126 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE PREPARATION" OF FOOD HOURS FOR MEALS. 



§1. The Philosophy of Cookery. — While the composition of 

 a food is an important factor in determining its worth, yet a 

 more important factor still, perhaps, is the manner in which it 

 is prepared for use in the organism, — the manner in which it 

 is cooked, that is to say. This is seen to be true when it is 

 realized that man is a cooking animal, and as such is distin- 

 guished from the rest of creation. It seems to be clearly re- 

 vealed in his constitution that he was not designed to take into 

 his stomach in the raw condition in which they are found in 

 nature most of the articles which constitute his dietary. He is 

 not a graminiverous animal ; he lacks the long alimentary tract, 

 the special stomach, and the apparatus for secreting large quan- 

 tities of saliva which is possessed by the cow and other grain 

 munchers. The crops of birds probably fulfill somewhat the 

 same function in the digestive processes that the second stomach 

 does in the ruminants ; and in both cases this elaborate apparatus 

 is necessary in order to transform starch and other food ele- 

 ments into assimilable products. Again, man does not appear to 

 be adapted to eat meat unsubdued by heat ; sentiment if nothing 

 more would forbid his doing this. The human species has pro- 

 gressed to the point in the evolutionary scale where it can call 

 to its aid forces which are capable of advancing foods as they 

 are found in their native state far along in the process of di- 

 gestion, so that when taken into the system they may be assimi- 

 lated with comparatively little delay or expenditure of vital en- 

 ergy. 



It may be observed in passing that in all likelihood this ac- 

 complishment more than any other has contributed to the rapid 

 mental progress and present superiority of mankind. Spencer 1 



1 Education, chapter on Physical Education. 



