THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 365 



outer water simmer — very gently, so as not to jump the basin with its 

 steam. Stew thus for about double the time usually prescribed in 

 English cookery-books, and compare the result with similar materials 

 slewed in boiling or " simmering " water. 



XXI. 



In my last I explained the hardening effect of boiling water on 

 meat, and the consequent necessity of keeping down the temperature 

 considerably below the boiling-point in order to obtain a tender and 

 full-flavored stew. Some further explanation is necessary, as it is 

 quite possible to obtain what commonly passes for tenderness by a 

 very flagrant violation of the principles there expounded. This is 

 done on a large scale and in extreme degree in the preparation of 

 ordinary Australian tinned meat. A number of tins are filled with 

 the meat, and soldered down close, all but a small pin-hole. They are 

 then placed in a bath charged with a saline substance, such as chloride 

 of zinc, which has a higher boiling-point than water. This is heated 

 up to its boiling-point, and consequently the water which is in the tins 

 with the meat boils vigorously, and a jet of steam mixed with air 

 blows from the pin-hole. When all the air is expelled and the jet is 

 of pure steam only (a difference detected at once by the trained ex- 

 pert), the tin is removed, and a little melted solder skillfully dropped 

 on the hole to seal the tin hermetically. An examination of one of 

 these tins will show this final soldering with — in some — a flap below 

 to prevent any solder from falling in among the meat. The object of 

 this is to exclude all air, for, if only a very small quantity remains, 

 oxidation and putrefaction speedily ensue, as shown by a bulging of 

 the tins instead of the partial collapse that should occur when the 

 steam condenses, the display of which collapse is an indication of good 

 quality of the contents. 



By " good quality " I mean good of its kind ; but, as everybody 

 knows who has tried beef and mutton thus prepared, it is not satis- 

 factory. The preservation from putrefactive decomposition is per- 

 fectly successful, and all the original constituents of the meat are 

 there. It is apparently tender, but practically tough — i. e., it falls to 

 pieces at a mere touch of the knife, but these fragments offer to the 

 teeth a peculiar resistance to proper masticatory comminution. I may 

 describe their condition as one of pertinacious fibrosity. The fibers 

 separate, but there they are as stubborn fibers still. 



This is a very serious matter, for, were it otherwise, the great prob- 

 lem of supplying our dense population with an abundance of cheap 

 animal food would have been solved about twenty years ago. As it 

 is, the plain tinned-meat enterprise has not developed to any important 

 extent beyond affording a variation with salt junk on board ship. 



What is the rationale of this defect ? Beyond the general state- 

 ment that the meat is " overdone," I have met with no attempt at 



