THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 379 



It is obtainable by boiling these creatures down, but is more difficult 

 of solution than the ordinary gelatine of beef, mutton, fish, and poultry. 

 To this difficulty of solution in the stomach is to be attributed, I sus- 

 pect, the nightmare that follows lobster-suppers. 



I once had an experience of the edibility of the shells of a crusta- 

 cean. "When traveling, I always continue the pursuit of knowledge 

 in restaurants by ordering anything that appears on the bill of fare 

 that I have never heard of before, or can not translate or pronounce. 

 At a Neapolitan restaurant, I found " G ambers di mare " on the carta, 

 which I translated " Leggy things of the sea," or sea-creepers, and 

 ordered them accordingly. They proved to be shrimps fried in their 

 shells, and were very delicious like white-bait, but richer. The chitine 

 of the shells was thus cooked to crispness, and no evil consequences 

 followed. If reduced to locusts, I should, if possible, cook them in 

 the same manner, and, as they have similar chemical composition, they 

 would doubtless be equally good. 



Should any epicurean reader desire to try this dish (the shrimps, I 

 mean), he should fry them as they come from the sea, not as they are 

 sold by the fishmonger, these being already boiled in salt-water (usu- 

 ally in sea-water) by the shrimpers who catch them, the chitin being 

 indurated thereby. 



The introduction of fried and tinned locust as an epicurean deli- 

 cacy would be a boon to suffering humanity, by supplying industrial 

 compensation to the inhabitants of districts subject to periodical 

 plagues of locust invasion. The idea of eating them appears repulsive 

 at first, so would that of eating such creepy-crawly things as shrimps, 

 if no adventurous hero had made the first exemplary experiment. Chi- 

 tine is chitine, whether elaborated on the land or secreted in the sea. 

 The vegetarian locust and the cicala are free from the pungent essen- 

 tial oils of the really unpleasant cockchafer. 



VI. GELATINE AND ITS CHANGES. 



Those who are disposed to bow too implicitly to mere authority in 

 scientific matters will do well to study the history and the treatment 

 which gelatine has received from some of the highest of these authori- 

 ties. Our grandmothers believed it to be highly nutritious, prepared 

 it in the form of jellies for invalids, and estimated the nutritive value 

 of their soups by the consistency of the jelly which they formed on 

 cooling, which thickness is due to the gelatine they contain. Isinglass, 

 which is simply the swim-bladder of the sturgeon and similar fishes 

 cut into shreds, was especially esteemed, and sold at high prices. This 

 is the purest natural form of gelatine. 



Everybody believed that the callipash and callipee of the alder- 

 man's turtle-soup contributed largely to his proverbial girth, and those 

 who could not afford to pay for the gelatine of the reptile made mock- 

 turtle from the gelatinous tissues of calves'-head and pigs'-feet. The 



