Read Ebook: Culinary Chemistry The Scientific Principles of Cookery with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles Vinegar Conserves Fruit Jellies Marmalades and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy with Observations on by Accum Friedrich Christian

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Precision in mixing ingredients is as often and as closely laid down for the coarsest dish of the peasant as for the most guarded receipe of the Lady Bountiful of the village. The pleasures of the table have always been highly appreciated and sedulously cultivated among civilized people of every age and nation; and, in spite of the Stoic, it must be admitted, that they are the first which we enjoy, the last we abandon, and those of which we most frequently partake.

"Cookery is the soul of every pleasure, at all times and to all ages. How many marriages have been the consequence of a meeting at dinner; how much good fortune has been the result of a good supper, at what moment of our existence are we happier than at table? there hatred and animosity are lulled to sleep, and pleasure alone reigns."

In later times, Dr. Johnson is well known to have been exceedingly fond of good dinners, considering them as the highest enjoyment of human life. The sentiments of our great moralist are a good answer to those who think the pleasures of the table incompatible with intellectual pursuits or mental superiority. "Some people," says the Doctor, "have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat; for my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully, and I look upon it that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind any thing else." Boswell, his biographer, says of him, "I never knew a man who relished good eating more than he did: and when at table, he was wholly absorbed in the business of the moment." It was one of the objects which displeased him so much in his Northern tour, that the Scots were rather ignorant of the more refined arts of cookery. A lady in the Isle of Mull, anxious to gratify him for once in a dinner, had an excellent plum-pudding prepared, at some expense, and with the utmost care; but, to her great mortification, the doctor would not taste it, because, he said, "it is totally impossible to make a plum-pudding at all fit to eat in the Isle of Mull."

Cardinal Wolsey, we should have thought, would have had something else to mind than cooking and good eating. But no person was more anxious than he, even in the whirl of the immense public business which he had to transact, to have the most skilful cooks; for all Europe was ransacked, and no expense spared, to procure culinary operators, thoroughly acquainted with the multifarious operations of the spit, the stew-pan, and the rolling-pin.

Sir Walter Scott, has been most happy in the illustration of our ancient manners with respect to good eating, in the character of Athelstan, in the Romance of Ivanhoe.

Count Rumford has not considered the pleasure of eating, and the means that may be employed for increasing it, as unworthy the attention of a philosopher, for he says, "the enjoyments which fall to the bulk of mankind, are not so numerous as to render an attempt to increase them superfluous. And even in regard to those who have it in their power to gratify their appetites to the utmost extent of their wishes, it is surely rendering them a very important service to shew them how they may increase their pleasures without destroying their health."

Tabella Cibaria, ps. 19 and 20.

Even in our own times great skill in cookery is so highly praised by many, that a very skilful cook can often command, in this metropolis, a higher salary than a learned and pious curate.

We might defend the art of cookery on another principle, namely--on the axiom recognized in the Malthusian Political Economy, that he who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor to his country and to human nature. Whether or not Malthus is quite right in this, we are not competent to decide; we leave that to Say, Godwin, Ricardo, and Drummond. But certainly it must in many cases be of the utmost consequence, for families in particular, when embarrassed in circumstances, to make food go twice as far as without the art and aid of rational cookery it could do. We would particularly press this remark, as it is founded on numerous facts, and places the art of cookery in a more interesting point of view than any of the other circumstances which we have been considering.

Principles of Currency, and Elements of Political Economy--1820.

Cookery has often drawn down on itself the animadversions of both moralists, physicians, and wits, who have made it a subject for their vituperations and their ridicule.

So early as the time of the patriarch Isaac, the sacred historian casts blame upon Esau for being epicurean enough to transfer his birth-right for a mess of pottage.

Jacob is blamed for making savoury meat with a kid for his father, with a view to rob Esau of the paternal blessing.

Diogenes, the Cynic, meeting a young man who was going to a feast, took him up in the street and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into evident danger had he not prevented him. The whole tribe, indeed, of the Stoics and Cynics, laughed at cookery, pretending, in their vanity and pride, to be above the desire of eating niceties. Lucian, with his inexhaustible satire, most effectually and humourously exposed these their pretences.

In our own times, we have had writers of eminence who have attacked the use of a variety of food as a dreadful evil. "Should we not think a man mad," says Addison, "who at one meal will devour fowl, flesh, and fish; swallow oil, and vinegar, salt, wines, and spices; throw down sallads of twenty different herbs, sauces of an hundred ingredients, confections, and fruits of numberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural effects must such a medley produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy, that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, and other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes."

Savages, whose cookery is in the rudest state, are more apt to over-eat themselves than the veriest glutton of a luxurious and refined people; a fact, which of itself, is sufficient to prove, that it is not cookery which is the cause of gluttony and surfeiting. The savage, indeed, suffers less from his gluttony than the sedentary and refined gormand; for, after sleeping, sometimes for a whole day, after gorging himself with food, hunger again drives him forth to the chace, in which he soon gets rid of the ill-effects of his overloaded stomach. Surely cookery is not to blame for the effects of gluttony, indolence, and sedentary occupations; yet it does appear, that all its ill effects are erroneously charged to the account of the refined art of cooking.

The defence of cookery, however, which we thus bring forward to repel misrepresentation, applies only to the art of preparing good, nutritious, and wholesome food.

We cannot say one word in defence of the wretched and injurious methods but too often practised, under the name of cookery, and the highly criminal practices of adulterating food with substances deleterious to health. On this subject we have spoken elsewhere.

A treatise on adulterations of food, and culinary poisons, exhibiting the fraudulent sophistications of bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, tea, coffee, cream, confectionary, vinegar, mustard, pepper, cheese, olive oil, pickles, and other articles employed in domestic economy, and methods of detecting them.--Third edition, 1821.

"A good dinner is one of the greatest enjoyments of human life; but the practice of cookery is attended with not only so many disgusting and disagreeable circumstances, and even dangers, that we ought to have some regard for those who encounter them for our pleasure."

The Cook's Oracle.--Preface, p. xxxv.

DIETETICAL REMARKS ON THE CHOICE AND QUANTITY OF FOOD.

Almost every person who can afford it, eats more than is requisite for promoting the growth, and renewing the strength and waste of his body. It would be ridiculous to speak concerning the precise quantity of food necessary to support the body of different individuals. Such rules do not exist in nature. The particular state or condition of the individual, the variety of constitution, and other circumstances, must be taken into account. If, after dinner, we feel ourselves as cheerful as before, we may be assured that we have made a dietetical meal.

Celsus spoke very right when he said that a healthy man ought not to tie himself up by strict rules, nor to abstain from any sort of food; that he ought sometimes to fast, and sometimes to feast. When applied to eating, nothing is more true than the proverb--

What has been so far stated on the choice and quantity of food to be taken at a time, of course, relates only to persons in a state of health; the diet of the delicate, the sickly, and the infirm, must be regulated by the physician, and even the aged require particular kinds of food.

"Experience has fully convinced me, , that the latter stages of human life, are often abridged by unsuitable diet."

Carlisle on the disorders of Old Age, ps. 2 and 27. This book exhibits an excellent view of the most suitable diet for aged, weak, and sickly people.

"The most numerous tribe of disorders incident to advanced life, spring from the failure or errors of the stomach, and its dependancies, and perhaps the first sources of all the infirmities of inability, may be traced to effects arising from imperfectly digested food."

EXTRAORDINARY GREAT EATERS, AND OBSERVATIONS ON ABSTINENCE.

In some persons, an extraordinary great appetite seems to be constitutional.

and five bottles of porter; and although allowed the daily rations of ten men, he was not satisfied.

Man can sustain the privation of food for several days, more or fewer in number, according to circumstances--the old better than the young, and the fat better than the lean. The absolute want of drink can be suffered only a short time, they have been strikingly described by Mungo Park and Ali Bey, as experienced in their own persons.

The narratives of ship-wrecked mariners also prove, with how very little food life may be supported for a considerable length of time; and the history of those impostors who pretend to live altogether without food or drink, display this adaptation of the wants of the body to its means of supply in a still more striking manner; for, even after the deception, in such cases as that of Ann Moore, is exposed, it will be found that the quantity of aliment actually taken was incredibly small.

Captain Woodard has added to his interesting narrative many instances of the power of the human body to resist the effects of severe abstinence. He himself and his five companions rowed their boat for seven days without any sustenance but a bottle of brandy, and then wandered about the shores of Celebes six more, without any other food than a little water and a few berries. Robert Scotney lived seventy-five days alone in a boat with three pounds and a half of meat, three pounds of flour, two hogsheads of water, some whale oil, and a small quantity of salt. He also used an amazing quantity of tobacco. Six soldiers deserted from St. Helena in a boat, on the 10th of June 1799, with twenty-five pounds of bread and about thirteen gallons of water. On the 18th, they reduced their allowance to one ounce of bread and two mouthfuls of water, on which they subsisted till the 26th, when their store was expended. Captain Inglefield, with eleven others, after five days of scanty diet, were obliged to restrict it to a biscuit divided into twelve morsels for breakfast, and the same for dinner, with an ounce or two of water daily. In ten days, a very stout man died, unable to swallow, and delirious. Lieutenant Bligh and his crew lived forty-two days upon five day's provisions.

REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOM OF EATING FLESH.

Tabella Cibaria, p. 33.

Nonius de re Cibaria.

COMPARATIVE ALIMENTARY EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD.

Animal food alone is ill adapted to form the whole of our aliment. The inquiries of physiologists have determined, that animal food is highly stimulant, and like all other stimulants, after the excitement has been brought to its acm?, debility must by necessity succeed. This, however, is not so much the case where fresh meat is used as when the meat is salted; but this may be, because our examples, with regard to fresh meat, are less marked than in the case of salted provision. For few instances occur in which fresh meat forms the whole food, exclusive altogether of fruits or other vegetable aliment. Salted meat often constitutes a great proportion of the food in long sea voyages, in the long dreary winters in Lapland, and amongst the inhabitants of besieged towns.

When this practice is continued for any length of time, oppression and langour begin to be felt, indigestion is brought on, and hurried breathing and a quick pulse on taking the slightest exercise, the gums become soft and spongy, the breath becomes foetid, and the limbs swoln. Such are the dreadful effects produced by salted provisions, when a proper proportion of vegetable food is not used along with them.

The fact is, that nations, whose food is entirely vegetable, are less active and energetic than those whose diet is more nutritive. The inhabitants of Ireland, in the most humble walks of life, for example, who live almost exclusively on potatoes, are said to be more indolent and sluggish, when compared with their neighbours in England, who would think such diet to be no better than a prison allowance of bread and water.

In the East, where rice forms the great article of food with some tribes, the people are far from being robust or able to undergo much fatigue in labour or in war. The striking fact, that the English soldiers and sailors surpass all those of other nations in bravery and hardihood, is sufficient, we think, to demonstrate the effect of a considerable proportion of animal food.--For, though it be said, that a great number of our soldiers are Irishmen, yet our argument holds good, since, all these when in the army, or navy, live exactly in the same manner as the English themselves. The change of diet, indeed, is in these brave men very obvious; for the Irish and Scots soldiers are often more hardy than the English; not as it is supposed because they have been innured to greater hardships in their youth, but because their diet being more generous than it was at that period, its effects become more obvious than in those who have always had animal food.

Food, then, composed of animal and vegetable substances, seems to be the best adapted for our organs of mastication and digestion, though it would not be easy to say precisely what proportions of these are most agreeable to the intentions of nature. We may safely conclude, however, that the vegetable food ought to exceed the animal in quantity. The direction given by Dr. Fothergill is the most judicious we have met with. "I have only" says he "one short caution to give. Those who think it necessary to pay any attention to their health at table, should take care that the quantity of bread, of meat, of pudding, and of greens, should not compose each of them a meal, as if some were only thrown in to make weight; but they should carefully observe, that the sum of all together do not exceed due bounds, or encroach upon the first feeling of satiety."

OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOUS KINDS OF ANIMAL SUBSTANCES COMMONLY USED FOR FOOD.

Of the different classes of animals used for food, quadrupeds compose the greatest proportion, and there is no part of their bodies which does not contain nutritive parts, and that has not been used as food in some way or other. Even bones affords an alimentary jelly fit for human food.

The largest portion of our aliment, however, is derived from the voluntary muscles of animals, or what is more strictly called, the flesh, consisting of all the red fibrous substance which covers the bones. It should seem that this is both the most nourishing and the most easily digested of animal substances. The red colour arises from the blood of minute vessels which run in every direction among the fibres; but whether this is the cause of the red muscle being more nutritious is not well ascertained. Thence the flesh of quadrupeds is more largely consumed than of any other class of animals; and, indeed, those in common use in most parts of Europe possesses all the alimentary properties in the highest perfection. All animal flesh seems more or less stimulating; and, in general, the more so the darker its colour is--but it does not absolutely follow that it is also more nutritious.

There is a considerable difference in the qualities of muscular flesh, according to the size of the animal, and also according to its activity. The small mountain sheep, for example, which has to encounter fatigue to procure its food, has flesh of a different quality and flavour from the large and lazy creature, which feeds luxuriously and fattens rapidly, in the rich pastures of the plain country. The beef of the western islands also, is more esteemed, on account of the same circumstance, than that of the fat and brawny oxen which we see in the London market. It is for this reason, we have no doubt, that the flesh of the horse, the rhinocerus, and elephant, is not used as food except in cases when other food is not to be procured. In the circumstance of activity altering the qualities of flesh, we may be allowed to instance the superiority of venison to beef, in flavour and tenderness, and easiness of digestion.

The age of animals is another circumstance which has great influence on the qualities of their flesh. The flesh of young animals is composed of less rigid fibres, and has fewer vessels which carry red blood running through it, and besides, it has less of the peculiar flavour of its particular species than the flesh of older animals. Gelatine is more abundant in the young, and fibrin in the old; hence the former is more bland and tender. Veal and lamb, for example, are more tender and gelatinous than beef or mutton; sucking pigs, chickens, and ducklings, are also much more delicate than the grown animals. The beef of an old cow, however well fed, is quite tough and unpalatable, while that of a very young heifer is much relished. Although, however, very young animals be so much more tender, yet they are insipid and flabby.

In the case of pork, age is not required, as in other sorts of butcher meat, to mellow the fibre. It is an aliment containing much nourishment; but to some palates its flavour is disagreeable, though by most people it is relished. It was much used by the ancient athletae, as half raw beef steaks are now by our men of the fancy.

Sucking pigs are killed when three weeks old; and for pork, pigs are killed from six to twelve months old. It requires them to be older for making brawn. The flesh of young venison is not so good as when four years old or more; though that of the fawn is very tender and succulent.

But even in the foetal state, the flesh of animals, if recently taken from a healthy mother, may be used. In the London market the foetus of the cow is regularly sold to the pastry-cooks for the purpose of making mock turtle soup, of which it often forms the principal portion.

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