THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 91 



promontories, indicates that many former islands are now connected 

 with the mainland. The islands of Imeleb and Quehui, in Chiloe, 

 are at present separated only at high water, and appear to be approach- 

 ing a permanent union. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly 

 from Die JSfatur. 



-♦♦♦- 



THE CHEMISTEY OF COOKEKY. 



By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 

 XXXVIII. — COUNT EUMFOEd's COOKERY. 



IN my last I referred to Rumford's anticipation of the results of 

 modern chemical analysis in his selection of the materials for his 

 economical feeding of the poor of Munich ; but, as may be supposed, 

 all his theoretical speculations have not been confirmed. The composi- 

 tion of water had just been discovered, and he found by experience 

 that a given quantity of solid food was more satisfying to the appetite 

 and more effective in nutrition when made into soup by long boiling 

 with water. This led him to suppose that the water itself was decom- 

 posed by cookery, and its elements recorabined or united with other 

 elements, and thus became nutritious by being converted into the tis- 

 sues of plants and animals. 



Thus, speaking of the barley which formed an important constituent 

 of his soup, he says : " It requires, it is true, a great deal of boiling ; 

 but, when it is properly managed, it thickens a vast quantity of water, 

 and, as I suppose, prepares it for decom2)ositio7i^' (the italics are his 

 own). 



We now know that this idea of decomposing water by such means 

 is a mistake ; but, in my own opinion, there is something behind it 

 which still remains to be learned by modern chemists. In my en- 

 deavors to fathom the rationale of the changes which occur in cookery, 

 I have been (as my readers will remember) continually driven into 

 hypotheses of hydration, i. e., of supposing that some of the water used 

 in cookery unites to form true chemical compounds with certain of the 

 constituents of the food. As already stated, when I commenced this 

 subject I had no idea of its suggestiveness, of the wide field of research 

 which it has opened out. One of these lines of research is the dem- 

 onstration of such true chemical hydration of cooked gelatine, fibrine, 

 cellulose, casein, starch, legumin, etc. That water is loith them when 

 they are cooked is evident enough, but that water is brought into 

 actual chemical combination with them in such wise as to form new 

 compounds of additional nutritive value proportionate to the chemical 

 addition of water demands so much investigation that I have been 

 driven to merely theorize where I ought to demonstrate. 



The fact that the living body which our food is building up and 



