THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



587 



THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



By C. HEEMA.N Senn. 



[Read December 6, 1910.] 



There was a time when England had a rather bad reputation in the 

 matter of cooking vegetables, especially potatos and cabbages and other 

 green vegetables, but of late years great progress has been made in the 

 preparation and cooking of all kinds of vegetables for the table. That 

 there is still room for improvement is shown by the fact that many 

 excellent vegetables are cooked in such a manner as to render them 

 either indigestible or tasteless for want of greater care and attention 

 to the rudimentary principles of cooking. As our taste in cookery 

 generally has vastly improved, vegetables are gradually receiving their 

 proper attention on the part of the cook. 



Vegetables, like other articles of food, can only be rendered fit for 

 consumption by cooking, yet the changes which various foods undergo 

 during the process and the losses which are brought about by it have 

 been little studied. The question has a wide practical application as 

 well as considerable scientific interest. In order to determine the 

 nutritive value of various articles of food used, digestibility should 

 be of the first consideration. Perhaps no feature of the subject 

 has been more widely discussed of, late than this. Yet very 

 few experiments with man to determine the digestibility of various 

 foods, and especially vegetables, have, as far as I am able to trace, 

 been made. Almost all information has been derived from artificial 

 digestion experiments which approximate more or less closely to diges- 

 tion in the body. It should, however, be remembered that it is by 

 no means certain that the two processes would give identical results. 



With regard to the effect of cooking on the nutrients of vegetables 

 and other foodstuffs, we must bear in mind that some albuminoids are 

 soluble, and nearly all are soluble in dilute saline solutions. Heating 

 coagulates the albuminoids and renders them insoluble. Careful 

 cooking, therefore, also acts as a retainer of albuminoids. If meat is 

 put into cold water and then brought to the boiling-point, more or less 

 of the albuminoid material will dissolve, and some of the most valuable 

 part of the food is lost unless the liquid in which the food is cooked 

 is also utilized. If put directly into hot or boiling water, the soluble 

 albuminoids on the surface will naturally coagulate, and this loss is 

 thereby almost prevented. This principle is in a great measure 

 applicable to vegetables. 



Besides rendering soluble albuminoids insoluble, cooking makes 

 others of the nitrogenous substances more digestible, and in the case 

 of meats the fibres of connective tissues are loosened and so rendered 

 tender and more palatable. 



