FOOD. 



being more nourishing than meat which is less 

 soluble ; but this does not follow, for the gastric 

 juice acts differently from water, and can digest 

 what that fluid cannot. Veal contains more nitrog- 

 enised matter than beef. 



Besides beef and veal, strictly so called, the 

 stomach, intestines, heart, lungs, certain glandular 

 organs, bones, marrow, cartilage, &c. of the ox are 

 variously made use of in the forms of tripe, sweet- 

 bread, haggis, &c. Tripe is easily digested and 

 very nutritious, but non-satisfying ; sweetbread is 

 both easily digestible and nutritious, but its high 

 price places it among luxuries rather than foods ; 

 and haggis, though containing much nutritious 

 material, is difficult of digestion. Bone and car- 

 tilage constitute valuable stock for soups. 



Mutton, or the flesh of the full-grown sheep, is 

 also extensively consumed in Britain, and that 

 almost wholly in a fresh state. Compared with beef, 

 it is lighter, and more easily digested, owing very 

 probably to the greater fineness of the fibres. The 

 quality of mutton varies much in the different breeds. 

 In the large long-haired sheep, it is coarse-grained, 

 but disposed to be fat In the smaller and short- 

 wooled breed, the flesh is closest grained and 

 highest flavoured ; but the quality is probably 

 most affected by the food on which the flocks arc 

 fed. Those which range over the mountainous 

 districts of Wales and Scotland, or the chalk 

 downs of England, and feed upon the wild herbage, 

 possess a flavour very superior to those kept on 

 rich pastures and marsh-land. Marsh-fed mutton 

 often becomes extremely fat, but the meat has a 

 rank taste. Turnips, hay, chaff, bran, corn, and 

 other vegetables, as likewise oil-cake and grains, 

 are employed for fattening sheep ; but such 

 mutton is never so good as that produced where 

 the animals range at freedom. 7/>-mutton, or 

 the flesh of the ram, has a strong disagreeable 

 flavour, and is usually tough ; ewe-mutton, if 

 under two years old, is good, but after that, it 

 becomes hard and tough ; wedder-mutton is the 

 most esteemed. Mutton is in perfection at five 

 years old, being then sapid, full-flavoured, and 

 firm, without being tough ; and the fat has become 

 hard. Mutton under three years old is deficient 

 in flavour, and is of a pale colour. Lamb, as the 

 flesh of the young sheep is termed, is more tender 

 and less exciting than mutton, but is not readily 

 digested. It receives the name of lamb from the 

 time it comes into season, in April or May, till the 

 ensuing Christmas. 



Preserved Beef and Mutton. In many of our 

 colonies, cattle and sheep are reared in numbers 

 greatly in excess of the food requirements of the 

 colonists, and a large proportion of this excess has 

 hitherto been lost as food on account of the igno- 

 rance of efficient methods of preserving it, to admit 

 of its importation into countries, such as Britain, 

 where meat cannot be produced in sufficient 

 quantity to supply the wants of the inhabitants. 

 The conditions necessary for active putrefaction 

 appear to be the presence of considerable mois- 

 ture, the access of atmospheric air, and a temper- 

 ature ranging from 40 to 200 Faiir. ; and in the 

 absence of any of these, putrefaction is prevented, 

 or at least greatly impeded. Accordingly, numer- 

 ous processes founded on the principle of excluding 

 one or other of these conditions, have been devised, 

 within recent times, for preserving meat. The 

 result has been a great and rapidly increasing 



importation of meat, so that from Australia alone 

 the quantity, irrespective of salted meat, was in 

 1871, 237,160 cwt/ representing 513,186, as con- 

 trasted with 91 cwt. representing 321, in 1866; 

 and to this falls to be added the enormous imports 

 from New Zealand and South America. Without 

 considering the special details of the processes of 

 preservation, they may be described in general 

 terms as tinning, curing, freezing, and subjection 

 to chemical preparations. That by tinning is 

 at present the one most successfully and exten- 

 sively employed. This process consists in par- 

 tially cooking meat from which all the bone and 

 the greater part of the fat has been removed ; 

 and packing it in tin cans, which are then 

 placed in a bath, having a temperature ranging 

 from 200 to 300 Fahr., and finally hermeti- 

 cally sealed. If the sealing of the cans has been 

 successfully accomplished, the contained meat 

 is preserved from putrefaction for a practically 

 indefinite period. This meat is now acknow- 

 ledged by competent authorities to be perfectly 

 wholesome, and to contain all the elements of 

 nutrition in nearly the same proportion as ordi- 

 nary British meat. In estimating the advantage 

 to economy of using preserved meat, it is import- 

 ant to bear in mind that fresh butcher-meat is sold 

 along with bone and an excess of fat, and that 

 considerable loss occurs during cooking. Taking 

 meat at the low retail rate of lod. a pound, and 

 allowing for bone and loss of weight by cooking 

 (equal to nearly a half of the original weight), it is 

 found that the price of the meat really presented 

 as cooked food is about is. 6d. a pound. No 

 doubt the bone can be afterwards used in the 

 preparation of other dishes, but only a small pro- 

 portion of its total weight is available as real 

 nutriment. The fat likewise may be collected and 

 economised as ' dripping,' but its market value is 

 not equal to that of the meat from which it has 

 been separated. The tinned meat being free from 

 bone, already cooked, and sold at from 6d. to 8d. 

 a pound, it is obvious that a great advantage to 

 economy is gained by its use. As opposed to this 

 advantage, however, there must be considered the 

 slight impairment of its palatablcness, and the 

 comparative restriction of its culinary applications, 

 which result from the more or less decided over- 

 cooking caused by the process of preparation. At 

 the same time, the former of these is obvious to 

 only a limited number of people, and in mitigation 

 of the latter it may be urged that it docs not pre- 

 vent tinned meat from being employed in such 

 various and favourite dishes as soups, haricot, 

 stews, ragouts, and curries. 



Pork, or the flesh of the pig, is invariably set 

 down by writers on dietetics as difficult of diges- 

 tion, but less so when pickled and cured than 

 when fresh. Those who pursue the occupation 

 of curing, cut the carcase in pieces, and pack it 

 n kits formed to hold from 100 to 200 Ibs. weight. 

 A brine is then made by dissolving salt in water, 

 until the mixture is so thick that an egg will swim 

 n it. This is boiled, and poured upon the pork 

 ifter it has cooled. Russian pork, always much 

 esteemed, is steeped in a brine containing two 

 jounds of loaf-sugar and three ounces of saltpetre 

 o six pounds of salt, the whole being boiled in six 

 gallons of water. After brine is added to pork in 

 iits, the end of the receptacle is fixed in, and the 

 irticle is usually sufficiently cured in a few days. 



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