April 27, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



247 



should be, what will follow its application to the meat 1 

 Evaporation of the water in the juices, and with that 

 evaporation a lowering of temperature at the surface of 

 the meat, keeping it below the cooking point If the air 

 be heated above this, the evaporation will go on with 

 proportionate rapidity, and as nearly 1,000 degs. of lieat 

 are lost as temjierature, and converted into expansive force 

 whenever and wherever evaporation of water occurs, the 

 film of hot, dry air touching the meat is cooled by this 

 evaporation, and sinks immediately, to be replaced by a 

 rising film of lighter, hotter, and drier air, which drinks in 

 more vapour, cools and sinks, to give place to another, 

 and so on till the inner juices gradually ooze between the 

 fibres to the porous surface, where they are carried away 

 by the hot, dry air, and a hard, leathery, unmasticable 

 mass of dissected gelatine, albumen, fibrin, Ac, is produced, 

 which, if given to a dog for the purpose of watching its 

 efiect on the animal, would render an unlicensed experi- 

 menter liable to prosecution under the Vivisection Act 



Now, let us suppose a similar beefsteak to be cooked by 

 radiant heat, with the least possible co-operation of con- 

 vection. 



To eflect this, our source of heat must be a good 

 radiator. Glowing solids are better radiators than ordi- 

 nary flames, therefore coke, or charcoal, or ordinary coal, 

 after its bituminous matter has done its flaming, should be 

 used, and the steak or chop may be placed in front or 

 above a surface of such glowing carbon. In ordinary 

 domestic practice it is placed on a gridiron above the coal, 

 and therefore I will consider this case first 



The object to be attained is to raise the juices of the 

 meat throughout to about the temperature of 180 Fahr. as 

 quickly as possilile, in order that the cookery may be com- 

 pleted before the water of these juices shall have had time 

 to evaporate to any considerable extent ; therefore the 

 meat should be placed as near to the surface of the glowing 

 carbon as possible. But the practical housewife will say 

 that if placed within two or three inches, some of the fat 

 will be melted and burn, and then the steak will be 

 smoked. 



Now, here we require a little more chemistry. There is 

 smoking and smoking ; smoking that produces a detestable 

 flavour, and smoking that does no mischief at all beyond 

 appearances. The flame of an ordinary coal fire is due to 

 the distUlation and combustion of tarry vapours. If such 

 a flame strikes a comparatively cool surface like that of the 

 meat, it will condense and deposit thereon a film of crude 

 coal tar and coal naphtha, most nauseous and rather mis- 

 chievous ; but if the flame be that which is caused by the 

 combustion of its own fat, the deposit on a mutton chop 

 will be a little mutton oil, on a l)eef steak a little beef oil, 

 more or less blackened by mutton-carbon or beef-carbon. 

 But these oils and carbons have no other flavour than that 

 of cooked mutton and cooked beef ; therefore they are per- 

 fectly innocent, in spite of their guilty black appearances. 



If any of my readers are sceptical, let them appeal to 

 experiment, by putting a mutton chop to the torture, and 

 taking its own confession. To do this, divide the chop in 

 equal halves, then hold one half over a flaming coal, im- 

 mersing it in the flame, and cook it thus. Now cut a bit 

 of fat ofl" the other, throw this fat on a surface of clear, 

 glowing, flanieless coal or coke, and, when a good blaze is 

 thus obtained, immerse this half chop recklessly and un- 

 mercifully into this flame; there let it splutter and fizz, 

 drop more fat and make more flame, but hold it there, 

 nevertheless, for a few minutes, and then taste the result 



In spite of its blackness, it will be (if just warmed 

 through to the above-named cooking temperature) a deli- 

 ciously cooked, juicy, nutritious, digestible morsel, appa- 



rently raw, but actually more completely cooked than if it 

 had been held twice as long, at double the distance, from 

 the surface of the fire. 



For further instruction, make a third experiment by 

 imitating the cautious unscientific cook, who, ignorant of 

 the diflerence between the condensation products of coal 

 and those from beef and mutton fat, carefully raises the 

 gridiron directly the flame from the dropping fat threatens 

 the object of her solicitude. The result will be an ordinary 

 domestic chop or steak. I apply this adjective, because 

 in this particular ellbrt of cookery, the grilling of chops 

 and steaks, domestic cookery is commonly at fault The 

 majority of our City men find that while the joint cooked 

 at home is better than that they usually get at restaurants 

 and hotels, the chops and steaks are inferior. 



I believe that this inferiority is due, in the first place, 

 to the want of understanding of the diflerence between 

 coal-flame and fat^flanie ; and in the second, to the advan- 

 tage afibrded to the " grill-room " cook by his specially 

 constructed fire, where a large surface of glowing coke is 

 surmounted by a sloping grill, whereon he can expose his 

 chops and steaks to the radiation from a large glowing 

 surface with a minimum of convection heat, the hot air 

 passing in a current over the coke surface having such small 

 depth that it barely touches the bars of the grill. (This 

 may be seen by watching the course of flame produced by 

 the droppings of the fat) The same obliquity of draught 

 prevents the serious blacking of the meat, which, although 

 harmless, is unsightly and calculated to awaken prejudice. 



The high temperature rapidly imparted by radiation to 

 the surface of the meat forms a thin superficial crust of 

 hardened and semi-carbonised albumen and fibre, which 

 resists the outrush of vapour, and produces within a cer- 

 tain degree of high pressure, wliich probably acts in 

 loosening the fibres. A well grilled chop or steak is 

 "pufled" out — made thicker in the middle; an ill-cooked, 

 desiccated specimen is shrivelled, collapsed, and thinned by 

 the slow departure of its juices. 



ENGLISH SEASIDE HEALTH-RESORTS. 



By Alfred Haviland, M.R.C.S., F.R.M.C.S. Lokd. 



CLASSIFICATION.— LAND AND SEA WINDS. 



(Continued from page 307, Vol. II.) 



SOUTH-EAST.— This wind has an entirely difierent 

 source from the one we last discussed. Before 

 it reaches our shores, when it does so as a true south-east 

 wind, and not as a part of a cyclonic storm, it has travelled 

 over a greater variety of land and water than any other 

 wind which crosses our surrounding seas. Its source and 

 the varied character of its route combine to render it a 

 wind not easily defined by reference to any one distinct 

 property. In common with other winds from the south, 

 it conveys heat and moisture — the former even to 

 the Arctic regions, for we find Dr. Kane, who had 

 charge of the second Grinnell Expedition in search of Sir 

 John Franklin (18.53-.5.5), whilst at Rensselaer Har- 

 bour, writes in his diary, January IG : — "Again the 

 strange phenomenon of the sviith-east loinds. The late 

 change in the barometer ushered them in, and all hands are 

 astir with their novel influences." Again, "Jan. 18, 

 wind howling on deck ; a number nine gale ; a vnrm soutli- 

 r:n.-ilcr directly from the land. The mean temperature of 

 the wind is 20". Warm as this may seem, our experience 

 has taught us to prefer 40^ with a calm, to 10° with a 

 gale in the face." " That strange phenomenon, the warm 



