the following, which expresses the relative quantities of cheese,
butter, and ash, in milk:
One ounce of Flesh-substance,
Two ounces of Fuel-substance, and
Ninety grains of Mineral-substance,
To twenty-two ounces of Water.
The most extensively and generally used of all the articles of human
diet is bread. It has been fittingly called “the staff of life.” Now
it is a curious and remarkable fact that bread contains in itself
just the same principles as milk; but it is of course drier, and has
proportionally more fuel and less flesh-making substance. The flour,
from which it is made, is composed of a stiff, sticky paste, and a fine
white powder, well mixed up together. The paste is flesh-substance;
it is nearly the same thing, indeed, as the flesh of the body, in all
excepting arrangement. The powder is starch: just such as is used in
the work of the laundry. Now starch is merely fat in its first stage of
preparation.
When bread is well made, the rising of the dough marks the change
of the store-starch into sugar and gum through fermentation. This
is really a beginning of the work of digestion, and, in so far, a
lightening of the task the stomach will have to perform. It is very
important, however, that this change shall be carried to a proper
point, and then stopped. Bread should be neither too heavy nor too
light. If the former, it will not be easy enough of digestion; if
the latter, some portion of the virtue will have been unnecessarily
wasted. Bread contains a great deal of water, and so to a certain
extent is both food and drink.
Brown bread is more rich in flesh-making substance, bulk for bulk,
than fine wheaten bread, because the outer husk of the grain, which
constitutes the bran, itself contains a large quantity of that
material. When the dough is formed from whole meal, instead of fine
flour, the cost of the bread is considerably diminished, at the same
time that its bulk and weight are, even in a greater degree, increased.
Rye bread is not so pleasant in flavor as wheaten bread, but it
is about equal to it in nourishment, and can be kept for months
without being spoiled, which wheaten bread can not. Oatmeal can not
be fermented like wheaten meal, but it is nearly as rich again in
flesh-making substance. It is its very richness in this gluey material,
which renders it incapable of being made into bread. Scotch men and
women consume a great quantity of oatmeal as porridge and unfermented
cake, and get both very fat and strong upon their food. This article
of diet has, indeed, the recommendation of being very appropriate for
young people, who are growing rapidly, and is fortunately, at the same
time, comparatively cheap.
Milk, the pattern food, contains, it will be remembered, twice as much
fuel as flesh-substance in it. But the bread contains eight times as
much fuel as flesh-making substance. Consequently a great deal more
bread has to be consumed to get the same amount of nourishment out of
it, and then very much more fuel has been taken into the frame than
is required, which has to be got rid of as waste. Hence it is both
economical and wise to add to a bread diet, whenever this can be done,
some other kind of food, which consists principally of flesh-substance.
Butter and fat are also advantageously taken with it, because the fuel
contained within bread is a great deal of it still only store-fuel, and
unfit to undergo immediate burning.
The best addition that can be made to bread-diet is obviously
that flesh substance which is already in a very perfect and
condensed state—namely, Meat. Lean beef contains four times as much
flesh-substance, weight for weight, as the most nutritious bread, and
it is entirely destitute of the store-fuel, starch, of which bread has
such a superabundance. Meat therefore is manifestly the natural ally
of bread in the formation of a very nutritious diet. All wild animals
have very little fat mixed with their flesh. It is, however, the great
object of the grazing farmer to make his mutton and beef as fat as
he can. Meat, as it is sent to market, commonly has one-third of its
substance fat alone. Such meat approaches more nearly to the nature
of bread, and indeed may almost be used instead of it, so far as its
influence on the support and warming of the frame is concerned.
It is even more important how meat is cooked, than it is how bread is
made.
A pound of meat loses an ounce more in baking, and an ounce and half
more in roasting, than in boiling. Boiling is therefore the most
economical method of the three. Meat should always be put first into
boiling-hot water, because by this means the pores of the surface are
at once closed fast, and the juices shut in. When meat is placed in
cold water, and kept gently simmering, the juices all ooze out into the
water. The latter plan is the best mode of proceeding, when the object
is to make nutritious soup or broth. But when it is desired to keep the
meat itself nutritious, the employment of the greater heat first is
the more judicious course. So likewise in roasting, the meat should be
placed at once close before a clear fierce fire, in order that by the
curdling power of the heat a great coat may be formed upon it, through
which the juice cannot flow; then it should be removed further away,
in order that the inside may go on cooking more gradually by the heat
of the imprisoned juices. When meat is placed before a dull, slow fire
at the first, the principal part of the gravy runs out, before the
surface is hardened and closed.
The great object of cooking is the reduction of the several principles
of the food into such a soluble state as will prepare them to be
easily acted upon by the digestive powers of the stomach, at the same
time that none of their virtue is allowed to be lost. Cooking is,
indeed, properly the first stage of digestion; it is an art which the
intelligence of man has taught him, in order that food may be made to
go as far as possible in furnishing nourishment to living frames. By
good cooking, hosts of things are converted into excellent nourishment,
which would be entirely unmanageable by the stomach without such
assistance. The art of cookery ought, however, never to be carried
further than this. It should not strive to make men eat more than
their bodies want, by furnishing the temptation of delicious flavors.
Every meal should have brought together into it a due admixture of
the several distinct principles, which have been named as the great
requirements of the body; but there should be no greater degree of
mixture than is just sufficient to ensure this. There should be
flesh-substance in a half-dissolving, or tender stage. There should be
a still larger amount of fuel-substance, partly fat, and partly such as
is in a condition capable of being converted into fat in the stomach
and blood. Mineral substance enough is sure to be present in every kind
of food; and water, of course, can be added in any amount, as drink.
The potato contains twelve times as much starch as flesh-making
substance; it is thus one-half less nutritious than bread. On this
account it is very generally made the companion of meat.
It is of the very highest importance that any one who is likely to
ever have the care of a household, whether large or small, should so
far understand the objects of cooking and the principles upon which
the process requires to be performed, as to be able to see that
food is properly and economically prepared. If your means be small,
remember that such knowledge can make that portion of your money which
is devoted to the purchase of food, go as far again, and yield twice
as much harmless gratification as it would otherwise do; if you have
an abundance of means, then the knowledge may be made serviceable in
providing only such food as is suitable to the maintenance of health
and strength, and the avoidance of disease. If you have a family of
children to bring up, and have plenty of money to do it with, you are
perfectly right to furnish them with every accomplishment, and every
advantage learning confers; but never forget that no woman is ever
less accomplished because she knows something about homely household
concerns,—cooking among them,—as well as a great deal concerning other
things.
Fish very nearly resembles lean meat in its character; it is hence a
very good companion to potatoes and bread. In a general way it requires
to be eaten with butter or oil on account of its deficiency in this
ingredient.
Fresh vegetables contain a very large proportion of water, but there
is in their structure also a considerable amount of flesh-making
substance, besides starch and sugar.
Fresh vegetables require, in most instances, to be boiled before they
are eaten, because their juices contain disagreeable flavors, and in
some instances unwholesome ingredients, which are, however, entirely
removed by the influence of boiling water. Ripe fruits, on the other
hand, are vegetable substances, which have been thoroughly cooked by
the maturing powers of the sun, and which have also been endowed, by
the hand of Nature, with the most delicious flavors, in order to tempt
man to feed on them in due season; they are, so to speak, bouquets
provided for the palate.
We have now to suppose that a wholesome but plain meal of good bread,
and well-cooked meat and vegetables, selected and prepared according to
the principles which have been explained, is set before you, and that
you are about to apply these to their proper office of nourishing your
body; how will you proceed? You will introduce the food, morsel after
morsel, into your digesting bag. Now while you are doing this, take
care to bear in mind what you are about. You are swallowing substances
that will need to be brought most thoroughly within the power of the
saliva and stomach-juices, in order that these may perform their
wondrous dissolving work. Do not, then, forget the mill. Those ivory
teeth have not been planted so firmly in your jaws for no purpose. They
are meant for work, and for hard work too. Food is not intended to be
bolted, but to be ground. Do not furnish one single morsel with its
pass until it has been reduced to the finest pulp; then the saliva will
get to every grain of the store-starch, and change it into serviceable
sugar and gum, and the stomach-juice and liver-juice will get to every
fibre of the flesh-substance, and reduce it to milk-white liquid,
capable of entering the channels of the supply-pipes. If you bolt,
instead of thoroughly grinding your food in the mill, be assured that
the heavy lumps will prove too much for your digesting bag, however
strong that may be. The greater portion, after having oppressed the
offended stomach with their unmanageable load, will cause griping
and all sorts of annoyance, and will at last be dismissed from it,
undissolved and without having furnished any nourishment.
Another important thing is to get enough food if you can; the body
requires to be sufficiently nourished. On the other hand, however, be
very careful that you do not attempt to get more than enough. If you do
try to accomplish this you will fail in the attempt, and have to pay
a heavy penalty for your failure. Thousands upon thousands of people
do try, and do fail, and then pay such penalties. You have heard it
said that enough is as good as a feast. This is only a half-truth,
it does not go sufficiently far. Enough is far better than a feast,
if “a feast,” means more than enough. There is more danger really
in over-feeding, than under-feeding. Countless numbers of underfed
countrymen work through a long life in the fields, in happiness and
contentment, and arrive at old age, almost without an hour of illness.
But every overfed man sooner or later has to go to bed, and send for
the doctor to help him to get rid either of rheumatism, or fever,
or gout, or inflammation, which are forms of disorder into which
superfluous food often changes itself. The life of labor and short
commons, has upon the whole a much larger share of happiness, than the
life of laziness and luxury.
But what is enough? That in regard to the feeding is a very serious
question. At the first glance, too, it seems to be one which is not
altogether easy to answer, because some men require more food than
others, just as some steam engines consume more coal than others, to
keep themselves moving; and just as some lamps take more oil than
others, to keep up their flames. It is, nevertheless, a question which
may be very easily answered. Every man who eats his meal slowly and
deliberately,—not forgetting the mill,—has had enough when his appetite
is satisfied. Appetite really is Nature’s own guard. It is ruled, not
by the state of the stomach, but by the condition of the blood. When so
much blood has been taken from the supply-pipes of your body, by the
working parts, that those pipes begin to be comparatively empty, their
emptiness makes itself felt in your frame as hunger. Obedient to the
hint, you find up food and eat. But while you are eating what happens?
First you seize the food with all the keen relish of a hungry man. Then
as you eat on, the relish becomes less and less, and if your meal be
a simple one, when you have had enough, all relish has disappeared,
and the very things that tasted so deliciously at first, are insipid,
so that you find no farther enjoyment in the act of grinding and
swallowing them. Go on eating after this, and the insipidity will
be transformed into disgust; and if notwithstanding this you still
persevere in forcing food into your stomach, that sensible organ will
at last rebel against the tyranny, and return the whole which it has
received upon your hands. Then it will be some little time before the
stomach gets over the insult. Consequently the blood remains all this
while in the impoverished state, and the result of the over-gorge is
that the body itself is actually starved, instead of being feasted. If
when your natural appetite for food is satisfied, and your enjoyment
and relish of it have ceased, you have rich and high flavored dishes
set before you, the high-flavors will then still prove agreeable to
the palate, and act upon it as a sort of excitement, and the natural
appetite will have its work superseded by a false and artificial one,
and you will go on eating under this temptation, until your stomach is
over-crammed. All the so-called luxuries of cooking are merely devices
to make men eat more, who have already eaten enough.
But when men who have already eaten enough, eat more, what must happen?
one of two things—either the stomach, being particularly vigorous, will
get through an extra amount of work; then there will be more blood
sent into the supply pipes than the body requires, and the frame will
be everywhere stuffed and oppressed with the load, to the danger of
inflammations, rheumatism, and other like disorders being set up: or
the stomach will be unequal to the task of doing extra work; then the
food which can not be digested will decay and putrify in the stomach
and bowels, producing there all sorts of poison vapors and disagreeable
products, which will lead to stomach and bowel disorders, until nature,
or the doctor, finds some way for their removal, or until something
worse takes place.
Thrice favored is he who is not daily exposed to the dangers of a
luxurious table. Money, after all, is not in itself a blessing. It is
only a blessing when it is possessed by those who know how to employ it
for good purposes. In the hands of men who do not know how to employ it
so, it often proves to be a curse.
Food which is already in a state of commencing putrefaction or
decay, is always dangerous for this reason: it forms poison vapors
and injurious products in the stomach, before its digestion can be
completed in the natural way. If, however, meat about to be used is at
any time found to be tainted, it will be at once rendered wholesome,
if the most tainted part be cut away, the cut part being rubbed with a
piece of charcoal, and the joint be then well boiled in water, in which
a piece of charcoal has been placed.
Here, then, in conclusion, are two or three golden rules for the
management of your feeding:
Never have any but the plainest and simplest food placed before you
when you are hungry, whether you be rich or whether you be poor.
Eat of it until you find the relish for it disappearing.
There stop, and on no consideration swallow another mouthful, until the
sense of appetite and relish comes back to you.
* * * * *
Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality of the mind,
but from several, from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to
others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought,
from contempt of others, from jealousy; not to dwell on anything but
what is seen outwardly, it is only the more hateful from being a defect
of mind always visible, and palpable; it is true, however, that it is
more or less offensive according to the quality that produces it.—_La
Bruyère.