158 



• KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[March 16, 1883. 



■wcariod by tho worries of the day's toil, there is 

 nothing more soothinj; than sweet and beautiful music, 

 played feelingly and well. ]5ut in too many homes nothing 

 of the sort can now be had. To ask for music, means 

 to ask for a more or less advanced specimen of exercise- 

 playing. The only comfort whicli a man can find whose 

 day has been passed in tli(! work of his business or pro- 

 fession lies in the thought that he escapes the w(\ary hours 

 of home practising which culminate in these achievements. 

 But not so very long ago even the .sound of " the girls 

 practising " was not always unpleasant ; for they used to 

 play simple and beautiful pieces, nor mere musical fire- 

 works on tho one hand, or pieces beautiful indeed but 

 utterly beyond their strength on the other. It seems to 

 me that if the mothers, or even the grandmothers, of some 

 of our brilliant fingerists would occasionally sit down 

 and — even with somewhat stiflened fingers, mayhap — 

 play some of the sweet and touching melodies (by the 

 greatest composers, too, be it noted) which used to charm 

 the boyhood and girlhood of folks now in middle life or 

 "in the sere and yellow leaf," some of the more sensible 

 of our young folks would learn to be a little ashamed of 

 their brilliant and " icily faultless " execution of pieces 

 whose real meaning is utterly beyond their power of inter- 

 pretation. 



THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 



By W. Mattieu Williams. 



-' T) LEASE, mum, the fish would break to pieces," would 

 X be the probable reply of the unscientific cook, to 

 whom her mistress had suggested the desirability of cook- 

 ing fish in accordance with the principles expounded in my 

 last. Many kinds of fish would thus break if the popular 

 notions of " boiling" were carried out, and the fish suddenly 

 immersed in water that was agitated by the act of ebulli- 

 tion. But this difficulty vanishes when the true theory 

 of cookery is understood and practically applied by cooking 

 the fish from beginning to end without ever boiling the 

 •water at all. 



In the case of the leg of mutton, chosen as a previous 

 example, the plunging in boiling water and maintenance of 

 boiling-point for a few minutes was unobjectionable, as the 

 most effectual means of obtaining the firm coagulation of a 

 superficial layer of albumen ; but, in the case of fragile fish, 

 this advantage can only be obtained in a minor degree by 

 using water just below the boiling-point, for the breaking 

 of the fish by the agitation of the boiling water does more 

 than merely disfigure it when served ; it opens outlets to 

 the juices, and thereby depreciates the flavour, besides 

 sacrificing some of the nutritious albumen. 



To demonstrate this experimentally, take two equal slices 

 from the same salmon, cook one according to Mrs. Beeton 

 and other orthodox authorities by putting it into cold 

 water, or pouring cold water over it, then heating up to 

 the boiling-point. Cook the other slice by putting it into 

 water nearly boiling (about 200° F.), and keeping it at 

 about 180° to 200°, but never boiling at all. Then dish 

 up, examine, and taste. The second will be found to have 

 retained more of its proper salmon colour and flavour, the 

 first will be paler and more like cod, or other white fish, 

 owing to the exosmosis or oozing out of its characteristic 

 iuices. 



bility to the real mnsical moaning of the passages dealt with. 

 Callcott'a later compositions were cspcci.illy intliffi-ront in this last- 

 tnontionod roapoct, though free from tho wilder tricks of .some 

 other popular composers. 



I was surprised, and at first considerably puzzled, at 

 what I saw of salmon cooking in Norway. As this fish is 

 so abundant there (Id. per lb. would be regarded as a high 

 price in the Tellemark), I naturally supposed that large 

 experience, operating by natural selection, would have 

 evolved the best method of cooking it, but found that, not 

 only in the farmhouses of the interior, but at such hotels 

 as the Victoria, in Christiania, the usual cookery was 

 efFected by cutting the fish into small pieces and soddening 

 it in water in such wise that it came to table almost 

 colourless, and with merely a faint suggestion of what we 

 prize as the rich flavour of salmon. A few months' 

 experience and a little reflection solved the problem. 

 Salmon is so rich, and has so special a flavour, that when 

 daily eaten it soon palls on the palate. Everybody has 

 heard the old story of the clause in the indentures of the 

 Aberdeen apprentices, binding the masters not to feed the 

 boys on salmon more frequently than twice a week. If 

 the story is not true it ought to be, for salmon every day 

 would have the same effect as the daily breakfasts of boiled 

 fat pork and dumplings on the voracious hero of another 

 story. 



By boiling out the rich oil of the salmon, the Norwegian 

 reduces it nearly to the condition of cod-fish, concerning 

 which I learned a curious fact from two old Doggerbank 

 fishermen, with whom I had a long sailing cruise from 

 the Golden Horn to the Thames. They agreed in stating 

 that codfish is like bread, that they and all their 

 mates lived upon it (and sea biscuits) day after day for 

 months together, and never tired, while richer fish ulti- 

 mately became repulsive if eaten daily. This statement 

 was elicited by an immediate experience. AVe were in the 

 Mediterranean, where the bonetta was very abundant, and 

 every morning and evening I amused myself by spearing 

 them from the martingale of the schooner, and so success- 

 fully that all hands (or rather mouths) were abundantly 

 supplied with this delicious dark fleshed, full-blooded, and 

 high-flavoured fish. I began by making three meals a day 

 on it, and at the end of about a week was glad to return to 

 the ordinary ship's fare of salt junk and chickens. 



This is not exactly a digression, seeing that the 

 philosophy of the appetite is fundamental to that of 

 cookery. A healthy, unvitiated appetite is an index to the 

 requirements of nutrition. Other illustrations of this will 

 be presented as we proceed. 



Another important constituent of animal food is gdntni, 

 or gelatine. It constitutes a large proportion of the whole 

 bulk of the animal ; it is, in fact, the main constituent of 

 the animal tissues, the walls of the cells of which animals 

 are built up being composed of gelatin. I will not 

 here discuss the question of whether Haller's remark : — 

 " Dimidium corporis humani gluten est," " half of the 

 human body is gelatin," should, or should not now, as 

 Lehmann says, " be modified to the assertion that half of 

 the solid parts of the animal body are rimvertihle, hi/ boihng 

 irith water, into gelatin." Lehmann and others give the 

 name of " glutin " to the component of the animal tissue 

 as it exists there, and gelatin to it when acted upon by 

 boiling water. Others indicate this difference by naming 

 the first "gelatin," and the second "gelatine." 



The difference upon which these distinctions are based 

 are directly connected with my present sulject, as it is 

 just the diflference between the raw and the cooked mate- 

 rial, which, as we shall presently see, consists mainly in 

 solubility. 



Even the original or raw gelatine varies materially in 

 this respect. There is a decidedly practical difference 

 between the solubility of the cell-walls of a young chicken 

 and those of an old hen. The pleasant fiction which 



