On food : four Cantor lectures, delivered before the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce / by H. Letheby.

  • Letheby, H. (Henry), 1816-1876.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On food : four Cantor lectures, delivered before the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce / by H. Letheby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    removed. It contains only about half as much butter as now milk, nnd its gravitj' is aliout 1,037. In aU other respects it is similar to now milk. Buttermilk is the residue of the milk or cream from which the butter has boon removed by churning. It is still poorer in fat than skim-milk, containing', in fact, only about half as much. Unless it is very fresh, it is generally a little acid, and frequently the acidity has gone so iar as to set the milk into a kind of jelly. The whey of milk is the opalescent liquor from which the curd has been removed in making cheese. Although not highly nutritious, it still holds a little casein in solution, as well as the sugar and saline matter of the milk. It is rarely used as food by the poor, but is given to pigs. In Switzerland, however, it is considered to liavo medicinal virtues, especially for the cure of chronic disorders of the abdominal organs, and the treatment, which is somewhat fashionable, goes bj'' the name of cure de petit /ait. There is a popular notion, that the whey of milk is sudorific, and hence we have our -wine whei/, cream o f tartar ic/iei/, alum whcij, tamarandiohey, &e., when the milk has been curdled by these several substances. Cheese is the coagulated product of milk, obtained by the addition of rennet or a little vinegar. When cream is coagulated it makes cream cheese, which will hardlj' bear keeping, but must be eaten fresh. It contains about half its weight of butter, and a fifth of its weight onlv of curd. When cream is added to new milk, and the mixture is curdled, it forms very rich cheese, as double Gloucester and Stilton. When new milk alone is used the cheese is less rich, but still of high quality, as Cheddar. When an eighth or a tenth of the cream has been taken off, it produces the quality of cheese which is most sought after, as single Gloucester, Chester, American, &c. And when all the cream has been removed, and the skim-milk is curdled, it forms the poor cheese of Holland, Fneslnnd, Suffolk, Somersetshire, and South Wales. At first every variety of cheese is soft and compara- tiv'-ly tasteless, but by keeping they undergo change, and develop their flavours, when they are said to be ripe. Analj'ses of two of the most important of them are shown on Table No. 3, and it will be noticed that they contain from 56 to 64 per cent, of solid matter, about half of which is curd. In sldm-milk cheese the cm-d amounts to 44-8 per cent., and the fat to only 3-6 ; whereas, in Cheddar, the curd is only 28 4 per cent., and the fat 31-1. In nutritive power, therefore, especially in nitrogenous matter, cheese ranks high, and is a ■valuable article of diet; but there is a limit to its digestibility, and hence it cannot be taken in large quantity. Considering its price also, it is hardly so profitable as many other foods; although, where good skim-milk cheese can bo purchased at from 2id. to 3d. pound it forms, in small quantities at a time, a goo;, adjunct to bread. Meat.—There is hardly a class of individuals, howevi i poor, who do not make a sti-ong effort to obtain meat It would seem, therefore, to be a necessary articl of diet. In this metropolis the indoor operatives eat r to the extent of 14-8 ozs. per adult weekly; 70 per ceiil of English farm labourers consume it, and to the exton of 16 ozs. per man weekly; 60 per cent, of the Scotcli 30 of the Welsh; and 20 of the Irish. The Scotch, pro bably, have a larger allowance than the English, con- sidering that braxy-mutton is the perquisite of the Scotch labourer; but the Welsh have only an averag'- amount of 2 J ozs. per adult woeklj'; and the Irish alio v. ance is still less. It is difficult to obtain accurate returns of the quantity ■ of me it consumed in London; but if the computation of Dr. Wynter be correct, it is not less than 30|-ozs. p' head weekly, or about 4Jozs. per day for every mai. woman, and child. In Paris, according to M. Armari Husson, who has carefully collected the octroi returns. ; is rather more than 4.9 ozs. per head weekly, or just 7 oz- a-day. We are not, therefore, such large meat-eaters a the French. Butchers' meat diSers very much in nutritive value according to the proportions of fat and lean ; and there is a strong prejudice in favour of beef as the stronge- kind of meat. In realitj', however, the lean of all meiii, is of nearly the same nutritive power, provided it J digested ; but in this respect there are large differenc^ The flavour also varies with the nature of the anic and with its mode of feeding. Pampas-pig, and inde most wild swine, are horribly rank, but by proper feed- ing they become delicious. In store animals, the propor- tion of lean is always greater than the fat, and the soli matter does not amount to more than 28 or 29 per cent^ not so, however, in fat aninials, for then the fat is lai-gfl in excess of the lean, and the soUd matters make about half the total weight. The tendency, indeed, | the fattening process is to substitute fat for water in i carcass; and the quality of the meat depends on tli intimate intermixture of fat with the muscular tissu All animals are not alike in their method of depositii fat, for some put it upon the surface of the body, ami others accumulate it among the viscera. The art ■ breeding and feeding stock is to overcome both of theSL tendencies, and, at the same time, to produce a fat which will not molt or boil away in cooking. Oil}' foods hav alwa}'s a tendency to make soft fat. The average proportions of fat and lean in the ofl&di^i and carcases of animals are shown in Table No. 6n ' age.-- me^^^ nc^^l im^^l ideflH feed-X por- ' loli m tfip^ tl. ^■^^^ TABLE VI.—PERCENTAGE PROPORTIONS AND NUTRITIVE VALUE OF THE CARCASS ANlJ OFFAL. Store Oxen. Half Fat do. Fat do. .. . Fat Heifers. Fat Calves . Store Sheep Half Fat do. Fat do. .. . Very Fat do Fat Lambs . Store Pigs . Fat do. ... ISIean of all. In Animal. Carcass. 59-3 69-8 5.5-6 G3-1 63-4 69-0 04-1 79-3 83-4 64-1 Offal. 38'9 38-5 41-3 33o 45-6 40-6 35'8 18-8 161 34-3 Water. Carcass. 60-8 64-0 45-6 62-3 67-3 49-7 397 33-0 48-G 6o-3 38-6 48-4 Offal. 69-6 62'8 64-9 63-7 6M 6o-2 45-1 68- 5 67-9 69- 4 53-8 NiTEOGEyoUS. Carcass. 18-0 17-8 lo'O 16-6 14-0 14-9 llo 9-1 10-9 14-0 lO-o 13-5 Offal. 20-6 17-5 171 180 17- 7 lG-1 16-8 18- 9 140 14-8 17-2 Fat. Carcass. 16-0 226 34-8 16-6 23-8 31-3 45-4 65-1 3G-9 28-1 49-5 34-4 Offal. 15-7 26-3 14-6 IGl 18-5 26-4 34-5 20-1 lo-O 22-8 21-0 S.VLTS. Carcass. Offal. 5-2 5-G 4-1 4-6 3-4 4-5 ^'^ t 4-4 2-2 i 4-1 2-7 I 3-5 2-3 2-8 ,■(> 3-6 f 2-6 3-1 1-4 3-0 3-7