308 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 25, 1883. 



THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 



i.x. 

 Ey W. Mattieu Williams. 



AS stated in inj- last, the subject of roasting occupied 

 a large auiount of Count Runiford's attention, 

 especially wliile he was in England residing in lirompton- 

 road, and founding the Rojal Institution. Ilis etTorts 

 were directed not merely to cooking the meat eifectively, 

 but to doing so economically. Like all others who have 

 contemplated thoughtfully the habits of Englishmen, he was 

 sliocked at the barbaric waste of fuel that everywhere pre- 

 vailed in this country, even to a greater extent then than 

 now. 



The first fact that necessarily presented itself to his mind 

 was the great amount of heat that is wasted, when an 

 ordinary joint of meat is suspended in front of an ordinary 

 coal fire to intercept and utilise only a small fraction of its 

 total radiation. 



As far as I am aware, there is no other country in 

 Europe where such a process is indigenous. I say " in- 

 digenous '" because there certainly are hotels where this or 

 any other English extravagance is perpetrated to please 

 Englishmen who choose to pay for it. What is itsually 

 called roast meat in countries not inhabited by English- 

 speaking people, is what we should call " baked meat," the 

 very name of which sets all the gastronomic bristles of an 

 orthodox Englishman in a position of perpendicularity. 



I ha\e a theory of my own respecting the origin gf this 

 prejudice. Within the recollection of many still living, 

 the great middle class of Englishmen lived in town ; their 

 sitting-rooms were back parlours behind their shops, or 

 factories, or warehouses, their drawing-rooms were on the 

 tirst-floor, and kitchens in the basement. 



They kept one general servant of the " Marchioness " 

 type. The corresponding class now live in suburban 

 villas, keep cook, housemaid, and parlour-maid, besides the 

 gardener and his boy, and they dine at supper-time. 



In the days of the one marchioness and the basement 

 kitchen, these citizens "of credit and renown" dined at 

 dinner-time, and were in the habit of placing a three- 

 legged open iron triangle in a brown earthenware dish ; 

 then spreading a stratum of peeled potatoes on said dish, 

 and a joint of meat above, on the open triangular support. 

 The combination was carried by the marchioness to the 

 bakehouse round the corner at about 11 a.m., and brought 

 back steaming and savoury at 1 p.m. 



This was not done always, but at other times, as when the 

 condition of the mistress's wardrobe offered no particular 

 motive for going to church, she stayed at home and roasted 

 the Sunday dinner. The experience thus obtained demon- 

 strated a material diflerence between the flavour of the 

 roasted and the baked meat very decidedly in favour of the 

 home roasted. Why 1 



The principal reason was, I believe, that the baker's 

 large bread-oven contained at dinner-time a curious medley 

 of meats — mutton, beef, pork, geese, veal, etc., including 

 stuffing with sage and onions, besides the possibility of a 

 joint or two that had been hung longer than was nccessai-y 

 for procuring tenderness. The vapours of these would in- 

 duce a confusion of fl.avours in the milder meats, fully 

 accounting a for the observed superiority of the home- 

 roasted joints. 



A little reflection on the principles already expounded 

 will show that, theoretically regarded, a given piece of meat 

 would be better roasted in a closed chamber radiating heat 

 from ftfl si(/e.f towards the meat than it could be when 

 suspended in front of a fire and heated only on one side. 



while the other side was turned away to cool more or less, 

 according to the rate of rotation. 



If I agreed with the popular belief in the advantage of 

 open-air exposure to direct radiation from glowing coal, I 

 should suggest th.at for large joints a special roasting fire 

 bo constructed, by Vjuilding an upright cylinder of fire- 

 brick, and erecting within this a smaller cylinder or grating 

 of iron bars, so that the fuel should be placed between 

 these, and thus form an upright cylindrical ring or shirt of 

 fire, inclosed outside by the, bricks, but open and glowing 

 towards the inside of the hollow cylinder, in the midst of 

 which the meat should be suspended to receive the radia- 

 tion from all sides. 



The whole apparatus might stand under a dome, termi- 

 nating in an ordinary chimney, like a glass-house or a steel- 

 maker's cementing furnace ; or, in this respect, like 

 those wondrous kitchens of the old seraglio, to which I 

 have already alluded, where each apartment is a huge 

 chimney, outspreading downwards, so that the cooks and 

 their materials and apparatus, as well as the huge fires 

 themselves, are all under the great central chimney shaft. 

 I do not, however, recommend such an apparatus, even 

 to the most wealthy and luxurious epicure, because I am 

 convinced, not merely from theoretical considerations, but 

 also from practical experiments, that all kinds of meat 

 may be not merely as well roasted in a close oven as before 

 an open fire, but that the close chamber, properly managed, 

 produces better results in every respect than can possibly be 

 obtained by roasting in the open air. 



To obtain such results there must be no compromise, no 

 concession to any false theory respecting a necessity for 

 ventilation. 



Many modem kitchen ranges are fitted with such com- 

 promises in the shape of a ventilated roastiBg oven, the 

 action of which ventilation is piu-ely and simply mis- 

 chievous, excepting in the case of semi-putrid game or 

 venison, which reqaiire to be carbonised and disinfected as 

 well as cooked, and, of course, also demand the speedy 

 removal of their noxious vapours. 



Xot so with fresh meats. There is nothing in the 

 vapour of beef that can injure the flavour of beef, nor in 

 the vapour of mutton that is damaging to mutton, and so 

 on with the rest. But there is much that can, and does, 

 actually improve them ; or, more strictly speaking, pre- 

 vents the deterioration to which they are liable when 

 roasted before an open fire. I will endeavour to explain 

 this. 



Carefully-conducted experiments have demonstrated the 

 general law that atmospheric air is a vacuum to the vapour 

 of water and other similar vapours, while each particular 

 vapour is a plenum to itself, though not to other vapours ; 

 or, otherwise stated, if a given space, at a given tempera- 

 ture, be filled with air, the quantity of aqueous vapour 

 that it is capable of holding is the same us though this 

 space contained no air at all, nor anything else. But this 

 same space may contain a much smaller quantity of 

 aqueous vapour, and yet be absolutely impenetrable to 

 aqueous vapour, provided its temperature is unaltered. 



Thus, if a bell-glass, filled with air under ordinary pres- 

 sure, at the temperature of 100° Fahr., be placed over a 

 dish of water at same temperature, a quantity of vapour, 

 equal to l-30th (in round numbers) of the weight of the air, 

 will rise into the bell-glass, and there remain diffused 

 throughout. If there were less air, or no air at all (tem- 

 perature remaining the same), the bell-glass would obtain 

 and hold the same quantity of vapour. 



If, instead of being tilled with air, it contained at the 

 outset only this l-30th of aqueous vapour, it would now be 

 an impenetrable plenum, behaving like a solid to aqueous 



