animals, poultry, and game as are used for food. This class of foods
contains representatives of all nutritive elements, but is especially
characterized by as excess of albuminous matter. But in actual nutritive
value flesh foods do not exceed various other food materials. A
comparison of the food grains with beefsteak and other flesh foods,
shows, in fact, that a pound of grain is equivalent in food value to two
or three pounds of flesh.
At present time there is much question in the minds of many intelligent,
thinking people as to the propriety of using foods of this class, and
especially of their frequent use. Besides being in no way superior to
vegetable substances, they contain elements of an excrementitious
character, which cannot be utilized, and which serve only to clog and
impede the vital processes, rendering the blood gross, filling the body
with second-hand waste material which was working its way out of the
vital domain of the animal when slaughtered. To this waste matter,
consisting of unexpelled excretions, are added those produced by the
putrefactive processes which so quickly begin in flesh foods exposed to
air and warmth.
That flesh foods are stimulating has been shown by many observations and
experiments.
Flesh foods are also specially liable to be diseased and to communicate
to the consumer the same disease. The prevalence of disease among
animals used for food is known to be very great, and their transmission
to man is no longer a matter of dispute. It has been abundantly proved
that such diseases as the parasitic, tuberculous, erysipelatous, and
foot and mouth diseases are most certainly communicable to man by
infected flesh. All stall and sty fed animals are more or less diseased.
Shut up in the dark, cut off from exercise, the whole fattening process
is one of progressive disease. No living creature could long retain good
health under such unnatural and unwholesome conditions. Add to this the
exhaustion and abuse of animals before slaughtering; the suffering
incident to long journeys in close cars, often without sufficient food
and water; and long drives over dusty roads under a burning sun to the
slaughter house, and it will be apparent to all thoughtful persons that
such influences are extremely liable to produce conditions of the system
that render the flesh unfit for food.
Thousands of animals are consumed each year which were slaughtered just
in time to save them from dying a natural death. It is a common thing
for cattle owners, as soon as an animal shows symptoms of decline, to
send it to the butcher at once; and when epidemics of cattle diseases
are prevalent, there can be no doubt that the meat markets are flooded
with diseased flesh.
There are few ways in which we can more effectually imperil our health
than in partaking freely of diseased animal food. This is no new theory.
The Jews have for ages recognized this danger, and their laws require
the most careful examination of all animals to be used as food, both
before and after slaughtering. Their sanitary regulations demand that
beast or fowl for food must be killed by bleeding through the jugular
vein, and not, according to custom, by striking on the head, or in some
violent way. Prior to the killing, the animal must be well rested and
its respiration normal; after death the most careful dissection and
examination of the various parts are made by a competent person, and no
flesh is allowed to be used for food which has not been inspected and
found to be perfectly sound and healthy. As a result, it is found in
many of our large cities that only about one in twenty of the animals
slaughtered is accepted as food for a Jew. The rejected animals are sold
to the general public, who are less scrupulous about the character of
their food, and who are in consequence more subject to disease and
shorter-lived than are Jews.
Trichinæ, tapeworms, and various other parasites which infest the flesh
of animals, are so common that there is always more or less liability to
disease from these sources among consumers of flesh foods.
Meat is by no means necessary for the proper maintenance of life or
vigorous health, as is proved by the fact that at least "four tenths of
the human race," according to Virey, "subsist exclusively upon a
vegetable diet, and as many as seven tenths are practically
vegetarians." Some of the finest specimens of physical development and
mental vigor are to be found among those who use very little or no
animal food. Says St. Pierre, a noted French author, "The people living
upon vegetable foods are of all men the handsomest, the most vigorous,
the lease exposed to disease and passion; and they are those whose lives
last longest."
The use of large quantities of animal food, however free from disease
germs, has a tendency to develop the animal propensities to a greater or
less degree, especially in the young, whose characters are unformed.
Among animals we find the carnivorous the most vicious and destructive,
while those which subsist upon vegetable foods are by nature gentle and
tractable. There is little doubt that this law holds good among men as
well as animals. If we study the character and lives of those who
subsist largely upon animal food, we are apt to find them impatient,
passionate, fiery in temper, and in other respects greatly under the
dominion of their lower natures.
There are many other objections to the use of this class of foods--so
many in fact that we believe the human race would be far healthier,
better, and happier if flesh foods were wholly discarded. If, however,
they are to be used at all, let them be used sparingly and prepared in
the simplest and least harmful manner. Let them be cooked and served in
their own juices, not soaked in butter or other oils, or disguised by
the free use of pepper, mustard, catsup, and other pungent sauces. Salt
also should be used only in the smallest possible quantities, as it
hardens the fiber, rendering it more difficult of digestion.
We can conceive of no possible stretch of hygienic laws which admits the
use of pork; so we shall give it and its products no consideration in
our pages.
Such offal as calves' brains, sheep's kidneys, beef livers, and other
viscera, is not fit food for any one but a scavenger. The liver and
kidneys are depurating organs, and their use as food is not only
unwholesome but often exceedingly poisonous.
Meat pies, scallops, sauces, fricassees, _pâtés_, and other fancy dishes
composed of a mixture of animal foods, rich pastry, fats, strong
condiments, etc., are by no means to be recommended as hygienic, and
will receive no notice in these pages.
In comparative nutritive value, beef ranks first among the flesh foods.
Mutton, though less nutritive, is more easily digested than beef. This
is not appreciable to a healthy person, but one whose digestive powers
are weak will often find that mutton taxes the stomach less than beef.
Veal or lamb is neither so nutritious nor so easily digested as beef or
mutton. Flesh from different animals, and that from various parts of the
same animal, varies in flavor, composition, and digestibility. The mode
of life and the food of animals influence in a marked manner the quality
of the meat. Turnips give a distinctly recognizable flavor to mutton.
The same is true of many fragrant herbs found by cattle feeding in
pastures.
THE SELECTION OF MEAT.--Good beef is of a reddish-brown color and
contains no clots of blood. A pale-pink color indicates that the animal
was diseased; a dark-purple color that the animal has suffered from some
acute febrile affection or was not slaughtered, but died with the blood
in its body.
Good beef is firm and elastic to the touch; when pressed with the
finger, no impression is left. It should be so dry upon the surface as
scarcely to moisten the fingers. Meat that is wet, sodden, and flabby
should not be eaten. Good beef is marbled with spots of white fat. The
suet should be dry and crumble easily. If the fat has the appearance of
wet parchment or is jelly-like, the beef is not good. Yellow fat is an
indication of old, lean animals.
Good beef has little or no odor. If any odor is perceptible, it is not
disagreeable. Diseased meat has a sickly odor, resembling the breath of
feverish persons. When such meat is roasted, it emits a strong,
offensive smell. The condition of a piece of beef may be ascertained by
dipping a knife in hot water, drying it, and passing it through the
meat. Apply to the nose on withdrawal, and if the meat is not good, a
disagreeable odor will be quite perceptible.
Good beef will not shrink greatly in cooking. In boiling or stewing, the
shrinkage is computed to be about one pound in four; in baking, one and
one fourth pounds in four. Beef of a close, firm fiber shrinks less than
meat of coarse fiber.
Good veal is slightly reddish or pink, and the fat should be white and
clear. Avoid veal without fat, as such is apt to be too young to be
wholesome.
Good mutton should be firm and compact, the flesh, fine-grained and
bright-red, with an accumulation of very hard and clear white fat along
the borders of the muscles.
Meat should not be kept until decomposition sets in, as by the
putrefaction of the albuminous elements certain organic poisons are
generated, and flesh partaken of in this condition is liable to result
in serious illness. Meat containing white specks is probably infested by
parasites and should not be used as food.
PRESERVATION OF MEAT.--The tendency of flesh foods to rapid
decomposition has led to the use of various antiseptic agents and other
methods for its preservation.
One of the most common methods is that of immersion in a brine made of a
solution of common salt to which a small portion of saltpeter has been
added. This abstracts the juice from the meat and also lessens the
tendency to putrefaction. Salt is used in various other ways for
preserving meat. It should be remarked, however, that cured and dried
meats are much more difficult to digest than fresh meat, and the nature
of the meat itself is so changed by the process as to render its
nutritive value much less.
Meat is sometimes packed in salt and afterward dried, either in the sun
or in a current of dry air. Both salting and smoking are sometimes
employed. By these means the juices are abstracted by the salt, and at
the same time the flesh is contracted and hardened by the action of
creosote and pyroligneous acid from the smoke.
What is termed "jerked" beef is prepared by drying in a current of warm
air at about 140°. This dried meat, when reduced to a powder and packed
in air-tight cans, may be preserved for a long time. When mixed with
fat, it forms the pemmican used by explorers in Arctic voyages.
Meat is also preserved by cooking and inclosing in air-tight cans after
the manner of canning fruit. This process is varied in a number of ways.
The application of cold has great influence in retarding decomposition,
and refrigeration and freezing are often employed for the preservation
of flesh foods.
All of these methods except the last are open to the objection that
while they preserve the meat, they greatly lessen its nutritive value.
It should also be understood that the decomposition of its flesh begins
almost the moment an animal dies, and continues at a slow rate even when
the flesh is kept at a low temperature. The poisons resulting from this
decomposition are often deadly, and are always detrimental to health.
THE PREPARATION AND COOKING OF MEAT.--Meat, when brought from the
market, should be at once removed from the paper in which it is wrapped,
as the paper will absorb the juices of the meat; and if the wrapping is
brown paper, the meat is liable to taste of it. Joints of meat should
not be hung with the cut surface down, as the juices will be wasted.
Meat kept in a refrigerator should not be placed directly on the ice,
but always upon plates or shelves, as the ice will freeze it or else
draw out its juices.
If meat is accidentally frozen, it should be thoroughly thawed in cold
water before cutting. Meat should not be cleaned by washing with water,
as that extracts the nutritive juices, but by thoroughly wiping the
outside with a damp cloth. The inside needs no cleaning.
Meat may be cooked by any of the different methods of cookery,--boiling,
steaming, stewing, roasting, broiling, baking, etc.,--according as the
object is to retain the nutriment wholly within the meat; to draw it all
out into the water, as in soups or broths; or to have it partly in the
water and partly in the meat, as in stews. Broiling is, however,
generally conceded to be the most wholesome method, but something will
necessarily depend upon the quality of the meat to be cooked.
Meat which has a tough, hard fiber will be made tenderest by slow,
continuous cooking, as stewing. Such pieces as contain a large amount of
gelatine--a peculiar substance found in the joints and gristly parts of
meat, and which hardens in a dry heat--are better stewed than roasted.
BOILING.--The same principles apply to the boiling of all kinds of
meats. The purpose to be attained by this method is to keep the
nutritive juices so far as possible intact within the meat;
consequently, the piece to be cooked should be left whole, so that only
a small amount of surface will be exposed to the action of the water.
Since cold water extracts albumen, of which the juices of the meat are
largely composed, while hot water coagulates it, meat to be boiled
should be plunged into boiling water sufficient to cover it and kept
there for five or ten minutes, by which time the albumen over the entire
surface will have become hardened, thus forming a coat through which
the juices cannot escape. Afterward the kettle, closely covered, may be
set aside where the water will retain a temperature of about 180°. A
small portion of albumen from the outer surface will escape into the
water in the form of scum, and should be removed.
Meat cooked in this way will require a longer time than when the water
is kept boiling furiously, but it is superior in every respect and more
digestible. Something depends upon the shape of the piece cooked, thin
pieces requiring less time than a thick, cubical cut; but approximately,
first allowing fifteen or twenty minutes for the heat to penetrate the
center of the meat, at which time the real process of cooking begins, it
will require from twelve to fifteen minutes for every pound cooked.
STEWING.--While the object in boiling is to preserve the juices
within the meat as much as possible, in stewing, the process is largely
reversed; the juices are to be partly extracted. Some of the juices
exist between the fibers, and some are found within the fibers. The
greater the surface exposed, the more easily these juices will be
extracted; hence meat for stewing should be cut into small pieces and
cooked in a small quantity of water. Since cold water extracts the
albuminous juices, while boiling water hardens them into a leathery
consistency, water used for stewing should be neither cold nor boiling,
but of a temperature which will barely coagulate the albumen and retain
it in the meat in as tender a condition as possible; _i.e.,_ about 134°
to 160°. To supply this temperature for the prolonged process of cooking
necessary in stewing, a double boiler of some form is quite necessary.
Put the pieces of meat to be stewed in the inner dish, add hot water
enough to cover, fill the outer boiler with hot water, and let this
outer water simmer very gently until the meat is perfectly tender. The
length of time required will be greater than when meat is stewed
directly in simmering water, but the result will be much more
satisfactory. The juices should be served with the meat.
STEAMING.--Meat is sometimes steamed over boiling water until it
is made very tender and afterward browned in the oven.
Another method of steaming, sometimes called smothering, is that of
cooking meat in a tightly covered jar in a moderate oven for an hour
(the moderate heat serves to draw out the juice of the meat), after
which the heat is increased, and the meat cooked in its own juices one
half hour for each pound.
ROASTING.--This method, which consists in placing meat upon a
revolving spit and cooking it before an open fire, is much less employed
now than formerly, when fireplaces were in general use. What is
ordinarily termed roasting is in reality cooking meat it in own juices
in a hot oven. In cooking meat by this method it is always desirable to
retain the juices entirely within the meat, which can be best
accomplished by first placing the clean-cut sides of the meat upon a
smoking-hot pan over a quick fire; press the meat close to the pan until
well scared and slightly browned, then turn over and sear the opposite
side in the same manner. This will form a coating of hardened albumen,
through which the interior juices cannot escape. Put at once into the
oven, arrange the fire so that the heat will be firm and steady but not
too intense, and cook undisturbed until tender.
Basting is not necessary if the roast is carefully seared and the oven
kept at proper temperature. When the heat of the oven is just right, the
meat will keep up a continuous gentle sputtering in the pan. If no
sputtering can be heard, the heat is insufficient. The heat is too great
when the drippings burn and smoke.
BROILING.--This is the method employed for cooking thin cuts of
meat in their own juices over glowing coals. When properly done, broiled
meat contains a larger amount of uncoagulated albumen than can be
secured by cooking in any other manner; hence it is the most wholesome.
For broiling, a bed of clear, glowing coals without flame is the first
essential. Coke, charcoal, or anthracite coal serves best for securing
this requisite.
In an ordinary stove, the coals should be nearly to the top of the
fire-box, that the meat may be held so as almost to touch the fire. No
utensil is better for ordinary purposes than a double wire broiler.
First, rub it well with a bit of suet, then put in the meat with the
thickest part in the center. Wrap a coarse towel around the hand to
protect it from the heat, hold the meat as near the fire as possible, so
as to sear one side instantly, slowly count ten, then turn and sear the
other side. Continue the process, alternating first one side and then
the other, slowly counting ten before each turning, until the meat is
sufficiently done. Successful broiling is largely dependent upon
frequent turning. The heat, while it at once sears the surface, starts
the flow of the juices, and although they cannot escape through the
hardened surface, if the meat were entirely cooked on one side before
turning, they would soon come to the top, and when it was turned over,
would drip into the fire. If the meat is seared on both sides, the
juices will be retained within, unless the broiling is too prolonged,
when they will ooze out and evaporate, leaving the meat dry and
leathery. Salt draws out the juices, and should not be added until the
meat is done. As long as meat retains its juices, it will spring up
instantly when pressed with a knife; when the juices have begun to
evaporate, it will cease to do this. Broiled meats should be served on
hot dishes.
BEEF.
ECONOMY AND ADAPTABILITY IN SELECTION.--While the greatest care
should be exercised in the selection of beef as regards its soundness
and wholesomeness, it must likewise be selected with reference to
economy and adaptability for cooking purposes, pieces from different
portions of the animal being suitable for cooking only in certain ways.
Ox beef is said to be best. That beef is most juicy and tender which has
fine streaks of fat intermingled with the lean. Beef which is
coarse-grained and hard to cut is apt to be tough. An economical piece
of beef to purchase is the back of the rump. It is a long piece with
only a small portion of bone, and weighs about ten pounds. The thickest
portion may be cut into steaks, the thin, end with bone may be utilized
for soups and stews, while the remainder will furnish a good roast. Only
a small portion of choice tender lean meat is to be found in one animal,
and these are also the most expensive; but the tougher, cheaper parts,
if properly cooked, are nearly as nutritious.
_RECIPES._
BROILED BEEF.--Beef for broiling should be juicy and have a tender
fiber. Steaks cut from three parts of the beef are in request for this
purpose,--tenderloin, porterhouse, and round steak. The last-named is
the more common and economical, yet it is inferior in juice and
tenderness to the other two. Steak should be cut three fourths of an
inch or more in thickness. If it is of the right quality, do not pound
it; if very tough, beat with a steak-mallet or cut across it several
times on both sides with a sharp knife. Wipe, and remove any bone and
superfluous fat. Have the fire in readiness, the plates heating, then
proceed as directed on page 398.
COLD-MEAT STEW.--Cut pieces of cold roast beef into thick slices
and put into a stewpan with six or eight potatoes, a good-sized bunch of
celery cut into small pieces; and a small carrot cut in dice may be
added if the flavor is liked. Cover with hot water, and simmer for three
fourths of an hour. Thicken with a little browned flour.
PAN-BROILED STEAK.--In the absence of the necessary appliances for
broiling over coals, the following method may be employed. Heat a clean
skillet to blue heat, rub it with a bit of suet, just enough to keep the
meat from sticking, but leave no fat in the pan. Lay in the steak,
pressing it down to the pan, and sear quickly on one side; turn, and
without cutting into the meat, sear upon the other. Keep the skillet hot
but do not scorch; cook from five to ten minutes, turning frequently, so
as not to allow the juices to escape. Add no salt until done. Serve on
hot plates. This method is not frying, and requires the addition of no
water, butter, or stock.
PAN-BROILED STEAK NO.2.--Take a smooth pancake-griddle, or in lieu
of anything better, a clean stove-griddle may be used; heat very hot and
sear each side of the steak upon it. When well seared, lift the steak
into a hot granite-ware or sheet-iron pan, cover, and put into a hot
oven for two or three minutes, or until sufficiently cooked.
ROAST BEEF.--The sirloin and rib and rump pieces are the best cuts
for roasting. Wipe, trim, and skewer into shape. Sear the cut surfaces
and proceed as directed on page 397, cooking twenty minutes to the
pound if it is to be rare, less half an hour deducted on account of
soaring. The application of salt and water has a tendency to toughen the
meat and draw out its juices; so if it is desired to have the meat juicy
and tender, it is better to cook without basting. Unless the heat of the
oven is allowed to become too great, when meat is cooked after this
manner there will be a quantity of rich, jelly-like material in the pan,
which with the addition of a little water and flour may be made into a
gravy.
SMOTHERED BEEF.--Portions from the round, middle, or face of the
rump are generally considered best for preparing this dish. Wipe with a
clean wet cloth, put into a smoking-hot skillet, and carefully sear all
cut surfaces. Put into a kettle, adding for a piece of beef weighing
about six pounds, one cup of hot water. Cover closely and cook at a
temperature just below boiling, until the meat is tender but not broken.
As the water boils away, enough more boiling water may be added to keep
the meat from burning. Another method of securing the same results is to
cut the beef into small pieces and put into a moderate oven inside a
tightly covered jar for an hour. Afterward increase the heat and cook
closely covered until the meat is tender. Thicken and season the juice,
and serve as a gravy.
VEGETABLES WITH STEWED BEEF.--Prepare the beef as directed for
Stewed Beef, and when nearly tender, add six or eight potatoes. Just
before serving, thicken the gravy with a little browned flour braided in
cold water, and add a cup of strained, stewed tomato and a teaspoonful
of chopped parsley.