Delicate feasting

II Med ar

&9^97

BY

THEODORE CHILD

AUTHOR OF “SUMMER HOLIDAYS” ETC.

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE I 890

WELLCOME INSTITUTE LIBRARY

Coll.

wefMOmec

Call

No.

O.T

i'gQO

TO

MY DEAR FRIEND

AND INSEPARABLE DINING COMPANION

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS

ScDfcatetJ

IN SOUVENIR OF

MANY GASTRONOMIC TRIUMPHS ENJOYED IN HIS COMPANY v-

Introduction

A LETTER FROM P. Z. DIDSBURY TO THE AUTHOR.

My dear Author , —

1 have read your savory little volume with interest , amusement , and satisfaction. So far as concerns myself I cannot but feel flattered by your respectful quotation of my aphorisms , and by your very appreciative and useful comments upon them. You know that these aphorisms are the result of the experience of the many years which / have passed in the ardent study of delicate feasting — that art which, as Victor Hugo says in his Titanic way, consists

“ de faire aboutir,

You dwell zvith laudable persistency upon the necessity of criticism in gastronomic matters, and the usefulness of your book will con-

VI 11

INTRODUCTION.

sist largely in awakening a spirit of criticism and in calling attention to the roles of intellect and sentiment in the art of cooking. There is no severer and more conclusive test of a country's state of civilization than the way its inhabitants dine.

How often we hear cultivated European travellers say that A merica is a country where there is the greatest variety of primary alimentary substances of the finest quality , but , unfortunately , the cooking and serving of them leaves much to be desired. Certainly there is no lack of cook-books. Indeed , this special

branch of literature is more flourishing in the United States and in Great Britain than it is in the country where good cookery is not yet entirely a souvenir of the past. These books , however , are often merely compilations of recipes, and few of them are based on careful observation or on truly scientific and artistic principles. The zvriters of these works , too, are often led away by the mere love of novelty , as if the caprices of fashion were to be allowed to perturb the immutable theories of scientific dining! Moreover, the neglect or ignorance of the kitchen and table is partly the fault of

INTRODUCTION.

IX some of the ideas that were brought over to us in the “ Mayflower

My more recent visits to my native land have , I must confess with joy , caused me to recognize the pleasing fact that the culinary art has made great progress in America during the past twenty years. It is now possible (, generally with the aid of French cooks , it is true ) to obtain at one or two restaurants in each of the principal cities , and in many of the clubs , a dinner fairly well prepared and passably served. In private houses , it seems to me , the advance beyond the old state of things is not so perceptible. Generally speaking, there is always a great abundance of food, but it is not well cooked or attractively presented on the table ; and it is only in certain families , whose members have travelled , and whose tastes and opportunities have led them specially to observe the arrangement of a dinner in a first-class French restaurant or private house , that we yet find the matchless cookery and perfection in all the details of table-service without which a dinner is a failure. Much , therefore , remains to be done , and I am sure that your dainty volume — which is

X

INTRODUCTION.

a sort of higher lLand-book of the kitchen and dining-room, if I may so express myself (and I think I may) — will greatly help to increase in America a knowledge of the true principles of delicate feasting.

If , after reading your pages, $o full of ideas — so suggestive , as the French modernists would say — my countrymen do not become convinced, with that charming poet and gastronomist, Theodore de B anvil le, that the hygiene of the stomach is also the hygiene of the mind and soul, and that delicate cookery develops the intelligence and the moral sensibility, the fault will not be yours. I approve you heartily and wholly, even in your paradoxes , which always contain a kernel of logical observation and judicious criticism.

Adieu, my dear author ; macte virtute, by which I mean, continue in your efforts to win a glorious pair of gouty crutches, mid believe me always your devoted and inseparable companion in gastronomy,

Contents

PAGE

Introduction vii

I. The Gastronomic Art i

III. Methods Of Preparing Meats

The usual methods of cooking are roasting, broiling, boiling, frying, stewing, and decocting. We will consider each process briefly, from the point of view of practical chemistry.

In roasting, the exterior of the piece of meat is submitted brusquely to a temperature considerably above 212 degrees Fahrenheit or boiling-point, or at any rate not below boiling-point. The result is that the albumen of the surface is coagulated, and in this state acts as a barrier against the escape of the juice inside, and against the infiltration of liquid from without. After a few minutes close exposure to a brisk, clear fire, the joint may be drawn back a little and roasted slowly. Thus the interior mass of the meat, enclosed in an impervious jacket, cooks literally in its juice, getting heated in the inside only to a temperature between 120 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not sufficient to coagulate and harden the interior albumen. By this outer dried layer the meat inside is protected from evaporation and desiccation, and, being acted on by the liquid juice, it undergoes a maceration and a temperature sufficient to disintegrate the muscular fibre, to gelatinize and render soluble the connective tissue that binds the fibres together, and to develop the aroma enough to make the meat agreeable to the taste. What the aroma is remains a mystery. All we know is that it comes from the brown sapid substance produced on the outer layer of the flesh by the operation of roasting. In this part of the meat, according to Bloxam, “ some of the constituents of the juice suffer a change which gives rise to the peculiar flavor of roast meat.”

Broiling requires a brisk fire, free from smoke, the combustible being either charcoal or coke. The fire should extend somewhat beyond the edges of the gridiron, in order that the sides of the meat may be acted upon by the heat at the same time as that portion which is in more immediate contact with the fire.

The albumen over the entire surface of the

DELICATE FEASTING.

piece of meat, whether cutlets, chops, steak, kidneys, or what not, should be rapidly coagulated, so as to prevent the escape of the juice.

Always take care to have your fire brisk and clear at the beginning of the operation, so that you may be sure of rapidly setting the whole surface of your meat — glazing it, so to speak — for the coagulation of the surface albumen forms an impervious jacket for the grilled meat, just as it does for the roast and the boiled meat, as already described.

Let your gridiron be hot before you put your meat on it, otherwise the cold bars, conducting away the heat and preventing rapid coagulation of the surface albumen, will cause an escape of juice into the fire.

In order to prevent sticking, the gridiron, before the meat is put on it, should be rubbed over with suet. For grilling fish the gridiron may be rubbed with chalk.

The gridiron is made to incline gently towards the cook, who, being intelligent, and having comprehended all that we have said about the necessity of carefully imprisoning the juice of meat and never piercing the outside coating of coagulated albumen, will, of course, never dream of turning his chops or steaks with a fork — he will grasp them with a pair of special tongs, or even with his fingers. In practical kitchen-work one is constantly reminded of the truth of the familiar saying that fingers were made before forks, and also before tongs.

The operations of stewing invariably begin by browning the meat in a little butter or dripping in a saucepan or a frying-pan. The object is precisely the same as in the operations of roasting, boiling, and broiling: namely, to coagulate the surface albumen of the meat, and so case-harden it and develop its flavor in accordance with the chemical principles already set forth.

Frying is the process of subjecting food to a high temperature in a bath of hot fat, which, at the moment of beginning the operation, should be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. During the operation the temperature of the bath should rise two or three degrees.

The best frying-bath is one composed of beef suet and veal fat in equal proportions, melted down ; the grease of the dripping-pan and of the pot-au-feu is also good ; lard, too, may be used, although it leaves the surface of the fried food less pure; a special oil is

DELICATE FEASTING.

also sold for frying purposes, and butter may be employed for light frying only. Ordinary olive oil, when heated to a high temperature, contracts a strong taste, probably due to the charring of particles of the flesh of the olive that remain imperceptibly mixed with the oil.

Note that cook-books generally recommend the use of a beaten egg to make the flour, bread-crumbs, or chapelure adhere to a sole, for instance, which is to be fried. A simpler method is to dip the sole in milk and then roll it in your flour. Thus you avoid the thick lumps and patches of crust which are almost inevitable when an egg is used. This is a small detail, but small details all “ make for ” perfection, as Matthew Arnold would have said.

Experience will teach the cook to discover when the frying- bath has reached the required temperature by the peculiar hissing sound produced by allowing a drop of water to fall into it.

Decoction is the name that may be given to the process of extracting the juice from meat and separating it from the fibre and tissues ; it is the reverse of roasting or broiling and their derivative processes. In order to extract the juice of meat we place the flesh in cold water, the temperature of which is very slowly raised to the boiling-point : thus all the juice of the flesh is dissolved out and completely separated from the muscular fibre.

Bloxam says : “ The object to be attained in the preparation of beef-tea is the extraction of the whole of the soluble matters from the flesh, to effect which the meat should be minced as finely as possible, soaked for a short time in an equal weight of cold water, and slowly raised to the boiling-point, at which it is maintained for a few minutes. The liquid strained from the residual fibrine contains all the constituents of the juice except the albumen, which has been coagulated.”

The economical French, in making their pot-au-feu and bouillon, do not mince the meat, but leave it in a solid mass, the only reason being that thus the meat may be pre-‘ sented at table, although there is very little nourishment left in it after the process of decoction is over.

In boiling, the meat is exposed to a high temperature in water. You wait until the water has reached the boiling-point before you immerse the meat in it, and leave it to cook for about five minutes at that tempera-

DELICATE FEASTING.

ture. The heat of the water, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, at once coagulates the albumen in the external layer of flesh, which becomes thus a waterproof case in which the meat cooks, safe from the infiltration of water and from the escape of its juice. After the first five minutes the cooking should proceed more gently, at a temperature of 162 degrees Fahrenheit.

Both in roasting and in boiling, the result is similar, and is thus noted by Dalton on the preparation of meat for food :

“ Firstly, the albumen which is present in the muscular tissue is coagulated, and the muscular fibres, therefore, become rather firmer and more consistent than they are in fresh meat.

“ Secondly, the cellular tissue between the muscular fibres is softened and gelatinized, so that the fibres are more easily separated from one another, and the whole mass becomes more tender and easily digestible.

“ Thirdly, the high temperature develops in the albuminous ingredients of the meat a peculiar and attractive flavor, which they did not possess before , and which excites in a healtJiy manner tJie digestive secretion , thus serving not only to please the taste , but also to assist in the digestion of the food.

“ Raw meat,” adds Dalton, “ is usually insipid and unattractive. It is only after it has been subjected to a certain amount of cooking that the desired flavor makes its appearance, by which the appetite is stimulated, and the nutritive qualities of the food consequently improved.

“ The preparation of meat in cooking should be carefully managed so as to accomplish the results above described. For if the heat be insufficient the proper flavor will not be developed ; and if the heat be excessive, the meat, instead of being cooked, will be burned and decomposed, and thus rendered useless for the purpose of nutrition.”

Notice how constantly science recurs to the physiological advantages of delicate cooking, in that it stimulates the appetite , pleases the taste , assists in the digestion , and actually improves the nutritious qualities of food.

Before cooking meat, a sufficient time must have elapsed since the slaughtering to have allowed the cadaveric rigidity to pass and the spontaneous reaction to set in which determines a primary disintegration of the tissues. The time which meat has to be kept varies according to the temperature. If cooked while in a state of cadaveric rigidity, that is

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to say, too fresh, meat is hard and indigestible.

The first practical lesson to be drawn from the above theory of roasting is that a joint should never be spitted by thrusting an iron rod through it. The only reasonable and scientific spit is a sort of cage which clasps the meat around without piercing it anywhere. Thus there will be no loss of juice.

The rational way of placing the spit is in a horizontal position, and care should be taken to have the fire in a somewhat convex form, so that the heat may be distributed over the ends as well as over the middle portions of the meat.

Baked meat is an abomination.

So-called “ roast ” meat, cooked in ovens, is a delusion and a snare.

Roast meat is roast meat, and in order to roast you must have an open fire, before which your joint is placed in such a manner that the air circulates freely around it.

The reason why it is objectionable to cook meat by baking it in an oven — unless it be a big bakers’ oven — is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to keep an ordinary oven, in a cooking -stove, clean and well- ventilated. The sides, roof, and floor of the oven get bespattered with particles of fat and spots of

METHODS OF PREPARING MEATS. 2J

gravy during the baking process, and these particles become charred, and thus fill the oven with ammoniac and with a foul atmosphere of empyreumatic oils, by which terrible word the chemists indicate the unwholesome vapors generated through the action of fire.

In the process of roasting before an open fire these empyreumatic odors are, indeed, generated-, but they pass off up the chimney, whereas in the oven they are imprisoned, and there penetrate the meat, destroy its flavor, and render it more or less insipid.

Meat, however, may be baked in pies, because in this case its surface, being protected by the crust, cannot be charred and impregnated with the foul empyreumatic oils. The baking of meat in a pie -crust amounts, in reality, to a stewing operation, the paste forming, as it were, a stew-pan with its lid.

Frequent basting is essential to successful roasting. Otherwise, the coagulated surface of the meat would crack and split open during the operation, and allow an escape of the juice. The melted fat, poured over the meat , penetrates into every crevice, and by means of the higher temperature of the fat the surface of the meat is maintained in an impervious state.

IV. Conditions Requisite For Healthy Digestion

“ The healthy action of the digestive process must be provided for by careful attention to various particulars. First of all, the food should be of good quality and properly cooked. The best methods of preparation by cooking are the simplest ; such as roasting, broiling, or boiling. Articles of food which are fried are very apt to be indigestible and hurtful, because the fat used in this method of cooking is infiltrated by the heat, and made to penetrate through the whole mass of the food. Now we have seen that fatty substances are not digested in the stomach, as the gastric juice has no action upon them. In their natural condition they are simply mixed loosely with the albuminous matters, as butter, when taken with bread or vegetables, or the adipose tissue which is mingled with the muscular flesh of meat ; and the solution of

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 29 the albuminous matters in the stomach, therefore, easily sets them free, to pass into the small intestines. But when imbibed, and thoroughly infiltrated through the alimentary substances, they present an obstacle to the access of the watery gastric juice, and not only remain undigested themselves, but also interfere with the digestion of the albuminous matters. It is for this reason that all kinds of food in which butter or other oleaginous matters are used as ingredients, so as to be absorbed into their substance in cooking, are more indigestible than if prepared in a simple manner.” — Dalton (“Treatise on Physiology,” N. Y., 1878).

None of the immediate principles, taken separately, in the animal or vegetable kingdom, suffices for complete nutrition, even during a short time, and even with the addition of water to drink.

Payen (“Substances Alimentaires”) considers that we can realize the most favorable chances of preserving for a long time health and strength, especially by maintaining a fair balance in the consumption of nutritive substances of an animal and of a vegetable nature, by varying our alimentary regime , and

DELICATE FEASTING.

by avoiding both insufficiency and excess of nourishment.

The flesh of the ox, according to all the authorities on alimentation, of all the kinds of muscular tissue, is that which possesses the greatest nutritive power, which represents the most renovating plastic aliment, which furnishes the most tasty and appetizing broth, and which can be used more constantly with profit than any other article of food of its class.

Incidentally let it be noted that salted meat is much less nutritious than fresh. It has been ascertained chemically that brine extracts from the muscular tissue much of its nutritive principle.

Dalton places next after beef, as being most valuable as nutriment, mutton and venison ; then the flesh of fowls, the various kinds of game-birds, and, lastly, fish.

The opinion of modern French scientists, as presented in the article on Food in the “ Nouveau Dictionnaire de Medicine,” may be noted and read with interest. According to this authority, “ Fish is only slightly nutritive, but easily digestible. Its exclusive use would soon produce a diminution of muscular force, paleness of the tissues, and

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 3 1 all the signs of an alimentation insufficient in quality.

“ Fish is more digestible than the white meat of fowl.

“ The flesh of shell-fish crustaceans is hard of digestion.

“ Roast meat is more digestible than boiled.

“ Eggs very slightly cooked and daily produce are more digestible than white meats.

“ Of vegetables, the feculents are the most digestible.

“ New wheat bread is heavier than stale bread.

“ The aliments to which the cook’s art gives a liquid or semi-liquid form are, in general, more digestible.

“ The more readily an aliment is dissolved by the juices of the stomach the easier its digestion.”

Add to these facts the remark of Dalton : “ Cheese contains the nutritious elements of the milk in a condensed, but somewhat indigestible, form.”

Nevertheless you will eat a little cheese after your dinner, for, as Brillat-Savarin hath it, “ A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.”

DELICATE FEASTING.

Of the vegetable tribe, lentils, beans, and peas are the most nourishing.

Fruit, when perfectly ripe, is most easy of digestion, because the juice of fruit consists of pure grape-sugar (glucose) and water, and it is in the form of grape-sugar that all starchy food is finally absorbed into the system. It may be said that the starch of the fruit, having been already changed into glucose by the process of ripening, requires no digestion after it is eaten by man, inasmuch as it is already in the state in which this element of nutrition is immediately absorbed into the system.

Special qualities of meats from the point of view of their digestibility.

According to Payen, without there being anything absolute in these qualities, which depend on the particular state of the digestive organs of different individuals or on their idiosyncrasies, we may say, in general, that meats are more easily digestible the less strong their cohesion and the less their hardness. We might thus establish between them the following order, beginning with the lightest :

Sea and river fish, fowl, game, crustaceans, lamb, veal, beef, mutton, wild boar, pork.

CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY DIGESTION. 33

In these categories are generally considered heavy and hard to digest : salmon, eels, geese, ducks, and some other water-birds, as well as strongly smoked and salted meat.

On the time required for the digestion of di fferent kinds of food.

Hrs.

Min.

Roasted pork

Salt beef, boiled

Veal, broiled

Boiled hens

Roasted mutton

“ beef

Boiled “

Raw oysters

Roasted turkey

Boiled milk

“ codfish

Venison steak

Trout, broiled

Tripe

Pigs’ feet

Eggs, hard boiled

1 3

30 to

\ 5

“ soft “

The above is taken from Beaumont’:

s “ Ex-

periments on Digestion.” Dalton comments on these observations as follows : “ These results would not always be precisely the same 3

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for different persons, since there are variations in this respect according to age and temperament. Thus, in most instances, mutton would probably be equally digestible with beef, or perhaps more so ; and milk, which in some persons is easily digested, in others is disposed of with considerable difficulty. But, as a general rule, the comparative digestibility of different substances is, no doubt, correctly expressed by the above list.”

V. On Vegetables

In order to have good dishes of cooked vegetables you must first obtain good vegetables grown rapidly and cleanly and gathered young. Unless the market-gardener has studied his business, and produced his wares in the best possible condition, the cook will always be handicapped in preparing those wares.

Each vegetable has its good and bad seasons, and must be employed in consequence. In taste and quality spring carrots, for instance, differ widely from autumn carrots.

By the art of the gardener the seasons may be to a certain extent suppressed. At Paris, for instance, the fruits and vegetables of each season are anticipated to a great extent by forced culture, which is practised on a large scale in the outskirts of the capital. The Parisian primeurs , or first-fruits, are exquisite in quality and taste, and quite different from

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the early fruits and vegetables sent to Paris from the south of France, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, and even Egypt, which supplies fresh tomatoes to the Paris and London markets in January. Lately the Belgians have taken to grape culture, and supply the Paris market with fruit from January to May; from July to October the grape supply comes from Algeria; from September to January the finest grapes are produced by the growers of Thomery, near Fontainebleau. Thus there are only two months out of the twelve when you cannot have fresh grapes at Paris. In all kinds of vegetables and salads the Paris market is unrivalled. The methods of culture employed by the gardeners who supply this market are worthy of careful study.

As a general rule, all dry vegetables are cooked by putting them into cold water, the temperature of which is gradually raised to boiling-point, while all fresh and green vegetables are cooked by plunging them into salted water already boiling.

The reason is that, as in the cooking of meat, so in the cooking of vegetables, it is desirable to protect them against the infiltration of water.

Starch is as constant a constituent of veg-

ON VEGETABLES.

etables as albumen is of meat. Raw starch is practically not digestible by man, so that it is absolutely necessary that vegetables should be thoroughly cooked. In boiling, the starch granules absorb water, swell up, and burst, thus undergoing the first necessary step to their subsequent transformation into glucose through the action of the digestive fluids. Also, when starch, in the dry state, is heated to 302 degrees Fahrenheit, it is changed into dextrine, in which state it is thoroughly digestible. The potato is composed almost entirely of starch, and the necessary transformation in cooking is comparatively easy to effect. But in the case of dried beans and peas, prolonged cooking is necessary in order to soften and disintegrate the woody fibre with which this class of food is more or less entangled. The development of flavor by cooking is much less marked in vegetables than in meat. In boiling dried vegetables a method is adopted which is the reverse of that in cooking meat. The vegetables are immersed in cold water, which is afterwards brought to the boiling-point, and then the cooking proceeds at a temperature somewhat below 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so as not to destroy the form of the vegetables.

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Starch in the digestive tube is changed first into dextrine, then into glucose.

Much has been written about the ways of preserving the green color in cooked vegetables.

The French cooks, I have read in English cook-books, generally put a pinch of carbonate of ammonia into the water.

Dubois- Bernard and Souchay use a red copper pan to boil their vegetables in. The red copper, during the process of boiling, gives off a little oxychloride of copper, which is the same product that is used for giving a green patine to bronze statues.

In reality the great secret is simply to have abundance of zvater in the pot.

It will be found that string-beans, for instance, plunged into well-salted boiling water, in a pot of any material, provided it be large enough to allow the beans to float freely, each one careering round on its own account in the stream of ebullition, will retain their green color perfectly.

The pot should not be covered.

It is needless to add that the same holds good of other green vegetables.

Another idea which is found in many cook-

ON VEGETABLES.

books, and which is indiscriminately practised by non-reasoning cooks — that is to say, by the majority — is a process of cooling or chilling, termed by the French cooks rafraichir. This process consists in plunging the vegetables into boiling water for a few minutes ; then taking them out and throwing cold water on to them to cool them ; then, after they are cooled and drained, continuing the cooking in boiling water. This process is employed to prevent the vegetables turning yellow.

Experience in my own kitchen, confirmed by the experience and practice of many intelligent chefs whom I have consulted, has convinced me that this cooling process is a mistake , except when the supplementary cooking operations justify it, and also when the vegetables have to be served cold, as for instance in the case of a macedoine or salad of vegetables.

As a general rule green vegetables should be boiled in an abundance of well-salted boiling water, in a roomy pot and without a lid. As soon as the vegetables are cooked serve them rapidly. Let as short a time as possible elapse between the cooking of vegetables and the eating of them.

In cooking cauliflower, asparagus, string-

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beans, and any other vegetable which may sometimes have a slightly bitter taste, due to accidents of culture or what not, it is well always to put a lump of loaf sugar into the water. This precaution will effectually counteract the bitterness, if there be any.

To cook a cauliflower proceed thus: wash it carefully ; cut it into four if it is large ; pass each portion through a bowl of water with a dash of vinegar in it to drive the grubs out if there are any ; drain and plunge into a gallon of boiling water containing about one half an ounce of salt and a lump of sugar.

Take the cauliflower out of the pot as soon as it begins to feel tender to the touch. Pinch it with your fingers to feel whether it is tender or not. The cooking of the cauliflower will continue for some minutes after it has been taken out of the water , thanks to the heat stored in it.

Cauliflower thus cooked may be served with white sauce, or au gratin.

To make cauliflower au gratin take one ounce of butter and a little more than one ounce of flour ; hold them in a saucepan over the fire for two minutes ; then add one and a half pints of water, two pinches salt, three pinches pepper ; put on the fire and boil for