THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 779 



bosch, or, if preferred, as "oleomargarine," or "butterine," or any- 

 other name that shall tell the truth. In order to render such commer- 

 cial honesty possible to shopkeepers, more intelligence is demanded 

 among their customers. A dealer, on whom I can rely, told me lately 

 that if he offered the bosch or butterine to his other customers as he 

 was then offering it to me at S^d. per pound in twenty-four-pound 

 box, or 9d. retail, he could not possibly sell it, and his reputation 

 would be injured by admitting that he kept it ; but that the same 

 people who would be disgusted with it at 9d. will buy it freely at 

 double the price as prime Devonshire fresh butter ; and he added, 

 significantly, " I can not afford to lose my business and be ruined be- 

 cause my customers are f ools." To pastry-cooks and others in business, 

 it is sold honestly enough for what it is, and used instead of butter. 



Before leaving the subject of animal food I may say a few words 

 on the latest and perhaps the greatest triumph of science in reference 

 to food-supply i. e., the successful solution of the great problem of 

 preserving fresh meat for an almost indefinite length of time. It has 

 long been known that meat which is frozen remains fresh. The 

 Aberdeen whalers were in the habit of feasting their friends on re- 

 turning home on joints that were taken out fresh from Aberdeen and 

 kept frozen during a long Arctic voyage. In Norway, game is shot 

 at the end of autumn, and kept in a frozen state for consumption dur- 

 ing the whole winter and far into the spring. 



The early attempts to apply the freezing process for the carriage 

 of fresh meat from South America and Australia by using ice, or 

 freezing mixtures of ice and salt, failed, but now all the difficulties 

 are overcome by a simple application of the great principle of the 

 conservation of energy, whereby the burning of coal may be made to 

 produce a degree of cold proportionate to the amount of heat it gives 

 out in burning. 



Carcasses of sheep are thereby frozen to stony hardness immedi- 

 ately they are slaughtered in New Zealand and Australia, and then 

 packed in close refrigerated cars, carried to the ship, and there stowed 

 in chambers refrigerated by the same means, and thus brought to 

 England in the same state of stony hardness as that originally pro- 

 duced. I dined to-day on one of the legs of a sheep that I bought a 

 week ago and which was grazing at the antipodes three months be- 

 fore. I prefer it to any English mutton ordinarily obtainable. 



The grounds of this preference will be understood when I explain 

 that English farmers who manufacture mutton as a primary product 

 kill their sheep as soon as they are full grown, when a year old or 

 less. They can not afford to feed a sheep for two years longer merely 

 to improve its flavor without adding to its weight. Country gentle- 

 men who do not care for expense occasionally regale their friends on 

 a haunch or saddle of three-year-old mutton, as a rare and costly 

 luxury. 



