NA TURE 



97 



THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1895. 



THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY. 

 The Spirit of Cookery, a Popular Treatise on the History, 

 Science, Practice, and Ethical and Medical Import of 

 Culinary Art. By J. L. W. Thudichum, M.D., 

 F.R.C.P.Lond. (London : Bailliere, Tindall, and 

 Cox ; Frederick Warne and Co., 189;.) 



THE scientific branch of culinary literature has just 

 received in Dr. Thudichum's book an addition 

 which cannot fail to attract the attention of those who 

 give to the selection and preparation of food the con- 

 sideration that the subject undoubtedly deserves. Of 

 works w'hich come under the denomination of kitchen 

 text-books we have had of late years more than enough 

 perhaps, but treatises on the culinary art from an 

 academical and philosophical point of view have been 

 few. " I could write,'' said Dr. Johnson, "a better book 

 about cookerv' than has ever yet been written : it should be 

 a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now 

 made much more simple. Cookery may be so too. A 

 prescription which is now compounded of five ingredients 

 had formerly fifty in it. So in cooker^-. If the nature 

 of the ingredients is well known, much fewer will do. 

 Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I would tell 

 what is the best butcher's meat, the best beef, the 

 best pieces ; how to choose young fowls ; the proper 

 reasons of different vegetables ; and then how to roast, 

 and boil, and compound." The author of " The Spirit of 

 Cookery" has evidently been guided by a similar recog- 

 nition of the requirements of the case ; and seeing that he 

 is a member of a scientific profession which may be said to 

 endow with special advantages those of the cloth who turn 

 their attention to the study of food-stuffs and their treat- 

 ment, it may be taken for granted that he has executed 

 his task with competence and ability. His objeci has 

 been " to produce such a system of general rules as will 

 enable those who thoroughly master them to perform the 

 principal culinar>' operations without reference to the 

 frequently unintelligible records of the details of mere 

 empiricism. These rules," continues he, "are based in 

 the first place upon unimpeachable scientific data or 

 fundamental truths which admit of no circumvention or 

 compromise, and have to be obeyed under pain of certain 

 failure. This obedience has at once its ample reward in 

 clearing the subject of a mass of errors and delusions 

 which disfigure it as a science, and impair its utility, and 

 in placing into the hands of operators the means of 

 attaining their object with certainty and elegance." 



Strictly speaking, " The Spirit of Cookery " is a compen- 

 dium of very useful information gathered, for the most part, 

 from trustworthy sources ; its theories are, generally 

 speaking, sound, its principles excellent, and its rules 

 good : but it can scarcely be called a practical work from 

 an executive point of view, for the author rarely allows his 

 descriptions of a process or a dish to go further than a 

 mere sketch. Each branch of the art is nevertheless dealt 

 with, and the principal methods of cooking, if not abso- 

 lutely worked out in detail, are at all events carefully 

 analysed. 



After a glance at the objects of cookery, its literature in 

 NO. 1335, VOL. 52] 



the past and present, the requirements of the kitchen, and 

 the processes which appertain thereto. Dr. Thudichum 

 comes to the subject of soup-making. That this is 

 haustively treated, may be gathered from the fact ha 

 more than one hundred pages are devoted to it. The 

 salient feature of this discussion is an exposition of wha 

 the author calls " the complete fallacy of the proposition 

 that bones can either make, or help to make, any liquid 

 that can have any value in cooker)-." This argument 

 new, or rather let us call it a revival of an old controversy 

 which has been forgotten. That a scientific writer as 

 earnest and experienced as Sir Henrj' Thompson should 

 have acknowledged, comparatively recently, the value of 

 bones in cookery, in his work " Food and Feeding," would 

 in itself justify our questioning Dr. Thudichum's rather 

 peremptory dictum on this point. Speaking, however 

 from absolutely practical experience to the contrary, we are 

 forced to deny the accuracy of the contention. As a 

 matter of fact, we have been in the constant habit of pro- 

 ducing fragrant and savoury broths from the bones 

 poultrv' and game, both cooked and uncooked, which we 

 have found very valuable in sauces ; while in soup-making 

 our working has proved that after six hours cooking on the 

 lines of xh& pot-aufeu, a very perceptible gelatinous ele 

 ment is produced from the bones, which contributes to the 

 quality of the stock. In all circumstances it is of course 

 essential that the bones be broken as small as possible 

 and in the case cf those of poultry and game that they be 

 pounded roughly in the mortar. The latest method, viz. 

 that of setting the bones of meat and carcases of poultry 

 intended for the stock-pot to be browned in the oven be- 

 fore addition, is an undoubted improvement, to which the 

 author of "The Spirit of Cooker)-" w-ould not object per- 

 haps, the addition being made after the first stage of the 

 broth-making, i.e. after the liquid (containing the meat 

 alone) has been permitted to come to boiling point for the 

 first time, simmering being conducted afterwards for the 

 allotted period. 



Touching the alleged costliness of extracting gelatine 

 from bones, we think that Dr. Thudichum has lost sight 

 of the fact that, inasmuch as kitchen fires are always burn 

 ing, space can generally be found on the hot-plate for a 

 vessel containing bones where it can simmer without any 

 additional expense in the matter of fuel. We have found 

 that in this way, with the aid of a few vegetables and 

 herbs, very useful broths can be made for the moistening 

 of slews, purees, i&c, while it is well known that at .■\lder- 

 shot good wholesome pea and lentil soups are made on a 

 bone-stock basis, which form an addition to the soldiers 

 dietary- that is much appreciated, and for which no better 

 medium, considering the limited resources of the military 

 kitchen, could be concocted. 



We confess that we are surprised at Dr. Thudichum's 

 apparent indifference to vegetables as a factor in the pro- 

 duction of a good bouillon, for constant practice has satis- 

 fied us that all its fragrance and a large share of its 

 pleasant flavour come to the pot-au-feu or soup from a 

 very careful proportioning of the vegetables to the meat 

 by weight. In a case of this kind it is idle to speak of 

 " an onion " or " a carrot." We also wonder that he should 

 mention the now obsolete method of clarifying broths with 

 whites of ^^■i and lemon-juice. The object is now- attained 

 by raw beef reduced to a pulp, mixed with both the yolk 



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