Dec. 28, 1883.] 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



385 



THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 



By W. Mattied Williams. 



MY first acquaintance with the rational cookery of 

 cheese was in the autumn of 1842, when I dined 

 with the monks of St. Bernard. Being the only guest, I 

 was the first to be sujiplied with soup, and then came a dish 

 of grated cheese. Being young and bashful, I was ashamed 

 to display my ignorance by asking what I was to do with 

 the cheese, but made a bold dash, nevertheless, and sprinkled 

 some of it into my soup. I then learned that my guess was 

 quite correct; the Prior and the monks did the same. 



On walking on to Italy I learned that there such use of 

 cheese is universal. Minestra without Parmesan would 

 there be regarded as we in England should regard mufiins 

 and crumpets without butter. During the forty years that 

 have elapsed since my first sojourn in Italy my sympathies 

 are continually lacerated when I contemplate the melancholy 

 spectacle of human beings eating thin soup without any 

 grated cheese. 



Not only in soups, but in many other dishes, it is 

 similarly used. As an example, I may name " Risotto a 

 la Milanese," a delicious, wholesome, and economical dish — 

 a sort of stew composed of rice and the giblets of fowls, 

 usually charged about twopence to threepence per portion 

 at Italian restaurants. This is always served with grated 

 Parmesan. The same with the many varieties of paste, of 

 which maccaroni and vermicelli are the best known in this 

 country. 



In all these the cheese is sprinkled over, and then stirred 

 into the soup, etc., while it is hot. The cheese being finely 

 divided is fused at once, and being fused in liquid, is thus 

 delicately cooked. This is quite different from the " mac- 

 caroni cheese " commonly prepared in England by deposits 

 ing maccaroni in a pie dish, and then covering it with a 

 stratum of grated cheese, and jilacing this in an oven or 

 before a fire until the cheese is desiccated, browned, and 

 converted into a horny, caseous form of carbon that would 

 induce chronic dyspepsia in the stomach of a wild boar if 

 he fed upon it for a week. 



In all preparations of Italian pastes, risottos, purees, etc., 

 the cheese is intimately mixed throughout, and softened 

 and difiused thereby in the manner above described. 



The Italians themselves imagine that only their own 

 Parmesan cheese is fit for this purpose, and have infected 

 many Englishmen with the same idea. Thus it happens 

 that fancy j)rices are paid in this country for that particular 

 cheese, which is of the same class as the cheese known in 

 our Midland Counties as " skim dick," and sold there at 

 about fourpence per pound, or given by the farmers to 

 their labourers. It is cheese " that has sent its butter to 

 market," being made from the skim-milk which remains in 

 the dairy after the pigs have been fully supplied. 



I have used this kind of cheese as a substitute for Par- 

 mesan, and I find it quite satisfactory, tliough it has not 

 exactly the; same fine flavour as the best qualities of 

 Parmesan, but is equal to that commonly used by the 

 Italian millions. The only fault of our ordinary whole- 

 milk English and American cheeses is that they are too 

 rich, and cannot bo so finely grated on account of their 

 more unctuous structure, due to the cream they contain. 



I note that in the recipes of high-class cookery-books, 

 where Parmesan is prescribed, cream is commonly added. 

 Sensible English cooks, who use Cheshire, Cheddar, or good 

 American cheese, are practically including the Parmesan 

 and the cream in natural combination. By allowing these 

 cheeses to dry, or by setting aside the outer part of the 



cheese for the purpose, the difficulty of grating is over- 

 come. 



I have now to communicate another result of my cheese- 

 cooking researches, viz., a new dish — cheese porridge — or, I 

 may say, a new class of dishes — cheese-porridges. They 

 are not intended for epicures, not for swine who only live 

 to eat, but for men and women who eat in order to live 

 and work. These combinations of cheese are more especially 

 fitted for those whose work is muscular, and who work in the 

 open air. Sedentary brain-workers like myself should use 

 them carefully, less they suffer from over-nutrition, which 

 is but a few degrees worse than partial starvation. 



Typical cheese-porridge is ordinary oatmeal jiorridge 

 made in the usual manner, but to which grated cheese is 

 added, either while in the cookery-pot or after it is taken 

 out, and yet as hot as possible. It should be sprinkled 

 gradually and well stirred in. 



Another kind of cheese-porridge or cheese-pudding is 

 made by adding cheese to baked potatoes — the potatoes to 

 be taken out of their skins and well mashed while the 

 grated cheese is sprinkled and intermingled. A little milk 

 may or may not be added, according to taste and conve- 

 nience. This is better suited for those whose occupations 

 are sedentary, potatoes being less nutritious and more 

 easily digested than oatmeal. They are chiefly composed 

 of starch, which is a heat^giver or fattener, while the 

 cheese is highly nitrogenous, and supplies the elements in 

 which the potato is deficient, the two together forming a 

 fair approach to the theoretically-demanded balance of con- 

 stituents. 



I say baked potatoes rather than boiled, and perhaps 

 should explain my reasons, though in doing so I anticipate 

 what I intended to say when on the subject of vegetable 

 food. 



Haw potatoes contain potash salts which are easily 

 soluble in water. I find that when the potato is boiled 

 some of the potash comes out into the water, and thus the 

 vegetable is robbed of a very valuable constituent The 

 baked potato contains all its original saline constituents 

 which, as I have already stated, are specially demanded as 

 an addition to cheese food. 



Hasty pudding made, as usual, of wheat flour, may be 

 converted from an insipid to a savoury and highly nutri- 

 tious porridge by the addition of cheese in like manner. 



The same with boiled rice, whether whole or ground, also 

 sago, tapioca, and other forms of edible starch. Supposing 

 whole rice is used, and I think this the best, tlie cheese 

 may be sprinkled among the grains of rice and well stirred 

 or mashed up with them. The addition of a little brown 

 gravy to this gives us an Italian risotto. 



Pease pudding is not improved by cheese. The chemistry 

 of this will come out when I explain the compo.sition of 

 peas, beans, ifcc. 



I might enumerate other methods of cooking cheese by 

 thus adding it in a finely divided state to other kinds of 

 food, Viut if I were to express my own convictions on the 

 subject I should stir up prejudice by naming some mixtures 

 which some people would denounce. As an example I 

 may refer to a dish which I invented more than twenty 

 years ago — viz., fish and cheese pudding, made by taking 

 the remains from a dish of boiled cod-fish, haddock, or otlier 

 whiti' fish, mashing it with bread crumbs, grated cheese, and 

 ketchup, then warming in an oven and serving after the 

 usual manner of scalloped fish. Any remains of oyster 

 sauce may be advantageously included. 



I find this delicious, but others may not I frequently 

 add grated cheese to boiled fish as ordinarily served, and 

 have lately made a fish sauce by dissolving grated cheese 

 in milk with the aid of a little bicarbonate of potash. I 



