Hints for the table, or, The economy of good living. With a few words on wines.

  • Timbs, John, 1801-1875.
Date:
[1860?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints for the table, or, The economy of good living. With a few words on wines. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    beef and mutton, and the period during which it is hung, gives it additional tenderness. Next to venison, probably, follow grouse, at least in weather which allows the bird to be kept suffi- ciently long. All game has relatively this looseness of texture : so a pheasant or partridge is more digestible than a turkey or barn-door fowl. These facts, which Dr. Beaumont ascertained, are at variance with opinions which, for a long time, held their ground. But, Dr. Herbert Mayo, the celebrated physiologist, is fully satisfied of their correctness by observations that he has made on the powers of weak stomachs. Meats contain the most nutriment, milk and eggs the next, the best farinaceous food the next, fish the next, vegetables least. Dr. Herbert Mayo, in his admirable work, The Philosophy of Living, gives the following synoptical view of Cookery; by which “ meat is rendered shorter, or its texture more separable than when raw; when the process is wholesomest, the oil is in part extracted. The wholesomest cookery is Broiling ; in which the portion of meat is of no great thickness, and its fibre is cut across. The action of heat upon the divided fibre and the con- necting tissue, renders the texture more penetrable, and from the cut surface the melted fat easily exudes. Boasting is next to broiling; not so wholesome, because the contraction of the sur- face compresses and hardens the interior of the meat, and the oil has a less free escape. Baking is inferior to roasting, as the want of motion and the closeness of the oven contribute to de- tain the oil. Frying is unwholesome, inasmuch as it adds oil, and that partly in its worst state, the empyreumatic. Boiling has the advantage of extracting the oil from the meat, but it gives hardness, by coagulating the albumen. By the process of Steioing this evil is avoided; but, on the other hand, much that is nutritious is parted with in exchange for the mechanical in- crease of digestibility. Fish, in order to be preserved fresh for the market, are allowed to linger and die, instead of being put to death in health, as every living thing intended for food ought to be: this circum- stance alters its properties as food; and, probably, is one cause why, with some people, fish is said to disagree, by exciting dis- turbance in the alimentary canal. Fish, in proportion to its bulk, may be said to be almost all muscle; and it is readily known to be in perfection by the layer of curdy matter interposed within its flakes. It often happens, however, that those parts of fish, viz., the pulpy, gelatinous, or glutinous, which are considered the most delicious, are the most indigestible. Concentrated nutritive matter is not so digestible as when it