OBJECT OF COOKING. 87 



made more indigestible. Yes, at three times the tempera- 

 ture necessary to healthfully and properly cook the food, 

 we immerse the delicate albumen or fibrine in the terrifically 

 hot fat, and then let it fry, fry, fry ! 



Water boils in the open air at 212° F., and at this temper- 

 ature nearly all of our food is properly cooked. The roasting 

 of large joints of meat, and the baking of bread, demand a 

 somewhat higher and more prolonged temperature in order 

 to reach the interior masses of dough and muscle. But 

 when doughnuts are cooked, in boiling lard, they are sub- 

 jected to a temperature between 500° and 600°, and, of 

 course, affected accordingly. 



The large part of our animal food is albumen and fibrine, 

 and, of our vegetable food, starch and sugar ; and the human 

 stomach is able to digest any of these substances in the raw 

 or uncooked state. But cooking is employed to make these 

 substances more digestible, to put them into such a condi- 

 tion that the stomach can more easily and readily assimilate 

 them than if they were eaten in the uncooked state. A 

 heat at a temperature of about boiling water is that which 

 makes our meats easier to be dissolved by the stomach-juices, 

 and helps to change starch into sugar, which is always very 

 digestible. Now, if we cook (overcook) our food by so high 

 a temperature that the albumen is injured by heat, of course 

 the nutritive properties are more or less reduced ; and if our 

 starch foods are so altered by heat, that they are nearer to 

 charcoal than sugar, of course we are sufferers, and we not 

 only lose the nutriment, but we compel the digestive organs 

 to run through their mill that material which yields no 

 good grist, but wears out the machinery. Hence dyspepsia 

 and bowel disorders. When a thin slice of beef, mutton, 

 ham, or apple or bread, is dropped on this terribly hot frying- 

 pan, a portion of it is at once destroyed as nourishment. 

 And, when many kinds of food are. treated to a kettle of 

 boiling lard, the act destroys too much of the tender and 

 juicy parts, which only want to be changed a little by moder- 

 ate heat. 



Pure air in living and sleeping rooms, and enough of it, is 

 a necessity which needs constant attendance and vigilance. 

 And it is probable, with the abolition of the old-fashioned 

 fireplace (which many of the present generation never saw), 



