet flavor. It had lost nothing. Water. — Water is a compound it contains two elements oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen burns with a blue flame, this can be found out by burning sugar. Water is a mineral and contains organic bodies. It contains million of inhabit- ants they live on the organic matter or animal matter, they must be smaller than they are, these are called microbes. If the water is an acid vegetable will appear in the water, if an alkali it will be an animal. We can test this with litmus paper. The acid will turn red and the alkali changes back to blue. Water does not dissolve all substances. It takes one pint of water to dissolve two pounds of sugar and only six ounces of salt to one pint of water. It also dissolves gases. The purest water is rain, sometimes it is not pure, because there is sometimes a disease all over the city and when the first rain falls it collects all the impurities. The blood contains nearly 90 per cent water, vegetables 99 per cent, the body £ per cent, an the earth three-fourths water. We use water for cleaning purposes also for cooking. Springs are produced by the rain first coming down and filtering through the porous material, that water con- !When put into hot water. When put into cold water. When put into salted water. When put into fresh water. 43 tains a great deal of mineral matter, when water contains lime and magnesium it is very hard. Water is sometimes made hard by salt being put in it and allowing it to boil. Water absorbs the heat from the body. Fruits contain a great deal of water. I. M. SYLLABUS OF LESSON ON AIR. I. Ideas and facts to be developed during progress of illustra- tions and experi- ments. Air is first in importance of all that is necessary for life. Water ranks second. Solid food third. How air links our lives with that of plants. Most delicate of all substances (air thermometer the most perfect). Most powerful in motion. Without air we could neither see, hear, touch, taste, nor smell. The part it takes in cooking. II. Physical properties of. Invisible | Inodorous IProve by observation. Colorless J h!,b wewhi::::}prove h? Elements. Compound substances. III. — Chemical Composition. {Experiment : to extract oxygen. Two pupils assisting; class observing, mak- ing drawings of apparatus, and forming written conclusions. Nitrogen, dilut-fExPerirae?t: remo™g fJom a Ja™ ins- element 1 air ; makmS use of property of oxygen dis & ' [ covered in previous experiment. of Carbon dioxid, poisonous element: ments to show how produced. (Respiration. Combustion. Decay. Effervescence. Fermentation. Moisture (variable); prove by experiments. {Combustion. Respiration. Decay. IV. — Discussion.