|
PRACTICAL
SANITARY AND ECONOMIC COOKING
ADAPTED TO
PERSONS OF MODERATE AND SMALL MEANS
BY
MRS. MARY HINMAN ABEL.
THE LOMB PRIZE ESSAY.
Inscription: "The Five Food Principles, Illustrated
by Practical Recipes."
PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
1890.
COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY IRVING A. WATSON, SECRETARY AMERICAN
PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION.
PRINTED BY E. R. ANDREWS, ROCHESTER, N. Y.
> PREFACE.
Perhaps there is no better way of presenting to the public the facts which
led to the creation of this valuable work, than by inserting the
announcement which resulted in the exceedingly lively and able competition
for the prize, as well as the merited honor which was certain to fall upon
the successful competitor. It read as follows:
> AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION.
THE LOMB PRIZE ESSAYS.
Two Prizes for 1888.
Mr. Henry Lomb, of Rochester, N.Y., now well known to the American public
as the originator of the "Lomb Prize Essays," offers, through the American
Public Health Association, two prizes for the current year, on the
following subject:
PRACTICAL SANITARY AND ECONOMIC COOKING
ADAPTED TO PERSONS OF MODERATE
AND SMALL MEANS.
First Prize, $500, - - - Second Prize, $200.
JUDGES: Prof. Charles A. Lindsley, New Haven, Conn.; Prof. George H. Rohé,
Baltimore, Md.; Prof. Victor C. Vaughan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Mrs. Ellen H.
Richards, Boston, Mass.; Miss Emma C.G. Polson, New Haven, Conn.
CONDITIONS: The arrangement of the essay will be left to the discretion of
the author. They are, however,
View page [iii]
expected to cover, in the broadest and most specific manner, methods of
cooking as well as carefully prepared receipts, for three classes,--(1)
those of moderate means; (2) those of small means; (3) those who may be
called poor. For each of these classes, receipts for three meals a day for
several days in succession should be given, each meal to meet the
requirements of the body, and to vary as much as possible from day to day.
Formulas for at least twelve dinners, to be carried to the place of work,
and mostly eaten cold, to be given. Healthfulness, practical arrangement,
low cost, and palatableness should be combined considerations. The object
of this work is for the information of the housewife, to whose
requirements the average cook-book is ill adapted, as well as to bring to
her attention healthful and economic methods and receipts.
All essays written for the above prizes must be in the hands of the
Secretary, Dr. Irving A. Watson, Concord, N.H., on or before September 15,
1888. Each essay must bear a motto, and have accompanying it a securely
sealed envelope containing the author's name and address, with the same
motto upon the outside of the envelope.
After the prize essays have been determined upon, the envelopes bearing
the mottoes corresponding to the prize essays will be opened, and the
awards made to the persons whose names are found within them. The
remaining envelopes, unless the corresponding essays are reclaimed by
authors or their representatives within thirty days after publication of
the awrads, will be destroyed, unopened, by the Secretary.
None of the judges will be allowed to compete for a prize.
The judges will announce the awards at the Annual Meeting of the American
Public Health Association, 1888.
It is intended that the above essays shall be essentially American in
their character and application, and
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this will be considered by the judges as an especial merit.
Competition is open to authors of any nationality, but all the papers must
be in the English language.
IRVING A. WATSON,
Secretary.
CONCORD, N. H., February, 1888.
The above circular was extensively circulated and published throughout the
United States and the Dominion of Canada, with the result of bringing to
the Secretary, within the specified time, seventy essays upon the subject
announced. The arrival of these essays covered a period of nearly five
months, and they were forwarded to the Chairman of the Committee of Award
nearly as fast as received, thus giving the committee ample time for their
exceedingly laborious work of examination. The decision of the judges was
announced at the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the American Public Health
Association, and was as follows:
> REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON THE LOMB PRIZES.
Your committee, to whom were referred the essays upon "Practical Sanitary
and Economic Cooking Adapted for Persons of Moderate and Small Means,"
respectfully report that they have perused with thoughtful and considerate
attention the three score and ten essays which were submitted to them.
A few of them were presented in beautiful specimens of type-writing, but
the great majority of them were in manuscript, and some of them not in the
most legible characters, a circumstance which, it will be appreciated,
became an important matter, when considered in connection with the large
number of competitors, and the fact that many of their papers were each of
several hundred pages in length.
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The result of the labors of the committee is, that by unanimous approval,
the first prize of $500 is awarded to the author of the essay bearing this
inscription,-"The Five Food Priciples, illustrated by Practical Recipes."
Your committee would further report that although there were among the
remaining sixty-nine a number of essays of considerable merit, there was
no single one so prominently superior to others as to commend the approval
of the majority of your committee, nor was there any which did not contain
some errors of statement, which your committee did not feel justified in
endorsing with the approval of this Association by the bestowal of a
prize, or else which did not fall to meet some of the conditions upon
which the prize was offered, or which was not otherwise objectionable
because of literary defects.
Your committee would therefore respectfully report that no essay was found
among those submitted to them which they judged deserving of the second
prize of $200.
The committee consider it a duty, in awarding the prize, to emphasize the
fact that of all the essays submitted the one selected is not only
predominantly the best, but that it is also intrinsically an admirable
treatise on the subject.
It is simple and lucid in statement, methodical in arrangement, and well
adapted to the practical wants of the classes to which it is addressed.
Whoever may read it can have confidence in the soundness of its teachings,
and cannot fail to be instructed in the art of cooking by its plain
precepts, founded as they are upon the correct application of the
scientific principles of chemistry and physiology to the proper
preparation of food for man.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
C. A. LINDSLEY.
GEORGE H. ROHÉ.
V. C. VAUGHAN.
ELLEN H. RICHARDS.
EMMA C. G. POLSON.
View page [vi]
The American public is to be congratulated upon this useful and valuable
contribution to the needs of its great army of working people, made
possible through the humanitarian benevolence of a private citizen. This
was the fifth prize offered by the same citizen, through the same channel,
for the noble purpose of ameliorating, in some degree, the hardships which
befall mankind in the tireless struggle for existence.
That this essay may be placed in the hands of every family in the country,
is his earnest desire as well as that of the Association; therefore a
price barely covering the cost has been placed upon this volume. It is to
be hoped, that Government departments, state and local boards of health,
sanitary and benevolent associations, manufacturers, employers, etc., will
purchase editions at cost, or otherwise aid in distributing this work
among the people.
Although a copyright has been placed upon these essays for legitimate
protection, permission to publish under certain conditions, can be
obtained by addressing the secretary.
We commend this volume to the public, believing it to be an unequaled work
upon "Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking, adapted to persons of
moderate and small means."
Irving A. Watson
Secretary American Public Health Association.
View page [vii]
> TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION,................................... 1
THE KITCHEN,............................................ 18
I. PROTEID-CONTAINING FOODS (Animal Sort), AND THEIR PREPARATION,...... 22
Methods of Cooking Meat,......................... 32
Soup Making,................................... 33, 39
Boiling Meat,.................................. 34, 40
Frying in Fat,................................. 34, 40
Baking Meat,................................... 35, 41
Broiling Meat,................................. 36, 42
Use of Thermometer,.............................. 43
Heat Saver,...................................... 44
To Make Heat Tender,............................. 45
Recipes for Cooking Meat,........................ 46
Beef,............................................ 46
Veal,............................................ 50
Mutton and Lamb,................................. 51
Pork,............................................ 52
Fish and Fish Soups,............................. 55
Fowl and Fowl Soups,............................. 57
Eggs and Egg Dishes,............................. 58
Cheese and Cheese Dishes,........................ 61
Care and Use of Milk,............................ 63
Sour Milk,....................................... 64
II. FATS AND OILS,..................................... 66
Uses of Fats,..................................... 71
Meat and Vegetables Sauces,....................... 72
III. THE CARBOHYDRATE--CONTAINING FOODS AND THEIR PREPARATION,.... 75
Grains,........................................... 79
Sugars,........................................... 80
Legumes,.......................................... 81
Potatoes and other Vegetables,.................... 82
Fruits,........................................... 83
The Cooking of Grains,............................ 85
Grains Cooked Whole,.............................. 85
Cooking of Grits,................................. 86
Corn Flour,....................................... 87
Graham Flour,..................................... 88
Fine Wheat Flour,................................. 89
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Macaroni and Noodles,............................. 89
Flour Raised with Fat,............................ 91
Flour Raised with Egg,............................ 93
Egg Pancakes, &c.............................. 92
Flour Raised with Carbonic Acid Gas,.............. 93
(a) Yeast Raised,
White Bread,...................................... 94
Rye and Corn Bread,............................... 97
Biscuits, Rolls, &c........................... 97
Yeast Pancakes,................................... 99
Buckwheat Flour,.................................. 100
(b) Raised with Soda,
Methods,.......................................... 101
Soda Biscuits,.................................... 102
Uses of Biscuits Dough, &c.................... 102
Soda Corn Breads,................................. 103
Soda Pancakes, without Eggs,...................... 103
Soda Pancakes, with Eggs,......................... 104
Uses for Bread,................................... 105
Simple Sweet Dishes,.............................. 107
Milk Puddings,.................................... 107
Fruit Puddings, with Biscuit Dough,............... 108
Fruit Puddings, with Bread,....................... 109
Custard Puddings,................................. 110
Bread and Custard Puddings,....................... 110
Suet Puddings,.................................... 112
Pudding Sauce,.................................... 112
Fritters,......................................... 113
Cooking of Vegetables,............................ 115
Soups, without Meat,.............................. 117
Vegetable Soups,.................................. 117
Flour and Bread Soups,............................ 121
Milk Soups or Porridges,.......................... 122
Fruit Soups,...................................... 124
Additions to Soups,............................... 126
Dumplings for Soups and Stews,.................... 127
Flavors and Seasoning,............................ 130
Drinks,........................................... 133
COOKERY FOR THE SICK,................................... 137
TWELVE BILLS OF FARE- Explanation,...................... 142
Class I. (with letter of advice to mother of the family), 143
Class II........................................... 163
Class III.......................................... 164
TWELVE COLD DINNERS,..................................... 176
View page [introduction]
> INTRODUCTION.
Few things are of more importance than that we should find ourselves
physically and mentally equal to our day's work, but not many of us
realize how largely this depends upon the food we eat.
Supposing there to be just money enough in a given family to buy the right
kind and quantity of food. Now if this money is not wisely expended, or if
after the food has been bought it is spoiled in the cooking, the results
will be very serious for the members of that family; they will be
under-nourished and they will suffer in clear-headedness, bodily strength,
and in the case of children, in bodily development.
Surely the right condition of the body is too important to be left to
chance; the best scientific knowledge, the best practical heads should be
at its service, and this is the case, indeed, to a large extent in Europe,
where the food of the soldiers and of the inmates of public institutions
is furnished more or less according to certain rules that have been
deduced partly from observation, and partly from scientific experiment.
The application of scientific principles on these lines is not of long
standing, for the investigations that have clinched them are all of
comparatively recent date. At
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the end of the last century a beginning was made in France and in Germany
in connection with philanthropic efforts to improve the food of the poor,
and it was at this time that Count Rumford introduced into the soup
kitchens of Munich, the soup that has been named after him. From this time
on interest in the subject of foods, both for men and domestic animals,
steadily increased, although experimenters were constantly coming to wrong
conclusions because the sciences of Organic Chemistry and Physiology, as
far as they concerned the subject, were not far enough advanced.
It was only in the early forties that the first experimental agricultural
stations were established, but so rapidly have they multiplied that they
now number more than a hundred in Europe alone; and in these and in the
laboratories of the great universities, analyses have been made of most of
the foods used by men and animals, and also tests of the relative flesh
and fat producing power of different foods and combinations of foods.
For years the results of these investigations have been applied with
profit to the feeding of cattle, but it was a case of threatened wholesale
starvation in England that first turned the attention of properly trained
persons to a like study of the nourishment of human beings. During our
civil war the condition of the cotton spinners in Lancashire and Cheshire,
England, became so serious as to make governement help necessary to keep
them from starving, and in 1862 and 1863 Dr. Edward Smith was commissioned
to examine into the the dietetic needs of the distressed operatives.
View page [3]
In his report for 1863 are found tables of the food consumed per week by
634 families, and in spite of the difficulties standing in the way of such
an investigation, the foods consumed were classified into tables showing
the amounts of the different food principles taken per week by each
family.
One of the great practical results following from this investigation was
the determination of the minimum amount of each nutritive principle which
men, women and children need, to keep them in fair health. The amount of
food with which an unemployed man can fight off starvation, and the
diseases temporarily incident to it, was found to be represented in 35
ounces of good bread per day, and the necessary amount of wholesome water.
Since the publication of Dr. Smith's report similar inquiries have been
instituted by the scientists of other countries, and many analyses have
been made of the exact amount and kinds of food eaten by various classes
of laborers under the most varied conditions. Professors Voit and
Pettenkofer of Munich have even accounted for every particle of food that
passed through the body of a man, both while he was at work and while he
was idle. They have also noted how much of his own body was consumed when
he ate nothing. Finally, a great number of averages have been taken and
so-called "standard dietaries" constructed, by which is meant the average
amount of each of the chief food principles that keep an average
muscle-worker in good condition, when doing average work.
Every one will admit that it is of great importance
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for the farmer to know in what proportion he shall lay in hay and other
food for the winter feeding of his stock; the animals must thrive, but
there must be no waste by furnishing food in the wrong quantities or
proportions.
For the housewife, the food question in its relation to her family can be
stated in the very same words. It is important that she should economize,
but her path will be full of pitfalls if she does not understand in what
true economy consists. Most people with a real interest in this subject,
have had at some period of their lives certain pet theories as to food.
Perhaps they have been at one time convinced that most people ate too
much, at another, that meat was the all strengthener, or they may have
been afflicted with the vegetarian fad, and whatever their special views
have been they have thought that they rested them upon facts. But surely
they would never have pinned their faith to one-sided diets if they had
rightly comprehended the main facts of nutrition. We believe that if these
facts as at present interpreted, and the world's experience in applying
them, can be put at the command of the housewife, she can use them to
great profit.
We have employed the term "food principles"; what do we mean by it?
Everyone knows what is meant by a food, as meat or bread, and everyone
knows that the food offered us by our butchers and grocers comes from the
animal and vegetable kingdoms. The oxygen we breathe and the water we
drink nature furnishes for us directly, so to speak, though unfortunately
for many of us, and especially
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for young children, the former is not thought of as a food. Oxygen aside,
it has been found by those who have studied the matter, that all foods
contain one or more of five classes of constituents, called "nutritive
ingredients" or "food principles." These five principles are:
(1) Water.
(2) Proteids.
(3) Fats.
(4) Carbohydrates.
(5) Salts or mineral constituents.
> WATER.
It is important to note that our bodies when full-grown are two-thirds
water, and that our food contains from 1 to 94% of it. Considering the
scope of this essay, it must be left to take care of itself as a food.
> PROTEIDS.
A class of nearly allied bodies is included under this head. The whole
class is sometimes called "Albumens."
The housewife is familiar with proteids in such foods as the lean of meat,
in eggs and cheese. These contain the principle in various proportions;
for example,
Lean of meat has
.....
15-21%
Eggs in both white and yolk
.....
12.5%
Fresh cows' milk on an average
.....
3.4%
Cheese
.....
25-30%
Dried Codfish
.....
30%
View page [6]
Vegetables are more deficient in proteids though the grains and legumes
contain much of it.
Wheat flour has
.....
10-12%
Peas, beans and Lentils have
.....
22.85-27.7%
In fresh vegetables we find only from 1/2 to 3%, excepting green peas and
beans in which the proteids reach 5 to 6.5%.
> FATS.
Fats are obtained from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Those used
by us in cookery come mostly from animals, and are known to the housewife
as butter, lard and tallow. Vegetable food as a rule, is very poor in
fats, containing from 0 to 3% only.
Some of the cereals, like corn and oats contain from 4 to 7% of fats.
> CARBOHYDRATES.
The bodies classed as "carbohydrates" are found mainly in vegetables. The
housekeeper knows them as starches and sugars.
Under the starches proper are included such things as the starches of
grains and seeds, Iceland moss, gums, and dextrin.
Milk is one of the few animal products that has more than a very small
quantity of carbohydrates. It contains on the average about 4.8% of this
principle;--slightly more than of either proteids or fats.
> SALTS.
The things that give hardness to our bones, like
View page [7]
calcium phosphate, and the common salt with which we flavor our food,
illustrate this class.
> FUNCTIONS OF FOOD PRINCIPLES.
To know in what proportion these food principles should be represented in
our diet, we must inquire into the part played by each of them in the
body. The first and the last principle may be dismissed briefly. The
former, water, is the great medium which floats things through the body;
the latter, salts, are combined in various ways with the solids and fluids
of our foods, and we shall not easily suffer from lack of them.
The other three food principles (let us call them in the following pages
the three great food principles), cannot be so summarily dealt with. We
might say, briefly and dogmatically, that the proteids are "flesh foods,"
the fats are "heat foods," the carbohydrates "work foods." To be sure,
experimenters are agreed on the main points, but the different schools are
still at war on the final explanations and on many details, and it has
become more and more evident that we cannot portion off the work of the
body in this simple style. Though each of the three great food principles
can be said to have a favorite part which it plays better than any other,
yet we find that like an actor of varied talents, it has more than one
role in its repertoire.
> FUNCTION OF PROTEIDS.
That this class is indispensable we have the best of proofs. It must be
given us in one or another of its
View page [8]
forms, for, even if we are not athletes, nearly one half of our body is
made up of muscle which is one fifth proteid, and the nitrogen in this
proteid can only be furnished by proteid again, since neither fats nor
carbohydrates contain any of it; therefore in making up bills of fare, let
us remember that growing and working proteid, yes, even idle proteid as
Dr. Smith found, needs proteid, and that there is nothing in any of the
other food principles that can entirely take its place.
Though we think of proteid mostly as a great body builder and restorer, it
can also to some extent furnish fat when it stands in a certain relation
to the fats and carbohydrates of our food, and we are assured by
experimenters that it also furnishes heat and muscle energy under certain
conditions.
In these last two activities, however, it is far excelled by fats and
carbohydrates. We shall therefore think of it as the nitrogen-furnisher of
our tissues, and also as the grand stimulant among foods, inciting the
body, as it does, to burn up more of other kinds.
Scientists, at one time, held the opinion that our muscle energy comes
chiefly from proteids. This view has been abandoned, but many a working
man still believes that meat is the only kind of food that is of any
account; he thinks of fats and starches as quite unimportant
comparatively. Now it has been proved over and over again, that we can
combine meat with fats and vegetable food in such a proportion that it
shall play only its main róle, viz., that of building and restoring, while
these latter furnish the heat and
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muscle energy needed. Proteid food is such a costly article that it will
not do to put it at work which cheaper material can do even better.
> FUNCTION OF FATS.
The fats also have more than one office in the body. They can be stored as
body fat, or they can be burned and give off heat, and they may also serve
as a source of muscular energy, in an indirect manner at least.
> FUNCTION OF CARBOHYDRATES.
The Carbohydrate principle furnishes fat to our tissues, and is a source
of heat and muscle energy, indeed the chief source of muscle energy in all
ordinary diets.
> FLAVORINGS.
So far we have had chiefly in mind the real working constituents of food,
if we may so speak. But many things cannot be studied or classified in the
above way; they must be looked at from another point of view.
Thus, a pinch of pepper, a cup of coffee, a fine, juicy strawberry,--what
of these? They may contain all five of the food principles, but who cares
of the proteid action or carbohydrate effect of his cup of good coffee at
breakfast, or what interest for us has the heating effect of the volatile
oil to which the strawberry owes a part of its delicious taste?
Surely the economical housekeeper who would throw out of the list of
necessaries all the things that tickle the palate, that rouse the sense of
smell, that
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please the eye and stimulate our tired nerves, just because these things
contain but little food, would make a grave mistake. She may know just
what cuts of meat to buy, what vegetables are most healthful and
economical, but if she does not understand how to "make the mouth water,"
her labor is largely lost. Especially if she has but little money, should
she pay great attention to this subject, for it is the only way to induce
the body to take up plain food with relish.
The list of these spices, flavors, harmless drinks and the like, is a long
one. Unfortunately, we have no comprehensive word that will include
everything of the sort, from a sprig of parsley to a cup of coffee; the
Germans calls them "Genuss-mittel"--"pleasure-giving things."
> PROPORTIONS AND AMOUNTS OF FOOD PRINCIPLES.
We have brought our discussion of the three great food principles to the
point where we can enquire in what proportions and amounts these should be
represented in our diet.
The standard daily dietary that is most frequently cited, and which,
perhaps, best represents the food consumption of the average European
workman in towns, is that proposed by Prof. Voit. This dietary was made
upon the basis of a large number of observed cases. It demands for a man
of average size, engaged in average manual labor,
Proteids.*
Fats.
Carbohydrates.
118 gms.
56 gms.
500 gms.
[Editorial note: The following note appears on the bottom of page fourteen
in the original text.]
*28.84 grams. = 1 oz.
Now it is the opinion of all competent judges, that
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at least one third of this proteid should come from the animal kingdom,
and this one third, if given in the form of fresh beef, would be
represented by 230 grams of butcher's meat, calculated to consist of
Bone and tendon,
.....
18
gms.
Fat,
.....
21
"
Lean,
.....
191
"
When we take whole populations into account, we find that little, if any,
more meat than this falls to each person per day. Thus the average
consumption per day for three great cities is given as follows;
Berlin,
.....
135
gms per cap.
New York,
.....
226
" " "
London,
.....
274
" " "
Of course these averages include children, but they also include great
numbers of the well-to-do, who eat much more meat than their bodies need.
We will add a few more examples of dietaries, some of which are used by
the writer in making out the bills of fare given in this essay.
Proteids, gms.
Fats, gms.
Carbohydrates, gms.
145
100
450
Proposed by Prof. Voit for a man at hard work.
120
56
500
Allowed to German soldiers in garrison.
150
150
500
Proposed by Prof. Atwater for American at hard work.
125
125
450
By the same for American at moderate work.
100
60
400
Proposed by Prof. Voit for a woman.
80
50
320
By the same for children from 7 to 15 years.
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We will give an instance of how much below these figures the amount
consumed sometimes falls.
Prof. Boehm found that a poor North German family, consisting of a man,
wife, and a child five years old, had in one week for their food:
Potatoes,
.....
41 lbs.
Rye flour,
.....
2 1/2 lbs.
Meat,
.....
1 3/4 lbs.
Rice,
.....
1/2 lb.
Rye Bread,
.....
12 lbs.
A very little milk.
Calculating the food principles contained in these amounts, we find that
the three individuals daily consumed of:
Proteids,
Fats,
Carbohydrates,
175.5 gms.
41 gms.
1251 gms.
It needs no comment to show how insufficient is this dietary in amount,
and how incorrect in proportion.
We have selected Prof. Atwater's dietary for a man at moderate manual
labor as the basis of our twelve bills of fare and have taken Voit's
standard for women and children.
Our climate is more trying and our people work faster, and we shall do
well to allow more fat and meat to our working-man than the foreign
dietaries provide. If our man is to get daily one-third of his proteid in
the form of animal food, this would be represented by 8 ozs. of butcher's
meat (without bone), by from 5 to 5.8 ozs. cheese, or by 8 eggs.
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We believe that it is better to go a little high rather than too low with
proteid food. As a rule, people who eat enough proteids, and especially
enough animal food, are vigorous and have what we call "stamina," and
doctors incline to the belief that such people resist disease better
because their blood and tissue are less watery than in the case of people
who draw their proteids almost entirely from such vegetables as potatoes.
But many workingmen in America would be surprised to learn how well health
and strength can be maintained on what is, after all, not such a very
large amount of meat, provided the rest of the dietary contains enough
vegetable proteid and fat.
> PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.
It now remains for us to see whether the economist can get practical help
from the foregoing facts about the character of foods and the use that is
made of them in the body.
We have seen that we cannot economize in the amount of our food beyond
certain limits and yet remain healthy and strong; also that we must not
greatly alter the relative proportions in which experience has shown that
these foods are best combined. The true field of household economy has,
then, certain prescribed limits.
Its scope lies, 1st. In furnishing a certain food principle in its cheap
rather than its dear form; for example, the proteid of beef instead of
that of chicken, fat of meat instead of butter. 2nd. Having bought foods
wisely, in cooking them in such a manner as to bring out their full
nutritive value; for
View page [14]
instance, making a roast juicy and delicious instead of dry and tasteless.
3d. In learning how to use every scrap of food to advantage, as in soup
making, and 4th, if we add to these the art of so flavoring and varying as
to make simple materials relish, we have covered the whole field of the
household economist, so far as the food question is concerned.
We hope she will find help in the following pages, for it will be part of
our task in this essay to examine different articles of food as to their
nutritive value, and to recommend such combinations and such methods of
cooking as will make the utmost out of a certain sum of money. As to
foods, we have in America a large range of choice; staple raw products
cost less generally than they do in Europe and the laboring man here has
somewhat more money to buy with. The anxious provider, who must feed many
mouths on what seems an insufficient sum, may feel assured that he can,
without doubt, learn to do better than he now does. In this line we must
not disdain to learn lessons wherever we can.
There is an unfortunate prejudice among us against learning of foreign
countries. The American workman says indignantly that he does not want to
learn how to live on "starvation wages." But the facts, viewed coolly, are
just these: the inhabitants of older countries have learned some lessons
that we too must soon learn whether we will or no, and to profit by these
lessons before we are really obliged to, will in no way lower wages, it
will simply help us to get more comfort and pleasure out of our money.
Students of economy, political and domestic, find
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no better school than the experience of older countries, and constantly
draw lessons from their greater thrift and economy in living. Mrs. Helen
Campbell found, among the poor sewing women of New York, that none were
skillful in cooking their scanty food excepting only the German and Swiss
women. All observing travelers unanimously give this testimony,--"If our
American workman knew how to make as much of his large wage as the
foreigner does of his small one, he could live in luxury."
But you ask, what are the special lessons to be learned of the foreign
housewife? We answer, chiefly self-denial and saving. Do not give up in
despair because you have a small income and resign yourself to living
meanly, in a hand to mouth fashion. Diligent study of the question and
resolute abstention from luxuries will solve the problem, if it can be
solved.
We indulge ourselves and our children too much in what tastes good, while
all the time we know we have not money enough to buy necessaries. For
instance, the consumption of sugar in America was in 1887, 56 lbs. per
head, in Germany hardly more than one third that amount. This means a
larger consumption of sweetmeats than we can afford and at the same time
be well fed otherwise.
We seem, in general, to spend too much money in our country on food
compared with what we use in other directions; one great trouble is that
we do not know how to save every scrap of food and use it again in some
form. For one thing, we have yet to learn the great art of soup
making,--and it seems also, of soup eating.
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The American housekeeper would say to me: "This is nothing new, for years
we've been hearing about soups. We don't like soups!" I only ask, "have
you tried them for a considerable length of time, so that you have become
skilled in making them, and your family used to their taste?" One fact
alone ought to insure for them a good trial; that at least three nations,
the French, German and Italian, make daily use of them and have for
generations. To take part of our food in this form is an absolute
necessity if we are to do the best possible with a certain amount of
money.
> PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES.
The practical difficulties in the way of improvement in household cookery
are not small. As cook, we have the wife and mother, who has too little
time for this very important branch of household work; she has had,
perhaps, no good training in the art of cookery (for it is an art), and
besides, her kitchen and kitchen utensils are not at all what they should
be. Indeed, the qualifications for a given task could not well be further
from the ideal.
In Europe families of small means have many helps unknown to us. In the
first place, bread is never baked at home, the bakers' bread being both
excellent and cheap. It would seem that among us, bakers' bread must
shortly improve in quality and decrease in price; either the profits must
be too large, or the business not well managed. For instance, in those
parts of Germany where white bread is eaten as a staple, it costs a trifle
over 3
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cents a pound, while flour of average quality costs about the same. In
contrast with this, compare the prices of bread and flour in our own
country where in no large city is bread quoted at less than 7 cents, while
flour costs 3 cents. That is, bread costs in Germany about the same as
flour and in America more than twice as much; and yet the German baker is
notably a prosperous person!
The foreign housekeeper has still further help from the baker. If she
makes a cake or pie, she sends it out to be baked, and pays from one to
two cents (the fuel would have cost more); joints of meat and mixed dishes
are also sent to be baked for the same price; and before any bakeshop in a
German city, at noon on Sunday, can be seen a line of servant girls, each
in turn receiving a steaming dish as it is taken from the oven. The soup
kitchens (Volks Kûchen) of various grades are also a great help. The
writer has repeatedly had brought from one of them an excellent meat broth
(1 pt. for 2 cents), and good cooked vegetables are furnished for a price
less than they could be cooked for at home, if one took any account of
time and fire.
But such helps are not yet to any great extent available to the American
woman; she must wrestle with her own problem at home and solve it as best
she can.
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> THE KITCHEN.
The kitchen of a woman of average means is not the ideal kitchen. It is
perhaps too small or not light enough, or it may have still more serious
defects, as a bad drain. We must take it as it is, however, requiring only
that it contain what is necessary to the end we have in view,--plain
cooking for a family of six.
> Size of Kitchen.
In the cheaper city dwellings the kitchen is small, too small for good
ventilation, and for the heavier kinds of work as washing; but for
cooking, a very small kitchen can be so arranged as to answer every
purpose.
Any one who has seen a ship's kitchen can understand this. The cook as he
stands before his range is within reach of all his stores, for rows of
drawers and shelves literally line the walls from floor to ceiling, little
tables for pastry or cake making are drawn out of the wall and pushed in
again when not wanted, and every inch of floor and wall space is used to
the best advantage. This cook would tell you that he did not want a larger
kitchen; he would only lose time running about in it.
> Arrangement.
Begin to utilize the wall space. If you have not yet as many shelves as
the walls will accommodate, put up more, and especially
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about and above the stove, so that as you stand at your cooking you can
reach salt, pepper and every other flavor that can be used in a soup or
stew; cooking spoons and forks and knives, potlids and holders--all these
should be at your hand. Let a carpenter fasten into the mortared wall
strips of wood that will hold nails and a few shelves, and if the stove is
in a niche with wall on two or even three sides of it, all the better. On
these nails should hang nearly every implement used in cooking, and on the
shelves should be found all spices and flavors; farther back can be placed
what is more seldom used. If there are no drawers, never mind, use close
tin boxes for as many things as you can; if no closed cupboard for your
dishes, hang a curtain before the open shelves.
The nearer your sink is to the stove the better, that is the path your
feet must oftenest travel. There must be a table of some sort very near
the stove; if it is a movable one, all the better, or it may be a broad
shelf with a very strong and safe hinged support under it, letting down
when not in use.
I take for granted that the main part of your work is to be done on this
stove and table, and that a well stocked pantry, fitted out for the making
of pastry and cake and elaborate dishes, is not within your reach any more
than the time for making such.
> Utensils.
The utensils you need are few, but these few you must have. Consider the
value of the food materials that you use; a few burns on an old sauce pan
will quite buy a new one. We will speak only of the most important and
absolutely necessary utensils.
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First, do not use tin; it is cheap, but coal is not, and you will waste a
great deal of coal in trying to cook in tin. Brass and copper cooking
vessels are to be avoided by one who must economize, as they are expensive
and require too much care to keep them free from the poisonous verdigris.
Of chief importance among your utensils is a flat bottomed iron pot with
close fitting iron lid. Get the smoothest and best, even if it cost
double. In this you will roast meat with little fire, cook vegetables, all
but peas and beans, cook anything indeed that is not acid. Have two of
these, if you can, of different sizes. Next, an iron frying pan, also of
the smoothest wrought iron and light; this too should have a close fitting
cover. Some people consider iron utensils heavy and old fashioned, but
where economy is an object, no other ware is so good and satidfactory. The
blue or grey enamelled ware is very nice but will not stand great heat and
easily chips and cracks, but you should have one kettle of this ware as it
is valuable for cooking fruit and anything acid. You must have a wire
gridiron for toasting bread and broiling meat; this you should use for
many things which you now cook in the frying pan. The tea-kettle is a
matter of course, and a griddle. There is one other utensil not as common,
but which deserves to be, viz., a steamer; a simple pot with perforated
bottom which will fit tightly into the top of the iron pot, and have a
very tightly fitting cover. Its use will be discussed later.
You can hardly do without a number of earthen jugs, glazed with lead-free
enamel, especially for
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cooking and holding milk. Get also a number of wooden spoons; they are
cheap and clean, and of convenient shape for stirring. The old fashioned
pudding stick of the Yankee kitchen is the earliest form among us, and
many people know no other.
> Stoves.
A good stove is of first importance in a kitchen, but fortunately good
stoves have become common. A graver question, however, is the cost of fuel
to be burned in them. Of course coal must be the stand-by, and when the
stove is heated up as on ironing and baking days, care can be taken to use
the fire to its fullest capacity; in winter, dishes can be cooked ahead
for several days.
> Coal Oil.
To cook a single dish or for boiling a tea-kettle a coal oil stove is a
saving; it is also invaluable for keeping a pot at a simmering heat,--a
thing very difficult to accomplish on a stove.
> Charcoal.
For the same purpose, and for any steady cooking, and aboveall for
broiling meat, every housekeeper ought to have appliances for burning
charcoal; it only needs a grating with a rim 2 or 3 inches high, to let
down into the stove hole (a sort of deep spider with a grated bottom). For
such purposes, a bushel of hard wood charcoal costing 15 or 20 cents would
last a long time. Charcoal is almost the only fuel used in Paris for
cooking; indeed, throughout France and in Western Germany it is in very
common use.
> "Cooking Safe."
For "Cooking Safe" as a saver of fuel, see page 44.
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> PROTEID-CONTAINING FOODS
AND THEIR PREPARATION.
We have already in the Introduction called attention to the importance of
this food principle. It is well for us to bear in mind that there are
three great classes of Proteids, Albumens proper, Caseins, and and
Fibrins, and that in both plants and animals are found representatives of
these three classes. Thus, in plant juices and in eggs we have things
belonging to the Albumen class; in the curd of sour milk and in the
legumine of the pod-covered plants we have examples of caseins; and in the
gluten of grains and in the clot whipped out of blood we have examples of
fibrins.
> ANIMAL FOODS.
Our animal foods contain some other things that the housewife ranks with
proteids and we have a few words to say about one of them, viz., gelatine,
that nitrogenous substance boiled out of bones and cartilage.
> Gelatine, Hist. of
In the history of foods this gelatine, like meat extract, has played a
great part. Before the real functions of the food principles were
understood it was thought that what could be extracted by water from a
piece of meat comprised all in it that was of value to the body; and so it
happened
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that for more than a hundred years after Papin had discovered the method
of extracting all the gelatine out of bones (which he did by the aid of
that contrivance still known in kitchens as the "Papin Soup Digester")
gelatine was considered to be one of the most, if not the most nourishing
constituent of meats. In the last decade of the 18th century, and in the
early part of this the French made great use of gelatine under the
impression that it was a proteid because it yielded nitrogen to the
chemist. Improved methods of extracting it were invented, and so general
did its use become, especially in the public institutions of Paris, that
from 1829-38, two and three quarters million portions of bone-gelatine
soup were dealt out to the inmates of a single hospital. But in spite of
the opinions of eminent scientists that gelatine soups and gelatine
tablets were a perfect subtitute for proteids, their consumption
decreased; physicians again took hold of the subject, and by the middle of
the century opinion had so changed that nearly all, if not all, food value
was denied to them. Modern experimentation based on more rational methods
has put gelatine in its right place. It is a food, just as much so as is
fat, but like fat it cannot play rôle of proteid although a certain amount
taken with fats and carbohydrates will enable the body to get along with a
little less proteid. It is even said by Prof. Voit to excel fat in its
ability to do half duty for proteid material.
We have thought it well to speak of this because of a sort of
superstitious regard in the kitchen for "stock," a survival, one would
think of Papin's time.
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A good German housewife was wont to discourse to the writer on the
economical virtues of a certain "Frau Doctor" who "always boiled her bones
three times" and dwellers in many a household have had their nostrils
assailed by the smell of glue, during the sixth hour of bone boiling.
But if the importance of gelatine was and is still exaggerated, this is
still more true of the other parts of meat that can be extracted by water.
> Sol. Albumen and Extractives.
We have seen that hot water coagulates proteid, and once coagulated, it
will not dissolve in water, and for this reason the soup generally
contains of this valuable principle only the soluble albumen which rose as
scum. If the cook has skimmed this off, the soup which she calls strong is
strong with flavors rather than with nutritive priciples.
To show how very little real food a good tasting meat soup may contain, we
will give an analysis made by Prof. König.
> Analysis of Soup.
He took 1 lb. of beef and about 6 1/2 oz. of veal bones, and treated them,
he says, as is usually done in the kitchen to get a pint of good strong
soup or bouillon. This contained
Proteids,
Fat,
Extractives,
Salts.
1.19%
1.48%
1.83%
.32%
But where are the albumens that were in the meat to begin with? Many of
them are still there in that stringy, sodden mass, the "soup meat," which
the cook tells us contains no further value. It consists of cooked
connective tissue and albumen; now these
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are foods and they must be rescued from the garbage barrel, for with the
help of the chopping knife and the herb bag we can make them still do
proteid duty in our bodies.
> Real importance of Soup.
If we do not overvalue either the gelatine or the flavoring matters in our
meat soups, nor throw away the meat out of which they are made, we shall
begin to make soups on the right basis, that is an understanding of the
real value of the materials we are working with, and we shall use meat for
our soups less often than we now do perhaps, considering its high price
and our greater need of it cooked in other ways. Soups should not be
regarded as a luxury, neither as the last resort of poverty, but as a
necessary part of a dinner, just as they are now used by all classes in
Europe; but they need not be made of good cuts of meat, nor indeed, of
meat at all.
> Proteid as we buy it.
We will now direct our attention to the proteid as we buy it.
We cannot here take up the chemical composition and exact nutritive value
of every kind of meat to be bought at the butcher's stall, the fish market
and the poultry stand. But we must note a few points of importance.
> Butchers' meat. Prof. König's Analyses of Meat.
We know that butchers' meat contains from 50% to 78% of water, according
to the quality of the piece and the kind of animal. Most people in buying
meat think first of the red part; they may know that it is advantageous to
buy meat that is streaked with fat, but they hardly realize how wise it is
to do so. As a rule, fat takes the place of water. Let us consult tables
of analyses for the
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amounts of water, proteids and nitrogenous extractives, fats and salts
contained in lean pieces and in pieces streaked with fat. In Prof. König's
valuable treatise on Foods we find such analyses, carefully collected and
sifted out of a large amount of material; samples of neck, tenderloin,
shoulder, hind-quarter and so on, just as bought at the butchers', were
analyzed after being freed from adherent lump fat, and the average
composition of all the different cuts was as follows:--
Fat and lean ox compared.
Water
Nitrogenous Substances
Fat
%
%
%
From a very fat ox ..........
55.42
17.19
26.38
From a medium fat ox.........
72.25
20.91
5.19
From a lean ox...............
76.71
20.78
1.50
These tables illustrate how wise it is to buy meat from a very fat animal.
They show that a pound of meat from a fat ox may have more than 20% less
water than a corresponding piece from a lean one; of course such a piece
may contain from 3 to 4% less proteid, but to compensate for this, it will
have 25% more fat.
Let us give another table which illustrates that pieces like tenderloin
are not the richest in proteids and fats, though they do have the finest
flavor. It may help to console those whose purses do not allow them to buy
these expensive cuts.
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Dif. part of ox compared
Water
Nitrogeneous Substances
Fat
%
%
%
Neck...................
73.5
19.5
5.8
Shoulder...............
50.5
14.5
34
Tenderloin.............
63.4
18.8
16.7
Hind-Quarter...........
55.05
20.81
23.32
In this case the difference between shoulder and tenderloin as to the
amount of water contained in each is striking. In the case of medium fat
and lean animals, poor and good pieces approach each other more nearly in
composition.
We regret that the scope of this essay will not allow us to give drawings
and full illustrations of the different parts of an animal, with advice in
detail as to what to buy. We are glad to mention in this connection a
former prize essay--"Healthy Homes and Foods for the Working
Classes"--which gives much information needed by the housekeeper as to the
qualities and comparative value of the meat from different animals, of
milk and milk products.
> Some meats compared.
Of butchers' meat beef must always be considered the most economical, its
choice being governed by facts just stated. Fat mutton also ranks high.
> Pork.
Pork. Say what we may against pork, it is a most valuable kind of meat,
especially for the poor man, and the laws governing its slaughter and sale
should be so stringent as to protect him. The great importance of salt
pork and bacon we have considered under "Fats."
It is of little use to give rules about buying this meat; we must
generally take what the butcher furnishes,
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but at least we can cook it well, never eating it raw even when well dried
and smoked.
> Fish.
Fish. From the standpoint of the economist fish is worthy of especial
mention; nature does the feeding, we have only to pay for the catching. In
the season when it is best and cheapest, fresh fish should be used freely.
We have only to remind the housewife that she loses 1/3 to 1/4 of the
weight of a fish in bones and head.
> Salted and smoked fish.
Salted and smoked fish is of great importance as food, and not alone for
people living on the sea-coast. Salted cod contains, according to König's
tables, 30% of Proteids, and this fact, together with its low price, fully
justifies its popularity with all economical people.
Other salted and preserved fish, as for instance, the herring, give
variety in the diet of many a poor family.
> LIVER, HEART, ETC.
> Internal Organs.
Of the internal organs of animals generally considered eatable, we really
appreciate only the liver. The lungs, brains, kidneys, heart, and the
stomach prepared as tripe, are good food and they are often sold very
cheap in country towns. The head of most animals, as of the calf, is
excellent for soups and other dishes, and in the country it is often given
away.
> EGGS.
> Eggs compared with meats as a food.
To get an idea of the comparative value of eggs as a food let us compare
them with medium fat beef.
Water
Proteids
Fat
%
%
%
Medium fat beef has..
72.5
21.
5.5
Eggs have............
74.5
12.5
12.
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We see that while the water is nearly the same in both, the meat has the
advantage in proteids and the eggs the advantage in fat, this fat,
moreover, being of very fine quality.
Take eggs at their cheapest, as in April when they often sell at 15 cents
a dozen, that would be 12 1/2 cents a pound, 10 eggs of average size
weighing a pound. They could then be considered cheaper than the highest
priced cuts of meat, but still much dearer than the cheaper parts, flank,
neck and brisket, at 8 cents. So that even at this low price, they are
somewhat of a luxury to the man who must get his proteid and fat in their
cheapest form.
And when we consider that only for a short time in the year is the price
so low,--eggs being on an average quoted at 25 to 30 cents, the showing
for them as a proteid rival of meat is poor indeed. Except in the Spring
the economically inclined must be sparing of their use even in dessert
dishes. When housekeepers say, as I have heard them, that eggs at 25 cents
a dozen are cheaper than meat, they must be speaking in comparison with
very high priced meats.
> CHEESE.
> Cheese (its food value.)
In America, cheese is regarded more as a luxury than as a staple article
of food, and yet 1 lb. of cheese is equal in food value to more than 2
lbs. of meat, it being very rich in both fat and proteids. Considering
this, its price is very low and it ought to be a treasure to the poor man
and do good service in replacing sometimes the more expensive meat.
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> Uses of cheese abroad.
Its food value is fully recognized abroad. For the Swiss peasant it is a
staple second only to bread, while the use of it in Italy and in Germany
is extensive. The writer once spent several weeks in the house of a large
farmer on the slope of Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland, and observed daily the
food given to the harvesters; the luncheon sent twice a day to the fields
consisted of a quarter section of the grayish skim cheese, accompanied
with bread. I was told that the poor people in the region ate scarcely any
meat, using cheese in its stead.
The writer has also observed the use of cheese in Germany. Every locality
has its special variety of the soft kind made of sour milk, and great
amounts of the Swiss, both skim and full milk, cheese are consumed. It is
generally eaten uncooked, but also as an addition to cooked food in a
great variety of dishes.
> Digestibility of cheese.
There is no doubt of the food value of cheese, but there does seem to be
some question as to its digestibility. When we come to inquire into this
point, we find that thorough experiments have been made by German
scientists; Dr. Rübner, a pupil of Voit, gives the result of experiments
on himself. He found that he could not consume much of it alone, but with
milk he took easily 200 grams, or nearly 1/2 lb., and only when he took as
high as 517 grams or over a pound daily, was it less completely digested
than meat. Prof. König says that in the amounts in which it is generally
eaten, 125 to 250 grams daily (1/4 to 1/2 lb.), it is as well digested as
meat or eggs. The extensive use of it abroad would seem to be some
guarantee for the digestibility of the foreign varieties at least.
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American cheeses have in general a sharper flavor than the foreign, still
it is probable that well mixed with other food, enough could be taken many
a time, to give a man his needed daily quantity of animal
proteid,--between six and seven ounces,--and this is a matter of great
importance from an economical point of view.
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> METHODS OF COOKING MEAT.
> Why cook.
And first--why do we cook it at all? In the animal as well as in the
vegetable world some foods are all ready for our digestion, as milk. Raw
eggs too, are perfectly digestible and are often given to invalids. We
hear, of "Raw meat cures," and it has been found that tender and juicy raw
meat, if chopped fine to break the connective tissue, is well disgested.
But raw meat does not taste good to most of us, while the delicious flavor
and odor of a broiled steak make it very acceptable to the palate, and we
must believe to the stomach also. We "bring out the flavor," as we say, by
cooking; what else do we do?
> Structure of meat.
Let us examine for a moment a piece of meat with reference to the effect
heat has upon it. The red part is made up of, first, very tiny
sausage-like bags, or muscle fibres as they are called, and in these is
contained the precious proteid matter, flavors and salts all mixed
together with water into a sort of jelly; second, these muscle fibres are
bound together by strands of connective tissue, as that white stringy mass
is called, in which the fat and blood vessels are lodged; this is also of
food value, but inferior to the fibres. Third, dissolved in the juices
floating between the fibres and strands,
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there is also a proteid called soluble albumen. The little bags of
proteid, when we can get at them, are as digestible in our stomachs as is
the white of egg, though, like the egg again, their flavor is improved by
slight cooking. But, as we have seen, they are imprisoned in the
connective tissue, somewhat, we may say, as are the starch grains of the
potato in the cellulose.
> Softening connective tissue.
This connective tissue we can soften by heat, thereby turning it into a
sort of gelatine, but unfortunately, unless the meat is very tender, this
requires a longer application of heat than is needed to cook the delicate
albumen all full of flavors too easily lost. To soften the connective
tissue without overcooking the albumen, is one of the problems of meat
cookery.
The next question is, how do our methods of cooking meet these
requirements?
> COOKING MEAT IN WATER.
> 1st Method.
Put a piece of lean meat into cold water, heat it very slowly and watch
the effect. The water becomes slightly red, then cloudy, and as the heat
increases, yellowish in color, and finally it clears, sending a scum to
the surface. If we examine this scum, we find that the water has soaked
out much soluble albumen and a large proportion of the salts of the meat
as well as other substantives called extractives; and now the odor of the
boiling meat begins to fill the kitchen. The longer and slower the warming
process, the more of all these things we shall extract, and the meat when
taken out will be in just that proportion poor.
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> Soup making.
This is the process known as soup making,--very simple, if we care nothing
for the piece of meat but to soak out of it all the food and flavors
possible. After some hours of cooking we find it shrunken, gray and
tasteless. A dog if fed on that alone could not live many days. However,
as we have before said, we are not to conclude, that it contains no more
nutriment, but the stomach rejects it now that it is separated from all
the flavoring matters.
2nd Method.
Now put a piece of meat into boiling water and continue the boiling. The
surface of the meat suddenly whitens and a little scum rises on the water,
though very little compared with what we saw in the former method. We have
coagulated the albumen contained in all the little cells in the surface of
the meat, and the soluble albumen, flavoring matters and salts cannot get
out; the sealing up is not quite perfect, enough escaping into the water
to make it a weak soup, but it is a good method of cooking a large piece
if properly completed from this point. But if we go on boiling our meat,
that is, keeping the temperature at 212°, we shall overcook the albumen in
the outer layers before that in the center is coagulated. By overcooking,
we mean making it horny and flavorless, as we do the white of an egg if we
cook it in the old-fashioned way, by dropping into boiling water and
keeping it at that heat. Having seared the outside of the meat to keep the
juices in, we must lower the temperature. The albumen coagulates at
between 160° and 170°, but the water in the kettle may be a little above
this, as
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it must constantly transfer heat to the interior of the meat. The general
rule is that it should "bubble" or "simmer" only, and if the cook can do
no better she must follow these indications. That the true temperature for
cooking meat is below the boiling point, many an intelligent housekeeper
knows, but how is she to know when the water is at 170°? Here we come upon
the weakest point in household cookery; various degrees of heat have
different effects on the foods we cook, but of only one temperature is the
housekeeper certain--that of boiling water.
For the use of the thermometer and the heat saver see pages 43 and 44.
But to return; is these no way of cooking that will keep in the meat all
these flavors and salts and albumens, just as nature mixed them? Yes,
there are three ways,--frying in fat, baking in an oven, and broiling over
coals.
> Frying in fat.
We will examine the first. If we plunge a thin piece of meat, as a cutlet
coated with egg and breadcrumbs, into boiling fat, the albumen in the
surface or rather in that of the egg surrounding it is coagulated as in
boiling, but this time the outer rind preserves the juices still better
because the fat will not mix with them as will water. Everyone knows how
an oyster cooked in this way retains its juices.
> Baking meat.
When we bake a piece of meat in the oven, we start in the same way; we
sear the outside in fat, turning the roast about in a small quantity of
fat made hot in a kettle; we then transfer it, still in the kettle or pan,
to a hot oven
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where the process of cooking is completed, but at short intervals we
moisten the surface with the fat in the pan. If we did not baste the
roast, we would find a thick layer of grey, tasteless meat inside the
outer brown crust, and indeed the whole piece would dry long before the
center of our roast had reached the coagulating point; we baste, in order
to keep in the juices which, as we know, will not mix with the fat, and
also that only a mild degree of heat, not exceeding the coagulating point
of proteids, may be transmitted to the interior. In the intervals of our
basting, some water is driven out of the meat and evaporated into steam,
and the high heat of the oven expends itself in evaporating this, in
heating the basting fat, and perhaps (if it reach so high a temperature)
in decomposing part of it, and in changing the chemical character of small
quantities of extractives, thus making the meat "tasty," and so it happens
that only a mild degree of heat is passed into the center of the piece. We
would hardly believe that the inside of a roast, with its light pink
color, registers only 160° by the thermometer, yet this can be proved by
anyone with a long chemist's thermometer.
Although some of the water of our meat has evaporated, the extractives and
salts are retained to a larger extent than in boiling, as we shall see by
the table given later.
> Broiling.
In broiling, the principle applied is exactly the same as in baking, the
cooking being done by the medium of heated air. The dry heat of the coals
affects the outer layer of
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the meat, as does the hot air of the oven. In both these methods, just as
in boiling, we try to hold the temperature of our cooking medium just high
enough to keep the heat traveling toward the interior of the meat.
We have now learned to cook the albumen enough and not too much and to
keep the flavors of our meat; what about the connective tissue, and how
has that fared with our different modes of cooking?
> Tender meat.
If our meat is cut from the tenderer parts of an animal of the right age,
well fed and fattened, and if it has been kept long enough after killing,
the connective tissue will soften into eatable condition in the length of
time required to cook the albumen by the methods described. Such meat, so
cooked, will always be tender and full of flavor.
> Tough Meat.
But if the meat is cut from the tougher parts, or from an old or
ill-fattened animal, or cooked too soon after killing, the connective
tissue will not soften in that time; we must continue the application of
heat till this tissue softens.
> Methods compared: 1st, as to quality of meat.
Therefore, what method of cooking we shall use, depends on the quality of
the meat we have. Trimmings and tough portions we will make into soup,
expecting to chop the tasteless meat next day and add other flavors to
make it palatable. Somewhat better pieces, but still requiring long
cooking to soften the connective tissue, may be made into a stew or
ragout; or if the piece is large and compact, boiled in water; but meat
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that is tender and juicy (and for improving tough meat see page 45) should
be boiled, baked or broiled, choosing oftenest the last two methods,
because of the more perfect retention of the juices and the fine flavor
given to the outer layer.
> 2d, as to economy.
We are told that baking or broiling is a very wasteful way of cooking
meat; that if we would be truly economical we would always boil or stew,
using our meat or its juices to flavor vegetables. From this we must
dissent for it would condemn us to such a monotony as would be unendurable
even to the poor. Better sometimes a smaller piece of broiled or baked
meat with its delicious and stimulating flavor, and make our soup of
vegetables and season it with herbs. Besides, according to the scientists,
baking and broiling are not wasteful methods. I quote from a table of
Prof. König's, wherein are given the results of analysis of beef raw,
after boiling and after "braten." Raw, it contained .86% extractives
(nitrogenous bodies mostly; very important as giving the stimulating smell
and taste) and 1.23% salts.
Extractives
Salts
Raw............................
.86%
1.23%
After boiling..................
.40%
1.15%
After "braten".................
.72%
1.45%
The advantage is seen to be in favor of "braten"both in regard to
extractives and salts. The loss of water was nearly the same in both
cases. As for the fat lost in broiling a beef steak, that is indeed a
loss, but one to be made up in some measure by the smaller quantity of
fuel necessary to cook the meat. The
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loss of this fat need not be made so much of, until we have learned to do
better in many other still more important directions.
The philosophy of cooking meat according to the different methods has been
treated, and we will not give a few additional directions as to carrying
out these methods.
SOUP MAKING.
Materials for Soup making.
Lean meat of any sort, beef best; fresh, better than that long kept; bones
of next value, especially the spongy rib bones and vertebrae. Saw and chop
the bones into little pieces,--cut the meat small. Soft water is better
than hard.
Method of making.
Keep a kettle, if possible, for this purpose alone, and add to it all bits
of meat and bones as they accumulate. Put the meat into cold water, let it
stand some hours if possible, heat very gradually and keep simmering. Two
hours or less brings out all the flavors of the meat, but a much longer
time is necessary to get all the nutriment from the bones.
Skimming.
Do not remove the scum; it contains the albumen of the soup, and nothing
objectionable if the meat was well cleaned.
An hour before the soup is served add flavors; onions and carrots are the
best, celery, summer savory, and parsley next. Use others, as cloves,
nutmeg, bay leaf, etc., only occasionally. Add salt and pepper just before
serving.
When done, strain and skim off all fat (better if
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left to stand till next day, the fat removed and the soup simply
rewarmed), and make such additions as you wish.
[We prefer our soups with the fat removed, but the laboring people of
Europe with their hardy stomachs find a soup much better if covered with
"eyes."]
These rules apply to all meat soups. Mutton makes a strong and nutritious
soup, veal a delicate soup. An excellent soup is made from a calf's head.
> BOILING.
To boil meat.
Put the meat into boiling water, bring quickly again to a boil and keep so
for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature (as see page 35), and so keep
it till the meat in the center has reached 160°--170°, or has changed in
color from bluish to red, our usual test. For use of the "Cooking Safe"
for this purpose, see page 44. Braising, "a la mode", kettle roasts, &c.,
are but modifications of this method.
To make meat stews.
This is a combination of soup making and boiling. Use inferior parts, cut
in pieces and cook, at 170° if possible, till tender. Half an hour before
serving, season in any way you wish. See page 47.
> FRYING IN FAT.
How to prepare Suet in which to fry meat.
Lard if used for this purpose should be tried out at home, but beef fat is
cheaper and if nicely prepared no one can object to the taste.
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Cut the fresh suet in pieces, and cover with cold water; let it stand a
day, changing the water once in the time. This takes out the peculiar
tallowy taste. Now put it in an iron kettle, with a half teacup of milk to
each pound of suet, and let it cook very slowly till the fat is clear, and
light brown in color, and till the sound of the cooking has ceased. The
pieces may be loosened from the bottom with a spoon, but it is not to be
stirred; if it burns the taste is ruined. Now let it stand and partly
cool, then pour off into cups to become cold; it smells as sweet as butter
and can in many cases be used instead of it. The fat left still in the
pieces may be pressed out for less particular uses.
Any clean fat, even mutton, has its uses in cookery, and should be tried
out and kept nicely.
Oils for use in frying.
There are oils now sold which but for prejudice we would always use. Pure
cotton seed oil is a fine oil with a delicate flavor; rape seed oil, which
is used extensively abroad for this purpose, is also a pure vegetable oil,
but somewhat rank in flavor. It is treated thus: a raw potato is cut up
and put into the kettle, heating with the oil and cooking till it is
brown, it is then taken out and the oil used like lard. The potato has
absorbed the rank flavor.
Thin pieces of meat, like cutlets and chops, are coated with beaten egg
and bread crumbs and cooked in boiling fat for 5-10 minutes, according to
the kind of meat.
To bake meat. Basting.
Make some beef fat hot in an iron pan or broad kettle. Put the meat into
it,
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and with a fork stuck into the fat part, turn it rapidly till it is on all
sides a fine brown, then put it into a hot oven (about 340° F.), elevating
it above the pan on a meat rack, or a few iron rods. Now comes the process
called basting; in five minutes or less you will find that the top of the
meat has dried, and you must now dip, with a spoon, the hot fat from the
pan over the top. Do this every few minutes adding no water to the pan;
you will find your meat well cooked in from 12-15 minutes to the pound. It
is done when it has lost, in the middle, the blue color, and become a fine
red. Only salt and pepper should be used to season such a roast, and must
be added when the meat is half done; if earlier, it toughens the fibres.
To broil meat.
But when fuel is expensive, or in the summer when a hot fire is a
nuisance, the perfectly cooked meat can also be obtained by broiling; the
management of the fire is the only trouble. We are told that a beefsteak
for broiling should be cut 3/4 of an inch thick, and put over a hot fire
of coal or charcoal; quite right, but when it has browned quickly, as it
should, and been turned and browned on the other side, it yet remains raw
in the middle and if left longer, the surface burns. This is the
experience of the novice, who has yet to learn two things; first, that
immediately after the first browning, the fire must decrease in heat, or
the meat be brought further away, so that the steak may cook 10-12 minutes
without burning--less time will not cook it nicely in the middle; and
second, that like baked meat, the surface must be kept moist with hot
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fat. Before your steak is put over (unless it be very well streaked with
fat), cover both sides with melted suet, and afterwards, as it dries,
spread on a little butter or beef fat. Have ready in a hot platter a few
spoonsful of water in which the bones cut from the steak have been
boiling, also salt and pepper. When the steak is done, lay it in the
platter and keep it hot for five minutes, turning it once in the time;
thus you will have both good steak and good gravy.
Use of charcoal.
Professional cooks always use charcoal for broiling, and its advantages
are great. As described on page 21 it needs only a simple contrivance,
easily adjusted to any stove; a handful will broil a pound of steak, and
the cooking of the rest of the dinner can go on without interference.
> USE OF THE THERMOMETER IN COOKING MEAT.
To cook meat at a temperature of between 150° and 160° F., is no easy
matter with the usual kitchen appliances. Even over an easily regulated
heater, as a gas or coal oil flame, how are we to know that temperature
when it is reached? The writer, knowing of no thermometer arranged for use
in a kitchen, constructed a simple one after the model of those used in
laboratories. A thermometer tube registering 300° Celsuis was simply
fastened into a cork, the bulb projecting below and protected by a short
cylinder of wood. This floated on the water and made it easy to cook at
any given temperature. This thermometer was also hung in a light wire
frame and used for testing the heat of an oven.
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> THE HEAT SAVER.
It is a part of common information that the inhabitants of northern
countries make extensive use of non-conducting substances, like wool, for
preventing the escape of heat from a vessel in which cooking is going on.
It is strange that we do not make more use of such appliances, for they
have often been described and illustrated; it is probably because they are
not found ready-made, and with a complete list of directions for use. The
writer made and used a cooker of this sort, and after considerable
modification and experiment it became a very useful thing in the kitchen.
If you wish to cook meat at the proper temperature, this contrivance makes
it possible to do so, and is also very saving of fuel.
Directions for making Heat Saver.
Take a packing box measuring, say, 2 feet each way and cover the bottom
with a layer of packed wool 4 to 6 inches thick; set into the middle of
this another box or a cylinder of sheet iron and fill the space between
the two with a layer of wool, 4 to 6 inches thick and closely packed. Into
the inner compartment put your kettle of meat or vegetables already
brought to the boiling point and having a tightly fitting cover, and over
this press a thick pillow or woolen blanket. Then fasten down tight over
all, the lid of your box. As the heat in the water must finish the cooking
already begun, its amount must be rightly proportioned to the amount of
food to be cooked, e. g., two quarts of water to 1 1/2 lbs. beef rib, were
used. The water was brought to the boiling point, the meat placed in it
and allowed to boil for five minutes, the pot was
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then tightly covered, placed in the box and allowed to remain three hours.
At the end of that time the meat was tender.
> TO MAKE MEAT TENDER.
> To make meat tender.
It is well known that meat must be kept some time after killing to make it
tender. In winter, a large piece of beef or mutton will keep for six weeks
if hung in a dry, cool place. Indeed, this is the time allowed in England
for the Christmas "shoulder of mutton," and every few days it is rubbed
over with salt and vinegar. In summer, unless the butcher will keep the
meat for you, you must resort to other means.
A tough piece of meat may be laid in not too strong vinegar for 3 or 4
days in summer and twice as long in winter, adding to the vinegar such
spices as you may like. To soften a tough steak pour a few spoonfuls of
vinegar on and let stand for twelve or twenty-four hours. This method has
been long recommended and is to some extent used among us; the foreign
cook employs sour milk for the same purpose and with even greater success,
but this must be changed every day and at the end of the time well washed
from the meat.
We cannot too strongly urge that the housekeeper, especially if she be
straightened in means, should become used to these methods and practice
them occasionally. She does not want to confine herself to soups and stews
and she cannot buy "porter-house" steak at 20 or 25 cents a pound, but she
can buy "round" at half that price, and after a little experiment can make
it tender for boiling, roasting or broiling by one of these methods. In
winter, she should buy a supply of meat ahead and keep it until it grows
tender.
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> RECIPES FOR COOKING MEATS.
The methods of cooking meat having been treated and mention made of the
parts adapted to each, it remains only to give practical hints as to
making and varying dishes.
> BEEF.
Boiled, roast and broiled beef have been sufficiently dwelt upon. See
pages 40-43.
> Stews and Ragouts.
No mode of cooking meat has so many variations; the flavor of the meat
being used to season vegetables of every sort, also doughs, as in
dumplings, or in the crust of meat pie. For making meat stews see page 40.
With potatoes.
One half hour before the meat is done lay on top of it peeled potatoes,
all of the same size, and serve when done with the meat and gravy.
Meat pie.
When the meat is cooked tender, thicken the gravy and pour all into a pie
or pudding dish. Cover with a common pie crust or one of mashed potatoes,
and bake 1/2 hour.
You may also mix sliced raw potatoes with the stew, in layers.
Potato Crust. 1 cup mashed potatoes, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 cup of
milk, salt. Beat together
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till smooth, and then work in enough flour so that you can roll it out. It
should be 1/2 in. thick, and as soft as you can handle.
With tomatoes.
Add to meat when tender, 1 qt. tomatoes to 2 lbs. meat. Thicken with flour
and stew 5 minutes.
> Flavors for stews.
Stews are variously flavored; onion, salt and pepper, are always in place.
A little lemon juice added as it is served gives a delicious flavor, or
even a tablespoon of vinegar may be used. Any herbs, a piece of carrot, a
clove or bit of garlic, may be used for variety. Catsup is also good as a
flavor.
Corned Beef.
Wash it well, put into plenty of cold water and bring slowly to the
simmering point. Cook 3 to 4 hours.
Turnips or cabbage are often eaten with corn beef. They should not be
boiled with the meat but in a separate pot.
> Beef Liver.
If from a good animal, beef liver is often as tender as calf's liver.
Broiled.
This is the best method. Soak an hour in cold water, wipe dry, slice and
dip in melted beef fat. Broil slowly (see page 42) till thoroughly done;
then salt and butter.
Fried.
When prepared as above, the slices of liver may be fried in a pan with a
little beef fat. This gives an opportunity for more flavors, as onion may
be fried with it, a little vinegar added to the juices that fry out, then
thickened and used as gravy.
Baked.
If liver is not quite tender it can be made into a stew, or it may be
chopped
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fine, mixed with bread crumbs and egg and baked 1/2 hour.
Beef's Heart.
If fire is no object, you may boil a beef's heart, it will take all day.
Put into cold water and bring slowly to the simmering point and keep it
there. Next day it may be stuffed with well seasoned bread crumbs and
baked 3/4 hour.
Tripe.
Cut in strips, soak in salt and vinegar 1/2 day, wipe dry and fry in hot
lard. It may also be stewed.
> RECOOKING BEEF.
(A.) Boiled, baked or broiled beef which is tender and full of flavor.
Roast beef re-served.
To serve roast beef a second time.
Heat the gravy, put the roast in it. After trimming it into shape again,
cover closely and put into a hot oven for ten minutes or less according to
size of piece.
Or, cut in slices and lay in hot gravy only long enough to heat them
through.
Hash.
Being full of flavor such meat may be chopped and mixed with from 1/3 to
1/2 as much chopped or mashed potatoes, bread crumbs or boiled rice. These
mixtures may be warmed as hash, or made into cakes or balls to be fried on
a griddle or in boiling fat.
Mix the chopped meat with the potatoes, bread crumbs or rice as above, add
salt and pepper and make quite moist with water or soup. Put a good piece
of butter or of beef fat into a spider, and when it is hot, put in the
hash. Cover and let it steam,
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then remove cover and let it dry out while a brown crust forms on the
bottom.
Or, stir till hot and dish immediately.
Hash Balls.
Make not quite as moist as for hash, form into little cakes, dust with
flour, and fry to a nice brown in a little beef dripping on a griddle.
Or, egg and bread crumb the balls, and fry in boiling fat.
> (B.) RECOOKING SOUP MEAT.
This meat, though made tender by long cooking, has given much of its
flavor to the soup. It has not, to the same degree, however, lost its
nutritive value; if we can make it taste good again, both palate and
stomach will approve it.
It will not do to mix this meat with neutral substances like potatoes and
bread; it needs addition rather than subtraction.
In any case, first chop the meat very fine.
Pressed soup meat.
Season the chopped beef well with salt and pepper, and some other
addition, as celery salt or nutmeg, or some of the sweet herbs. Moisten
with soup or stock, pack in a square, deep tin and place in the oven for a
short time. To be sliced cold, or warmed as a meat hash to be served on
toast.
Meat Croquettes.
When so good a dish as this can be made out of soup meat, it is worth a
little trouble.
Ingredients. 2 cups of the chopped beef, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon
flour, 1 egg, 1/2 a lemon or 1 tablespoon vinegar, a few gratings of
nutmeg and 1/2 cup of stock or milk.
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Cook the flour in the butter and add the stock or milk and seasoning, then
the beef, and cook, stirring all the time till the mass cleaves from the
side of the kettle. Let it get cold, then make into little egg shaped
balls, let them dry a little, roll in beaten egg and bread crumbs and fry
in boiling fat.
To vary--add 1/3 as much chopped salt or fresh pork as you have meat.
> VEAL.
This meat takes other flavors well and is used by cooks for all manner of
fancy dishes. It is lacking in fat and for that reason easily dries in
cooking; an addition of pork is always an advantage to the taste. It must
be always well cooked, never rare.
Roast Veal.
This may be a piece cut from loin, breast or shoulder, or a rib piece.
Roast like beef (see page 35), allowing twice as long, or 1 1/3-2 hours,
for any piece under 4 lbs.
Broiled veal chops.
Cutlets, chops and steaks are broiled like beef, but slower and twice as
long and must be buttered and floured to prevent drying. Should be served
with a tomato or onion sauce.
Veal Stew.
Cook like beef stew, see page 46. It may be varied in the same way, and is
generally more highly seasoned. Especially good as pot-pie. Salt pork
should be added to it.
Liver, Sweetbreads and Heart.
Veal liver, sweetbreads and heart are all tender and excellent, but high
priced, especially the sweetbreads. Liver and heart are prepared like the
same parts in beef (see page 47), but the heart cooks tender in two hours.
This latter is an excellent
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dish, do not soak it--stuff with well seasoned bread crumbs and bake,
basting well.
> MUTTON AND LAMB.
> Mutton and Lamb.
The quality of mutton is so varying that when cooked the dish is often a
disappointment. The influence of long keeping or "hanging" upon it is even
more beneficial than upon beef.
> Mutton Fat.
Fat of Mutton. Some cooks trim away every bit of fat from mutton. It is
perfectly wholesome, but sometimes gets a taste from coming in contact
with the hide or hair of the animal; hence the prejudice. Scrape the
outside of the meat well, pulling off the dried skin and cutting away the
dark ends.
> Pieces to roast.
Unlike beef, other pieces besides the rib are good for roasting; the loin
and haunch are most economical, the shoulder next, the leg next. Roast
like beef, see page 35.
Unless the meat is first class, do not roast, but boil it. The leg is
oftenest used for this purpose.
To boil mutton.
Simmer about 12 minutes to the pound; that is the rule, but very
frequently the meat when it comes on the table, will be tough, owing
entirely to the difference in the quality of the meat. Such meat must be
boiled twice as long, or is better cooked in a stew.
Mutton Chops.
The chop is oftenest broiled and is a famous dish. Cut 3/4 in. thick, and
broil rare like beef.
Chops and cutlets are excellent fried in fat. See page 40.
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Mutton Stew.
This is the most economical and perhaps the most satisfactory of all
mutton dishes. The inferior parts, as the neck, are as good as any for
this purpose. Proceed exactly as with beef stew.
A good stew is made from sheep's kidneys.
Sheep tongues.
These may be mentioned because sometimes they are thrown away or sold very
cheap. Clean well, and simmer 1 1/2 hours, with a little pork and onion.
Add to the gravy 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
All these recipes for mutton apply to the cooking of lamb; remembering
however, that lamb, like veal, must be thoroughly cooked.
> PORK.
Pork does not need to be kept in order to be tender, that is one of its
great recommendations to the housekeeper. It is also easily cooked and we
may lay aside some of the precautions we use regarding beef: The lean of
fresh pork however, is apt to dry in cooking.
> Roasting pieces.
The leg, the loin and the chine are good roasting pieces as well as the
rib. Pork is so rich in flavor that it seasons finely a bread crumb
dressing, to which add a little sage and vinegar or chopped pickles. Bake
separately, and lay around it when served. Or better, though more trouble,
make holes in the roast and force the stuffing in.
Put directly into a hot oven in a pan containing some hot fat, and baste
very frequently till done. Allow at least 20 minutes to the pound.
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> Steaks and chops.
Steaks and chops are broiled, but the surface must be kept well moistened
with butter or beef fat, or they will be dry and tasteless.
> Stew of pork.
Fresh pork is seldom boiled and it is too fat for a stew, though the lean
may be selected and cooked like beef stew. It makes also an excellent
potpie, or meat pie. See page 46.
Pig's Liver.
Pig's liver is good cooked like beef's liver, and is cheaper. See page 47.
Pork Sausage.
The cooking of this is very simple. Fry brown in a frying pan on the
stove, or better, set the pan in a hot oven, you will then avoid the
sputtering of the fat.
> HAM, SALT PORK AND BACON.
Ham may be cooked in any way in which fresh pork is cooked. It may be cut
in 1/2 in. slices, or thinner, and broiled or fried lightly in a pan. If
long cooked it becomes tough and dry. If too salt for this, it may be
soaked a half hour in warm water.
A large piece of ham is best boiled. If very salt, soak it in cold water
for 24 hours, then put into cold water, bring slowly to a boil, and simmer
half a day if the ham is of good size. A ham may also be baked.
> Dishes from cold ham.
So highly flavored a meat can be used in numberless ways, especially
combined with vegetables and bread.
Sandwiches.
Chop 1/2 lb. fine, season with mustard, pepper and 1 tablespoon vinegar.
Spread between slices of buttered bread.
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Ham cakes.
Take 1 cup finely chopped boiled ham, 2 cups of breadcrumbs, 2 eggs,
pepper and salt, and enough milk to make quite moist.
To use. 1st. Fry on a griddle in small spoonfuls, and turn as pancakes.
2d. Use mashed potatoes instead of breadcrumbs, and fry as above.
Croquettes.
3d. Take either of the above mixtures, using, however, little or no milk,
make into little balls and after rolling in egg and breadcrumbs, fry in
boiling fat.
With eggs.
4th. With eggs. Put either of these mixtures into a baking dish; smooth
the surface and make little hollows in it with the bowl of a spoon. Put in
the oven till hot, then break an egg into each depression, and return to
the oven till the eggs are set.
Broiled Salt Pork and Bacon.
After slicing thin, freshen salt pork by laying in cold water over night
or 1/2 hour in warm water. Broil till transparent and a delicate brown in
color. Broil bacon without freshening.
Fried.
Less delicate than broiled, but much more economical, because saving the
fat. Fry only till transparent. Salt pork must be first freshened. To make
milk gravy of the fat, see "meat and vegetable sauces," page 73.
Both salt pork and bacon are boiled with vegetables.
Bacon or Pork and Cabbage. This is a favorite mixture, and if the cabbage
is only boiled half an hour and not in the same pot with the pork, it is
not
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an indigestible dish. Put the pork into cold water, bring slowly to a boil
and simmer from 1/2 to 2 hours, according to size of piece.
Pork and Peas.
Cook 1 qt. dried peas according to directions for pea soup, page 117. Boil
pork with the peas during the last hour, or after parboiling, bake like
pork and beans.
Pork and Beans.
Cook 1 qt. beans according to soup recipe, page 117. Parboil 1 lb. salt
side pork, score the skin in squares, half bury in the beans and bake 2
hours, or till a nice brown.
Pork and Potatoes.
Slice a dozen potatoes thin, also 1/4 lb. fat salt pork, put into a
pudding dish in alternate layers, seasoning with salt and pepper (only a
little of the former). Bake, covered, 1/2 hour, uncover and brown.
Pork and Apples.
Fruits seasoned with meat juices and fats, instead of with sugar, are not
enough known among us.
Slice sour apples round in slices 1/3 in. thick without peeling, and fry
with strips of pork or bacon. Serve together.
> FRESH FISH.
The varieties of fresh fish are numberless, and to cook and serve them in
perfection requires careful study from the cook. The subject must here be
treated very briefly.
Fresh fish may be cooked in any of the ways applicable to meat; the length
of time being much shorter, and care being required on account of the
delicacy of the fibre. This makes broiling somewhat difficult.
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Small fish are perhaps best egged and bread crumbed and fried in hot fat.
Fish Chowder.
This dish deserves especial mention because of its cheapness and good
flavor. It may be made of any fresh fish.
Fill a pudding dish with the fish cut in pieces, seasoning each layer with
salt and pepper, and bits of suet or fat pork; put over it a potato crust
as for meat pie (see page 46), or a soda biscuit crust, and bake. Bread
crumbs or sliced potatoes may be mixed with the fish, and more seasoning
used.
> Fish Soups.
Fresh fish can also be made into soups, and the cheaper kinds should be
more used for this purpose.
Codfish Soup.
Cook 1 tablespoon of flour in 1 tablespoon of butter. Add 1 1/2 qts. milk,
or milk and water, and when it boils stir in 1 teacup of cold boiled
codfish that has been freed from skin and bones and then chopped fine or
rubbed through a sieve. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Bullhead or Catfish Soup.
An excellent soup can be made of this cheap fish.
Clean and cut up 2 or 3 lbs. and boil an hour in 2 qts. water with an
onion and a piece of celery or any herbs (it must be well seasoned). Then
add 1 cup of milk and a piece of butter or beef fat, or a piece of salt
pork cut in bits may be boiled with the fish.
> SALT FISH.
Salt Cod.
This is one of the cheap foods that seems to be thoroughly appreciated
among us, and good ways of cooking it are generally understood.
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It must be freshened by laying it in water over night; put into cold water
and bring gradually to a boil; set the kettle back where it will keep hot
for half an hour, separate the flakes and serve with a milk sauce.
Fish Balls.
This favorite dish is prepared by adding to codfish, boiled as above and
finely shredded, a like quantity of mashed potato. Make into balls and fry
on a griddle or in boiling fat.
Any other fish can be used in the same way.
> FOWLS.
The flesh of fowls cannot rank among cheap foods, but in any economical
family the Sunday dinner may often be a fricassee made of a fowl no longer
young. Unless very ancient, the flavor of such a fowl will be richer than
that of a chicken; we have but to cook it till it is tender.
Old Fowl Fricasseed
Cut into joints, put into cold water and bring slowly to a simmering heat;
on no account let it boil,--keep it as nearly as possible at 170° for 3 or
4 hours, or till it is very tender. At the end of 2 hours, add a sliced
onion and salt and thicken the gravy.
Chicken Soup.
None but the wealthy should use chickens for soup, but from the bones left
of baked or fricasseed chicken a good and economical soup can be made.
Boil an hour or two, take out the bones, thicken a little and serve with
bread dice fried in butter.
Giblet Soup.
An excellent soup can be made of the giblets, that is, heart, liver and
neck of chicken, and other fowls, which in city markets are
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sold separately and very cheap. Cut in small pieces and boil 2 hours with
onion and herbs, then add a little butter and thickening, salt and pepper.
> EGGS.
The importance of eggs is to be estimated from various points of view;
their food value is great, their digestibility when fresh is almost
perfect, and they can be cooked in so many ways and are a necessary
ingredient of so many dishes, that the cook could ill spare them. Indeed,
in all countries, their consumption seems to be limited only by their
price.
> Freshness.
After the first twenty-four hours an egg steadily deteriorates. Physicians
say, "never give to an invalid an egg that is more than two or three days
old."
There are methods in use for preserving eggs fresh, on the principle of
excluding air by sealing up the pores of the shell, but none of them are
without risk and they cannot be recommended to one who must economize
closely. It is better to go without eggs as nearly as possible in winter.
Raw Eggs.
Eggs are as digestible raw as cooked, and one easily comes to like the
taste of a fresh raw egg beaten to a foam and mixed with a little milk or
water and sugar flavored wih a little nutmeg or jelly.
Soft Boiled Eggs.
To soft boil an egg its temperature should not be raised above 170°. The
white will then be a jelly-like, digestible substance, but if exposed to a
higher temperature, the white becomes horny while the yolk remains
uncooked or
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becomes pasty. There are two methods of boiling an egg properly, which may
be adopted according to convenience.
1st. Allow 1 qt. of boiling water to 4 eggs. Use a pail or jar (heated
before the water is put in) and wrap around with a flannel cloth. The eggs
will be done in 6 minutes, but are not harmed by ten.
2d. Put the eggs into cold water and bring slowly to a boil. They are done
when the water begins to boil.
Hard Boiled Eggs.
To boil an egg hard, it is no more necessary to expose it to a high degree
of heat than in the case of the soft boiled; the heat must simply be much
longer continued, 20 minutes to a half hour. The egg will then be solid
but not horny as when cooked in boiling water.
A great many attractive dishes can be made of cold boiled eggs.
Scrambled, poached, omelet, and baked eggs.
These are but different modes of cooking eggs soft or solid. The taste
will be more delicate and they will be more digestible if in these cases
also only the low degree of heat above mentioned be applied--more time
being given them than is usually allowed.
> EGG DISHES.
These dishes under many names and in many forms are of next importance
after meats, composed, as they generally are, of eggs and vegetables or
some preparation of the grains, while numberless additions and flavors are
used to give variety and make the dish tempting to the eye and palate.
Eggs so prepared have their full nutritive value; not so in rich puddings
and cakes,
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where they are mixed with more sugar and fat than the system can take up
in any quantity.
The following are a few recipes that have not been included under other
heads. Many others will be found under the Cooking of the Grains.
Bread omelet.
1 cup of hard bread partly softened in hot water and milk, or in cold
water (in which case press in a cloth and crumble), add 1/2 of a chopped
onion, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1 egg, salt and pepper. Heat in the
frying pan or square baking pan, some bits of suet or beef fat, and pour
in the omelet. Cover and bake five minutes, then uncover and brown. Or it
may be cooked slowly on top of the stove. Cut in pieces and serve around
the meat or with a gravy.
Egged bread.
Bread, fresh or stale, is cut in long strips, or in squares or rounds with
a cake cutter. Let them soak till soft but not broken, in 1 pt. of salted
milk into which two eggs have been beaten. Bake a nice brown or fry on a
griddle in half suet and half butter. (
May be made with one egg.)
Potato omelet.
Fry a small onion, sliced, in a teaspoonful of butter or fat; fill the pan
with 2 cups of cold sliced potatoes, salt and pepper them, and pour over
them 2 beaten eggs. Bake slowly till it is just solid and turn out
carefully on a platter.
Or, 1 cup potatoes and 1 cup bread crumbs may be used.
Rice omelet.
1 cup cold boiled rice, 2 teaspoons milk, 1 egg, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix
and pour into a pan in which a tablespoon of butter has
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been heated. Fry and double over when done.
Or, it may be baked like potato omelet.
Flour omelet.
1 egg, 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons flour, pinch of salt, add the beaten
white of the egg last.
This is the "Yorkshire Pudding" which is cooked in the pan over which beef
is roasting; it is cut in squares and served around the meat. It may also
be baked in a buttered pan without meat.
Tomato omelet.
3 eggs, 1 cup flour (scant), 1 tablespoon fine herbs, salt and cayenne
pepper, 1 tablespoon sugar, juice of 2 large tomatoes and 1 cup warm milk.
Bake under roasting meat, or alone in a buttered pan.
> CHEESE DISHES.
Almost any cheese will give a good result in these dishes. Crumbly cream
cheese is richer in taste and has also been shown to be more quickly
digested. Skim cheeses are as nutritious except in fat, and in some
dishes, as in "Fondamin" give a better result. Grate old cheeses, chop new
and soft ones.
Grated cheese.
Grate old cheese and serve with bread and butter. It is also a good
addition to mashed potato, to flour porridges, to oatmeal and wheat flour
porridges, to rice, sago, tapioca and indeed to any starchy foods; it
should be stirred in while these are quite hot. Its use with macaroni is
given elsewhere.
Cooked cheese with bread.
The basis of these dishes is toasted bread (white or graham) arranged on a
platter, and enough salted water poured on to soften it.
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1. Grate enough old cheese to cover the toast prepared as above. Set in
the oven to melt, and put the slices together as sandwiches. This is the
simplest form of "Welsh Rarebit.'
2. 1/2 lb. cheese, 1 tablespoon butter and 1 cup milk. Stir till smooth
over a gentle fire or in a water bath and spread over the toast.
3. 1/4 lb. cheese, 1 tablespoon butter, 2 egg yolks, 1/2 teaspoon mustard,
a pinch of cayenne pepper. Stir to smooth paste, spread on the toast and
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