CHAPTER XI. 

 FOODS AND CONDIMENTS. 



FORMERLY the preparation of food was one of the most important 

 tasks assigned to the housewife; nowadays among the middle and 

 better classes this duty is almost entirely surrendered to servants, 

 while among the working classes the women can give it but little at- 

 tention as they must increase the family income by work away from 

 home. These conditions have brought with them the steady de- 

 terioration of the Art of Cookery. The raw materials nowadays 

 supplied to the kitchen from wholesale establishments, e.g., the 

 bread, fruit, vegetables, beer, and perhaps even meat, etc., are, it is 

 true, of a much superior quality than formerly. This is due to com- 

 petition, easier means of communication, improvement in methods 

 of cultivation and all the advantages consequent upon production 

 on a large scale. The conversion of this raw material into palatable 

 meals requires a large measure of experience, loving care, and great 

 interest which one can expect from neither a twenty-year-old cook 

 nor the tired working woman. 



Nutrition is undoubtedly the most important factor in our whole 

 social life; if we place the yearly expense for nourishment in the 

 German Empire at ten milliards of marks, it is surely underestimated. 

 Only a one per cent increase of the successful utilization of food 

 would show a yearly profit of at least one hundred million marks 

 ($25,000,000). 



It is hardly to be expected that we shall accomplish this by re- 

 turning to former conditions, but rather, in a different way, namely, 

 the development of the art into the science of cookery. The kitchen 

 will probably adapt itself more and more to wholesale prepara- 

 tion, and then there will be men and women who will choose 

 cooking as a profession because of their scientific training for the 

 work. 



Colloid Chemistry furnishes us the rules for the selection and 

 preparation of our foodstuffs; because cooking is nothing but prac- 

 tical colloid chemistry. Our foodstuffs consist entirely of colloids 

 and their nutritive value is to be judged mainly from a colloid-chemi- 

 cal point of view. 



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