THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 499 



of cookery. It contains (as I shall presently show) more nutritious 

 material than any other food that is ordinarily obtainable, and its 

 cookery is singularly neglected, is practically an unknown art, espe- 

 cially in this country. We commonly eat it raw, although in its raw 

 state it is peculiarly indigestible ; and in the only cooked form famil- 

 iarly known among us here, that of a Welsh rabbit, or rare-bit, it is too 

 often rendered still more indigestible, though this need not be the case. 



Here, in this densely populated country, where we import so much 

 of our food, cheese demands our most profound attention. The diffi- 

 culties and cost of importing all kinds of meat, fish, and poultry, are 

 great, while cheese may be cheaply and deliberately brought to us 

 from any part of the world where cows or goats can be fed, and it 

 can be stored more readily and kept longer than other kinds of animal 

 food. All that is required to render it, next to bread, the staple food 

 of Britons, is scientific cookery. 



If I shall be able, in what is to follow, to impart to my fellow- 

 countrymen, and more especially countrywomen, my own convictions 

 concerning the cookability, and consequent improved digestibility, of 

 cheese, these papers will have " done the state some service ! ' 



XXIII. 



In my last I referred generally to the high nutritive value of cheese. 

 I will now state particulars. First, as regards the water. Taking mus- 

 cular fiber without bone, i. e., selected best part of the meat, beef con- 

 tains on an average 72^- per cent of water ; mutton, 73^- ; veal, 74J ; 

 pork, 69f ; fowl, 73f ; while Cheshire cheese contains only 30J-, and 

 other cheeses about the same. Thus, at starting, we have in every 

 pound of cheese rather more than twice as much solid food as in a 

 pound of the best meat, or comparing with the average of the whole 

 carcass, including bone, tendons, etc., the cheese has an advantage of 

 three to one. 



The following results of Mulder's analysis of casein, when compared 

 with those by the same chemist of albumen, gelatine, and fibrin, show 

 that there is but little difference in the ultimate chemical composition 

 of these, so far as the constituents there named are concerned : 



Carbon 53*83 



Hydrogen T*15 



Nitrogen 1 5*65 



0x yS en 123-37 



Sulphur , 



> 23? 



* Casein. 



Albumen. Gelatine. Fibrin. 



Carbon 535 5040 52-7 



Hydrogen 7'0 6*64 6*9 



Nitrogen 15*5 18*34 15*4 



Oxygen 22-0 24*62 23*5 



Sulphur 1-6 " 1*2 



Phosphorus 0*4 " 0*3 



