Of Food. 405 



would tend to place cookery in a much more respectable 

 situation among the arts than it now holds. 



That the manner in which food is prepared is a mat- 

 ter of real importance, and that the water used in that 

 process acts a much more important part than has 

 hitherto been generally imagined, is, I think, quite evi- 

 dent ; for it seems to me to be impossible upon any 

 other supposition to account for the appearances. If 

 the very small quantity of solid food which enters into 

 the composition of a portion of some very nutritive soup 

 were to be prepared differently and taken under some 

 other form, that of bread, for instance, so far from 

 being sufficient to satisfy hunger and afford a comfort- 

 able and nutritive meal, a person would absolutely starve 

 upon such a slender allowance ; and no great relief 

 would be derived from drinking crude water to fill up 

 the void in the stomach. 



But it is not merely from an observation of the ap- 

 parent effects of cookery upon those articles which are 

 used as food for man that we are led to discover the 

 importance of these culinary processes. Their utility 

 is proved in a manner equally conclusive and satis- 

 factory, by the effects which have been produced by em- 

 ploying the same process in preparing food for brute 

 animals. 



It is well known that boiling the potatoes with 

 which hogs are fed renders them much more nutritive ; 

 and since the introduction of the new system of feed- 

 ing horned cattle, that of keeping them confined in 

 the stables all the year round (a method which is now 

 coming fast into common use in many parts of Ger- 

 many), great improvements have been made in the art 

 of providing nourishment for those animals, and par- 



