The Bulletin. 31 



of the breast are not exercised and the fiber is short, therefore it is com- 

 paratively tender. The old legs, however, that have scratched for many a 

 brood, are tough, because age and work have thickened the walls of the fibers. 

 It has needed much strength, and so the connective tissue is firm and hard. 

 Therefore, you say to yourself, "How am I to get that bird tender enough to 

 eat? Shall I ever be able to cook it so that the connective tissue will change 

 and let the fibers loosen up and their walls soften?" Of course you will. 

 The first consideration is to cook it slowly, as all tough flesh should be. If 

 you boil it either whole or in pieces, let it cook up for a few minutes, then 

 let it simmer a long time. If you want it roasted, steam it until tender and 

 then bake it. Put it in a covered dish in a mild oven for several hours. If, 

 however, you want it fried, steam it well, then cut it up, and all you have 

 to do about frying is to let it brown in the skillet. If ever you have many 

 to fry, as for a picnic, it saves time and trouble to steam the hens until tender, 

 then cut them up and put in a pan in a very hot oven, basting often with 

 butter or grease until brown. 



Now, suppose you have butchered that old steer that has been pulling the 

 plow for John this many a year. The fat is too yellow. That may be 

 because of his feed, but probably is because of his age. The walls of the 

 fibers are thickened and hard and the connective tissue is tough, especially 

 on the legs. Pounding will make it more tender, because that will break 

 down the tissue ; but it will also let out many of the valuable extractives and 

 mineral matter. Cutting across the grain will be a help also, but we must 

 depend on cooking to really soften it, and that must be long and slow. Had 

 you killed that steer when he was four or five years old and had never allowed 

 hiin to work, but just graze and enjoy himself, then you would have had the 

 king of meats ; from his ribs would have come the juiciest, the most nutritious 

 and most easily digested of our meats. 



If. again, you had killed him very young and had called it veal, you 

 would have had some delicious eating, but, like lamb or young pig, it would 

 have been hard to digest. Just why we do not know, unless it is that the 

 fibers elude the teeth and are therefore not chewed. In roasting veal cut a 

 pocket in it and stuff it with a chicken dressing that is well flavored with 

 grated onion. 



If you had cast your eye on the fat old pig and he had met the fate of the 

 chicken and steer, you would have had a meat that certainly tasted well, 

 but that is more abused by doctors and dietitians than any other. If a certain 

 amount of beef took two hours to digest, the same amount of pork would take 

 three and a half hours. This is due to the fact that every particle of meat 

 is surrounded with a coating of fat and it is hard for the digestive juices to 

 get at it. It contains a very small amount of proteid, more fat than the 

 stomach can relish or digest, is not as nutritious as other meat, and people 

 who live on it to the exclusion of other meats are usually pale and unable 

 to resist disease. The value of pork lies in the fact that it takes salt or smoke 

 so well. There is one notable fact about pork in the form of breakfast strip, 

 and that is that the smoking and salting have made the fat granular, in 

 which form it is not hard to digest and can be eaten by people whose digestion 

 would not allow other forms of fat. 



A young or an unthinking housekeeper is apt to cook meat and vegetables 

 just alike. Since, however, their structure and general characteristics are 

 different, the method of preparing them for eating must be different. 



Summing up the meats and vegetables as far as they are of interest to the 

 homemaker, the differences are important. 



Vegetables should be cooked at a high temperature and meat should be 

 cooked slowly. 



Vegetables are more digestible when well cooked and meats when rare, 

 it being only for other reasons that we cook them well. 



Vegetables contain more carbohydrate, and meat, proteid ; those vegetables, 

 like peas and beans, which contain the most proteid having less than those 

 meats which contain least. 



Vegetable proteid is hard to digest, often one-third or more of it not being 

 absorbed into the body, while animal proteid is, as a rule, almost entirely 

 assimilated. 



