coo 



coo 



CONUS, in natural history, a genus of 

 Verities Testacea : animal a Umax ; shell 

 univalve, convolute, turbinate ; aperture 

 effuse, longitudinal, linear, without teeth, 

 entire at the base ; pillar smooth. This 

 genus is divided into five distinct families, 

 viz. A. spire or turban nearly truncate. 



B. pyriform, with a rounded base : the cy- 

 linder half as long again as the spire. 



C. elongated and rounded at the base ; 

 the cylinder as long again as the spire. 

 I), ventricose in the middle, and con- 

 tracted at each end. E. thin, ventricose, 

 and making a tinkling sound when thrown 

 on its back upon a table or board. There 

 are upwards of 70 species enumerated. 

 Many of the conus tribe are beautiful 

 shells, and bear a high price on account 

 of their rarity. There is no species of 

 this genus upon the English coast. Some 

 very curious kinds have been discovered 

 in a fossil state in England, chiefly in the 

 chalk cliffs of Hampshire. 



CONYZA, in botany, a genus of the 

 Syngenesis Polygamia Superflua class 

 and order. Natural order of Composite 

 Discoidex. Corymbiterze, Jussieu. Essen- 

 tial character : calyx imbricate, roundish ; 

 corolla of the ray three-cleft ; down sim- 

 ple ; receptacle naked. There are forty- 

 three species. The Conyzas or Fleabanes 

 are either herbaceous or shrubby ; in a 

 few of them the leaves are decurrent ; 

 the flowers are of the compound kind 

 without any ray, in corymbs or panicles at 

 the top of the stem and branches. 



COOKIE, in botany, a genus of the 

 Decandria Monogynia class and order. 

 Calyx five-cleft, inferior; corolla five- 

 petalled, equal inferior; pome five-cell- 

 ed ; the cells one seeded. One species 

 found in China. 



COOKERY, or cooking, the exercise of 

 art in the preparation of food for human 

 sustenance. It consists not only in the 

 application of heat under various modifi- 

 cations and circumstances, but also in the 

 due intermixture of condiments, calculat- 

 ed as well to please the palate as to pro- 

 mote nutrition. The exercise of this art 

 is peculiar to man, and it has been deem- 

 ed by naturalists one of his peculiar cha- 

 racteristics, that he is " a cooking animal." 

 I)r Cullen says, that the cooking of ve- 

 getables by boiling renders them more 

 soluble in the stomach, notwithstanding 

 the degree of coagulation which their 

 juices undergo. In the second place, the 

 application of a boiling heat dissipates the 

 volatile parts of vegetable substances, 

 which are seldom of a nutritious nature, 

 but, in many cases, have a tendency to 



prove noxious. In the third place, boil 

 ing helps to extricate a considerable quan- 

 tity of air, that, in the natural state of 

 vegetables, is always fixed in their sub- 

 stance ; and it is probably in this way, es- 

 pecially, that heat contributes to the di- 

 viding and loosening the cohesion of their 

 smaller parts. Thus they are rendered 

 less liable to ferment, and to produce that 

 flatulence which is so troublesome to 

 weak stomachs. 



In the cookery of animal substances, 

 some practices, previous to the applica- 

 tion of heat, are to be considered as af- 

 fecting their solubility in the stomach ; 

 particularly salting and pickling. These 

 processes are spoken of under the article 



The cookery of animal substances is of 

 two kinds; as it is applied in a humid form, 

 in boiling and stewing ; or in a dry form, 

 in roasting, broiling, and baking. By the 

 joint application of heat and moisture to 

 meat in boiling, the texture is certainly 

 rendered more tender and more soluble 

 in the stomach ; and it is only in this way 

 that the firmer parts, as the tendinous, 

 ligamentous, and membranous parts, can 

 be duly softened, and their gelatinous sub- 

 stance rendered subservient to nutrition. 

 Yet these effects are different according 

 to the degree of boiling. A moderate 

 boiling may render their texture more 

 tender, without much diminution of their 

 nutritious quality ; but if the boiling is 

 extended to extract every tiling soluble, 

 the substance remaining is certainly less 

 soluble in the stomach, and at the same 

 time much less nutritious. But as boiling 

 extracts, in the first place, the more solu- 

 ble, and therefore the saline part, so what 

 remains is, in proportion, less alkalescent, 

 and less heating to the system. 



Boiling in digesters, or vessels accu- 

 rately closed, produces effects very diffe- 

 rent from boiling in open vessels. From 

 meat cooked in the latter, there is no ex- 

 halation of volatile parts ; the solution is 

 made with great success, and if not car- 

 ried very far, the meat may be rendered 

 very tender, while it still retains its most 

 sapid parts ; and this is esteemed always 

 the most desirable state of boiled meat, 

 If a small quantity of water only is appli- 

 ed, and the heat continued long in a mo- > 

 derate degree, the process is called stew- 

 ing, which has the effect of rendering- the 

 texture of meat more tender, without ex- 

 tracting much of the soluble parts. This, 

 therefore, leaves the meat more sapid, and 

 in a state perhaps the most nourishing of 

 any form of cookery ; as we learn from the 



