CHAPTER II.

(Continued.)

FOOD AND DRINK.

SECTION III-ARTICLES OF FOOD

Meats-The flavouring substance of meat, osmazome-The flesh of young animals -The age of animals in relation to the digestibility of their flesh-Effects of roasting, boiling, and baking-German and French meat-Digestibility of different meats-Sweetbread and tripe-Horse-flesh as food: experiments to establish the excellence of horse-beef-Quantities of horse-flesh consumed in various countries-The flesh of donkeys-Fish: digestibility of different kinds— Nutritive quality of fish-Are fish-eaters unusually prolific?-Eggs-Pastry: is it injurious?-Vegetables-Vegetarianism-Tea, coffee, and the narcotics; curious physiological paradox of their action-The quantity of food requisite for man-Individual varieties in the quantity needed-Error of applying arithmetic to vital problems-The gluttony of some races-Does a cold climate produce inordinate eating?-The rations of panpers and soldiers.

MAN is said, with but slight exaggeration, to be omnivorous. If he does not eat of all things, he eats so multifariously, that our limits would be insufficient to include even a superficial account of all the substances employed by him as Food. We must therefore be content to let attention fall on the principal groups.

1. Meats. It is superfluous to dwell on the fact that the flesh of most he bivora, both wild and domestic, is both agreeable and nutritious; even the advocates of a purely vegetable diet do not dispute he flavour or the potency of flesh, whatever consequences they may attribute to the eat

ing of it. It contains some of the chief alimentary principles namely, albumen, fibrine, fat, gelatine, water, salts and osmazome.

The last-named is a substance of reddish-brown colour, having the smell and flavour of soup (whence the name-ỏoμŋ, smell, and wμos, soup); it varies in various animals, increasing with their age. It is this osmazome, developed during the process of cooking, which gives their characteristic flavors to beef, mutton, goat-flesh, and birds, &c.

The flesh of young animals is tenderer than that of adults; and tenderness is one quality which flavours diges tibility. Nevertheless we shall err if, fixing our attention on this one quality, we assume that the flesh of young animals is always more digestible than that of adults; we shall find veal to be less so than beef, and chickens less so than beef. The reason given for the first of these exceptions is, that veal has less of the peculiar aroma developed in cooking; the reason given for the second is, that the texture of chicken is closer than that of beef, and, being closer, is less readily acted on by the gastric juice. Every one knows that veal is not very digestible, and is always shunned by the dyspeptic. On the other hand, in spite of chicken being less digestible than beef, it is more suitable for a delicate stomach, and will be assimilated when beef, or other meat, would not remain in the stomach,—an example which shows us that even the rule of nutritive value, being determined in a great measure by digestibility, is not absolute; and which further shows how cautious we should be in relying upon general rules in cases so complex.

The age of animals is very important. Thus the flesh of the kid is very agreeable; but as the kid approaches the adult period, there is so pronounced an odour developed from the hircic acid in its fat, that the flesh becomes uneatable. Whereas the ox and cow, fattened for two years after reach.

ing full growth, have acquired the perfection of their aroma and flavour. The difference between lamb and mutton is very marked, especially in their fat, that of mutton containing more fatty acid, and being to many stomachs quite intolerable.

"All the savoury constituents of flesh are contained in the juice, and may be entirely removed by lixiviation (process of dissolving) with cold water. When the watery infusion of flesh thus obtained, which is commonly tinged red by some of the colouring matter of the blood, is gradually heated to boiling, the albumen of flesh separates, when the temperature has risen to 133° Fahr., in nearly colourless cheesy flocculi; the colouring matter of the blood is not coagulated till the temperature rises to 158°.

"The proportion of the albumen of flesh separated as a coagulum by heat is very various, according to the age of the animal. The flesh of old animals often yields no more than 1 or 2 per cent.; that of young animals as much as 14 per cent.

"The infusion or extract of flesh, after being freed by boiling from the albumen and colouring matter of the blood, has the aromatic taste, and all the properties of soup made by boiling the flesh. The residue of flesh, after exhaustion with cold water, is of the same quality in different animals; so that it is impossible in this state to distinguish beef from poultry, venison, pork, &c. On the other hand, the soup made of the flesh of different animals possesses, along with the common flavour in which all soups resemble one another, in each case a peculiar taste, which distinctly recalls the smell or taste of the roasted flesh of the animal; so that if we add to the boiled and exhausted flesh of roe-deer the concentrated juice of beef or poultry, the meat thus prepared cannot be distinguished by the flavour from roast-beef or fowl.

"The fibre of meat is, as we see from these facts, in its natural state steeped in and surrounded by a liquid containing albumen; and the tender quality of boiled or roasted meat depends on the amount of albumen deposited in its substance, and there coagulating, whereby the contraction, toughening, and hardening of the fibres are prevented. Meat is underdone, or bloody, when it has been heated throughout only to the temperature of coagulating albumen, or 133° Fahr.; it is quite done, or cooked, when it has been heated through its whole mass to between 158° and 165°."*

We may now understand the effects of cooking. When meat is Roasted, the outer layer of its albumen is coagulated, and thus presents a barrier to the exit of all the juice. To have a good and juicy roast, it is therefore necessary that the heat should be strongest at first. Let your cook, therefore, be careful not to set the joint down until the fire is vigorous and red. The heat may afterwards be much reduced. Besides this effect on the albumen, roasting converts the cellular tissue into gelatine ready for solution, and melts the fat out of the fat-cells.

In Rapid Boiling a somewhat similar result is effected, except that the albumen becomes less soluble. "If the flesh be introduced into the boiler," says Liebig, "when the water is in a state of brisk ebullition, and if the boiling be kept up for a few minutes, and the pot then placed in a warm place, so that the temperature of the water is kept at 158° to 165°, we have the united conditions for giving to the flesh the qualities which best fit it for being eaten."

In Slow Boiling a very different result is obtained. All the juices are extracted in the form of Soup, leaving a stringy mass of flesh behind. The thinner the piece of meat, the greater is its loss of savory juices. To make the best soup we must chop the meat into fine pieces, and then, adding an

* LIEBIG: Chemical Letters, 1859, pp. 435, 436.

equal weight of water, let the whole be slowly heated to the boiling point; it must be kept boiling for a few minutes, and then strained and pressed. We have then the strongest and most highly-flavored soup that can be made from flesh; after which it may be diluted according to taste.

Baking exerts some unexplained influence on the meat, which renders it both less agreeable and less digestible. Those who have travelled in Germany and France must have repeatedly marvelled at the singular uniformity in the flavour, or want of flavour, of the various "roasts served up at the table-d'hôte. The general explanation is, that the German and French meat is generally inferior in quality to that of England and Holland, owing to inferiority of pasturage; and, doubtless, this is one cause, but it is not the chief cause. The meat is inferior, but the cooking is mainly at fault. The meat is scarcely ever roasted because there is no coal, and firewood is expensive. The meat is therefore baked; and the consequence of this baking is, that no meat is eatable, or eaten, with its own gravy, but is always accompanied by some sauce more or less piquant. The Germans generally believe that in England we eat our beef and mutton almost raw; they shudder at our gravy, as if it were so much blood.

I have ascertained that it is really the cooking, and not the meat, which is in fault; for at the tables of great people, or resident English, where roast meat is served, the flavour is excellent. Moreover, the game, at a table-d'hôte, is almost as tasteless as the poultry, partridges having little of their well-known flavour:

"Longe dissimilem noto celantia succum; and hare, that "well-flavoured beast," eulogised by Charles Lamb, is rendered undistinguishable from beef, except perhaps in tenderness; while venison may be mistaken for kid

* HORACE, Sat. ii. 8, makes this complaint of bad cookery in his day.