26. Food is cooked by the application of heat, which may be either moist
or dry. While it is true that the art of cooking includes the
preparation of material that is served or eaten raw, cooking itself is
impossible without heat; indeed, the part of cooking that requires the
most skill and experience is that in which heat is involved. Explicit
directions for carrying on the various cooking processes depend on the
kind of stove, the cooking utensils, and even the atmospheric
conditions. In truth, the results of some processes depend so much on
the state of the atmosphere that they are not successful on a day on
which it is damp and heavy; also, as is well known, the stove acts
perfectly on some days, whereas on other days it seems to have a
stubborn will of its own. Besides the difficulties mentioned, the heat
itself sometimes presents obstacles in the cooking of foods, to regulate
it in such a way as to keep it uniform being often a hard matter. Thus,
a dish may be spoiled by subjecting it to heat that is too intense, by
cooking it too long, or by not cooking it rapidly enough. All these
points must be learned, and the best way to master them is to put into
constant practice the principles that are involved in cookery.
27. Without doubt, the first step in gaining a mastery of cookery is to
become familiar with the different methods and processes, the ways in
which they are applied, and the reasons for applying them. There are
numerous ways of cooking food, but the principal processes are boiling,
stewing, steaming, dry steaming, braizing, fricasseeing, roasting,
baking, broiling, pan broiling, frying, and sautéing. Which one of these
to use will depend on the food that is to be cooked and the result
desired. If the wrong method is employed, there will be a waste of food
material or the food will be rendered less desirable in flavor or
tenderness. For example, it would be both wasteful and undesirable to
roast a tough old fowl or to boil a tender young broiler.
The various methods of cookery just mentioned naturally divide
themselves into three groups; namely, those involving dry heat, those
requiring moist heat, and those in which hot fat is the cooking medium.