HUMAX NUTRITIOX. 783 



Use of recipes. — In learning and in practicing the art of cookery, 

 too much importance is attached to recipes. Excellent as they may 

 be in their place, they must not be allowed to occupy too large a part 

 of the field. A good cook book should be a part of the stock in trade of 

 every housekeeper, but it should be used to emphasize and suggest and 

 to help over hard places, but not as a detailed guide for each dish that 

 is to appear on the family table. 



Cookery becomes more exact, more interesting and very much easier 

 to do if we learn something of the principles which underlie the prepara- 

 tion of various foods. Let experience teach us as soon as possible some- 

 thing of the proportions in which the foods we so commonly handle 

 will mix. Intimate relationships exist between many of our common 

 dishes, and instead of using a recipe for each new dish we should be 

 able with our experience of proportions to make one recipe serve us in 

 making a score of other things. Accomplished in this way, cooking 

 loses much of its mystery and becomes an active pleasure. Let our 

 first effort, therefore, be given to accumulating knowledge of the prin- 

 ciples which govern the cookery of starchy and protein foods, the prin- 

 ciples of bread making and food preservation, a knowledge which will 

 aid in making us masters of a very important art — the art of cookery. 



The cooking of starchy foods. Every housekeeper knows that starch 

 occurs in the form of tiny particles or grains which will not dissolve in 

 cold water but if allowed to stand some time will settle to the bottom 

 of the receptacle. The old-fashioned method of extracting starch for 

 laundry purposes was to wash grated potatoes in a bowl of water and 

 then to allow the starch to settle and recover it by pouring off the water. 

 When starch grains are cooked in hot water the little hard dry grains 

 absorb water and swell, and if the heat is long continued they finally 

 break apart and spread through the liquid in the form of minute sticky 

 droplets forming the starch paste with which we are all so familiar. 



If a handful of dry starch powder is carelessly thrown into boiling 

 water, the grains on the outside swell immediately and form a sticky 

 coating which prevents the water from reaching those on the inside. 

 The result is a lumpy mixture, each lump having a center of uncooked 

 starch grains. Raw starch is very difficult to digest, and the gravies 

 and sauces which instead of being smooth are filled with little half raw 

 dumplings, are not wholesome foods. 



As soon as the starch grain becomes swollen and in a soft condition 

 it is readily attacked by the digestive juices. Hence, one of our main 

 reasons for cooking starch is to change it to a digestible form. Starch 

 is not always palatable if cooked only long enough to insure easy digestion, 



