THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 217 



he himself evidently regarded them as the most important of all his 

 varied achievements. 



His faith in cookery is well expressed in the following, where he is 

 speaking of his experiments in feeding the Bavarian army and the 

 poor of Munich. He says : " I constantly found that the richness or 

 quality of a soup depended more upon the proper choice of the ingre- 

 dients, and a proper management of the fire in the combination of 

 these ingredients, than upon the quantity of solid nutritious matter 

 employed ; much more upon the art and skill of the cook than upon 

 the sums laid out in the market." 



A great many fallacies are continually perpetrated, not only by 

 ignorant people, but even by eminent chemists and physiologists, by 

 inattention to what is indicated in this passage. In many chemical 

 and physiological works may be found elaborately minute tables of 

 the chemical composition of certain articles of food, and with these 

 the assumption (either directly stated, or implied, as a matter of 

 course) that such tables represent the practical nutritive value of the 

 food. The illusory character of such assumption is easily understood. 

 In the first place, the analysis is usually that of the article of food in 

 its raw state, and thus all the chemical changes involved in the pro- 

 cess of cookery are ignored. 



Secondly, the difficulty or facility of assimilation is too often un- 

 heeded. This depends both upon the original condition of the food 

 and the changes which the cookery has produced changes which 

 may double its nutritive value without effecting more than a small 

 percentage of alteration in its chemical composition, as revealed by 

 laboratory analysis. 



In the recent discussion on whole-meal bread, for example, chem- 

 ical analyses of the bran, etc., are quoted, and it is commonly assumed 

 that, if these can be shown to contain more of the theoretical bone- 

 making or brain-making elements, they are, therefore, in reference 

 to these requirements, more nutritious than the fine flour. But, 

 before we are justified in asserting this, it must be made clear that 

 these ordinarily rejected portions of the grain are as easily digested 

 and assimilated as the finer inner flour. 



I think I shall be able to show that the practical failure of this 

 whole-meal bread movement (which is not a novelty, but only a re- 

 vival) is mainly due to the disregard of the cookery question ; that 

 whole -meal prepared as bread by simple baking is less nutritious 

 than fine flour similarly prepared ; but that whole-meal otherwise pre- 

 pared may be, and has been, made more nutritious than fine white 

 bread. 



Count Rumford supplies us with important data toward the solu- 

 tion of this difficulty. 



Another preliminary example. A pound of bread or biscuit con- 

 tains more solid nutritive matter than a pound of beefsteak, but does 



