120 



OKRA AND SOUPS. 



will furnish a dish beyond the criticism of 

 the most fastidious gourmand. 



" Longer boiling will not necessarily make 

 the extract stronger^ If the broth be slow- 

 ly evaporated over a water bath, it will be- 

 come brown, and assume a fine taste like 

 broiled meat. If evaporated (by exceeding 

 gentle heat) to dryness, it yields a brown 

 mass, of which upon a journey, for exam- 

 ple, half an ounce would convert a pint of 

 water into the strongest broth* By boiling 

 a piece of meat in the water, a separation 

 of the solution from the insoluble ingredi- 

 ents takes place. The soluble ingredients 

 go into the extract — the broth — the soup. 

 Among these, besides those bodies mention- 

 ed above, are the alkaline phosphates. 

 The thoroughly boiled meat contains no al- 

 kaline phosphates. 



" Now as these latter salts are necessary 

 for the formation of blood, it is clear that 

 the fully boiled* meat, by the loss of them, 

 loses its capacity to become either blood, 

 or through blood to become flesh ; it loses 

 its nutriment lohen eate?i without the juices 

 — the extract. 



"In this extract the materials for the 

 formation of albumen and fibrin are both 

 wanting. Alo7ie, also, it is not nourishing. 

 2%e 7nethod of roasting is obviously the best 

 to ?nakefesh the most nutritious. But as 

 the extract — the broth — contains all the in- 

 gredients of the acid gastric juice, it may, 

 perhaps, be the best agent to aid the pro- 

 cess of digestion in cases of dyspepsia. 



"Finally, I have found that the brine 

 which forms in the salting of meat,, contains 

 all the ingredients of the flesh-fluid. The 

 composition of salted meat is essentially 

 different from that of fresh meat, — inas- 

 much as phosphoric acid, lactic acid, and 

 the salts of these acids — together with cre- 

 atine and creatinine are abstracted by being 



* By lliis term, it is intended to convey the idea of boiled 

 lill no further change occurs, or nothing is extracted. 



packed down in salt. The salted meat be- 

 comes partly reduced, by this process, to a 

 mere supporter of respiration.* This may 

 be a source of scrofula, where by eating 

 salt meat, the replacement of the wasted 

 organism is but imperfectly eifected — where 

 it loses its constitution without regaining it 

 from the food, 



" The temperature in the interior of a 

 piece of meat to be boiled ur roasted, rare- 

 ly exceeds 212° Fahrenheit. The meat is 

 done and palatable when it has been expo- 

 sed to a temperature of 144° F., but it is 

 in this condition red, like blood. The 

 blood-red places — the undone portions — 

 were subjected at the highest to a tempe- 

 rature of only 140° F. At 158° to 162° F. 

 all these places disappear. At 212° F. the 

 fibre breaks up, and becomes harder. The 

 crusty property of the meat in chewing, de- 

 pends upon the quantity of albumen, which 

 in a coagulated condition, permeates the 

 fibre. The flesh of old animals is deficient 

 in albumen. 



" If a piece of meat be put in cold water, 

 and this is heated to boiling, and boiled till 

 it is ' done,' it will become harder, and have 

 less taste, than if the same piece had been 

 thrown into water already boiling. In the 

 first case, the matters grateful to the smell 

 and taste, go into the extract- — the soup ; in 

 the second, the albumen of the meat coagu- 

 lates from the surface inward, and envelops 

 the interior with a layer which is imperme- 

 able to water. In. the latter case the soup 

 will be indifferent, but the meat delicious." 

 The pith of the foregoing " facts in phy- 

 siological chemistry," for the domestic eco- 

 nomist, we take to be concisely as follows : 

 1. Soup should always be made by put- 

 ting the meat in cold water, and simmering 

 not boiling it. 



* LiEBio divides food into two kinds. One serves in the for- 

 mation of tissues ; the other goes to sustain animal heat— as 

 sugar and fat, The latter sitpporta respiration. 



