Popular Books on Natural Science Part 13

Let no one believe that it is from mere daintiness that man is fastidious in regard to food, and that he lives on a great variety of victuals.

The human body is the transformed food which he has eaten. It is quite correct that man can live on bread and water a long time; but man's nature is so varied, his qualities are of such numerous kinds; his character, his impulses and pa.s.sions, his wishes and desires, his thoughts and labors, are so infinitely varified and so much exposed to change, that man's body, the bearer of all these elements, must also be formed from material of the most diversified kind.

It is a common observation that animals which take uniform food are very much poorer in mind than those animals that feed upon richer and more various kinds of food. Nay, it has even been proved that the character, the whole nature of an animal may be completely changed by its food.

Very properly, therefore, does the genial naturalist, Moleschott, begin his excellent treatise, "Our Articles of Food," with the following words: "Food has made the wild-cat our house-cat;" thus showing that food may completely change the character of an animal, and more, it may even change the animal's body. And if civilized man is a being of a higher order, more spiritual and more intellectual than the savage, we can ascribe it to no other cause than the impulse his food gives him, not to sink down to the savage, but, by varying his food as much as possible, to bestow upon his body many superior qualities.

Nature herself has undeniably impressed upon man, that she wishes him to take nourishment of different kinds.

Those animals that live upon plants, and such as feed solely on meat, are entirely different from each other in regard to their bodies. The teeth of the former, the herbivorous, are broad and flat on the top, like our molar teeth. They serve to crush vegetable fibres and to chew the cells which contain the nutritive element; while the other cla.s.s, the carnivorous, have but pointed teeth, like our eye-teeth, to tear their food asunder. The stomach of the herbivorous is also different; it comprises several divisions which have various functions. For blood is not so readily obtained from vegetable as from animal food, which itself contains ready-made blood. Herbivorous animals are for the greater part ruminators, that is, their food pa.s.ses from the first division of the stomach back into the mouth, where it is masticated a second time; this is called "ruminating." With the carnivorous this is not the case.

Finally, the intestines of the herbivorous are long, because there the final change of the food into blood takes place; a process requiring more time with vegetable food than with animal. For the same reason the intestines of the carnivorous are short, the blood to be formed being already present there.

Considering the fact that man has sharp teeth in front, at both sides pointed teeth, and in the rear of them molars; that his stomach is adapted to the digestion of both vegetable and animal food, and that his intestine is so const.i.tuted as to be able to digest and change into blood both kinds, we can no longer entertain any doubt that nature herself bids him to change his food constantly, and to take in such as is of the most varied kind. If, in addition to that, we recollect that exclusive animal food renders an animal wild, quick, and sly, while vegetable food makes it tame, enduring, and slow in mind, it will not be denied that food exercises great influence upon the nature of a being, and it will now be readily understood that it would be a sin, if man were to be forced to take uniform nourishment.

The example of the cat is very instructive; it teaches us that change of food has transformed her into another being, mentally as well as bodily.

The wild-cat has short intestines and is an animal of prey; the tame cat has long intestines, and betrays her old character only now and then by cunning and slyness. We also learn from this, that variety of food produces variety of bodily and mental qualities; and lastly, it may be inferred that nature, having fitted man for this variety and given him such diversity of mental capacities, wishes also that his food be well selected and of the greatest variety.

These short remarks enable us to pa.s.s to the princ.i.p.al dishes themselves; first to those const.i.tuting the princ.i.p.al meal of the day, the dinner, for which very justly the greatest variety of food is chosen.

CHAPTER XIII.

BROTH.

Soup, meat, and vegetables are the princ.i.p.al dishes of a plain household dinner.

When examining this more closely, we find the selection so judicious that we may well admire the tact of woman, who discovered it long before science did.

The good tact of woman does even more yet; it selects the dishes in such a manner that they mutually compensate for their wants, that is, that each offers to the body what is wanting in the others.

The princ.i.p.al dishes composing a meal are divided into fat-producing and flesh-producing ones. All farinaceous diet provides the body with fat; all alb.u.men substances, with flesh. To support the body, however, it is also necessary to give it salt, from which bones, hair, nails and teeth may be formed.

Our domestic wives, indeed, look to all that. Long before scientific men had investigated the necessity for nutriment of the kind, all-providing woman had arranged culinary matters so as to be able to satisfy all the demands of nature. But not only the proper selection of articles of food,--the way and manner also in which they are cooked and served, are of prime importance to a proper nutrition; and we maintain that household fare may justly be regarded as a guide for scientific investigations.

A judicious housewife will first of all place meat on the fire, to have good soup and well-cooked meat. She will prefer beef to any other kind, because it contains but little fat and much alb.u.men and animal fibre; for this reason it makes better broth, and still preserves strength enough to be a healthy, strength-giving dish.

Besides, meat, by cooking, becomes more nutritive, inasmuch as its digestibility is greatly facilitated. One of the most important tasks of the cook consists in promoting one's digestion; in other words, in saving the stomach labor. Flesh in its raw state keeps its nutritive elements shut up in cells which are gluey. By boiling it, the gelatine becomes soft and mixes with the water; hence it comes that broth is glutinous, and, if allowed to cool, becomes thick and like jelly. This substance is in part very nouris.h.i.+ng; it is often obtained from bones and cartilages, and then sold under the name of "bouillon-tables,"

which, when boiled in water, make a tolerably good soup. Thus we see that the first object of all cooking is the dissolving of the cellular tissues. Not before this is done do we obtain the real nutritive element of the flesh, which then is taken up by the stomach all the easier, inasmuch as it has thus been well prepared to be easily changed into blood.

But before the meat reaches the boiling-point, alb.u.men is separated from its surface and mixes with the water; it is this which gives broth its real strength and nutritive power. Afterwards, when the water boils, this alb.u.men condenses; the broth becomes white, as if containing the white of eggs; from the inside of the meat flows continually more and more alb.u.men into the broth, and makes it stronger and stronger. During this time, moreover, the fat parts of the meat melt, and its salts are also dissolved in the broth; hence a great deal of the most nutritive parts of the meat goes over into the broth; and although much of the strength of the meat has been withdrawn, still there is much of it left yet, and the meat has now become easier to masticate and easier to be digested. We need not add that a sufficient quant.i.ty of salt is thrown into the soup, which quickly dissolves in the water; but in the same degree that the meat excretes a part of its ingredients and gives them to the water, in the same measure does the meat absorb salt. By this it becomes not only more tasteful and digestible, but also more nutritive.

It was not until recently that the importance of salt as a nutritive was recognized; this cannot be otherwise, for the tissues of the human body, as well as its blood and cartilages, need salt for their formation and support. Who does not know that every farmer gives his cattle salt from time to time, so as to improve their strength and general health?

Our readers will readily understand now, that the weaker the broth the stronger must be the meat, and _vice versa_. It often occurs that we care less to have good broth than good beef. In such cases we must not put the meat into cold water, but into boiling water. So soon as the meat is thrown into boiling water, the alb.u.men on the outside coagulates, surrounding the whole piece as it were with a hard crust, which does not permit the nutritive parts of the inside to escape. The same effect is produced by the roasting of the meat in an oven, although here it is not covered by water. It is more judicious, however, and more important for the household, to make good broth, and to let dinner commence with it.

For he who has been at work all the forenoon, needs such food at first as will not cause his stomach too much labor; and soup is that food. Let every good housewife bear this in mind.

CHAPTER XIV.

WHAT IS BEST TO BE PUT INTO SOUP?

The answer to this question will be "Something farinaceous," and, indeed, no better answer could be given.

Broth contains gluten and alb.u.men, both of which are changed in the body into flesh. Not only the animal part of our body, but chiefly the active, working part of it requires nutriment that can be transformed partly into fat. Breath and perspiration, so unavoidable in labor, are supported by means of fat in our body. This explains why fat people perspire more than others; why fat people get out of breath sooner than lean persons; why the other s.e.x, who are more apt to become fat than men, perspire more; and why children, because they run about much, and hence need more breath and perspiration, usually prefer bread to meat.

As has been said, broth, which contains only such ingredients as are intended to produce muscle-fibres, may well be mixed with something farinaceous, which should be thrown in and boiled with the soup, in order to promote the formation of fat in the body. It matters little what may be chosen for the purpose--flour, groats, barley, rice, or potato, or any other article; provided always it contains starch; for this becomes saccharine even when boiling; it changes in the body into acid of milk, and lastly into fat. Perhaps it is advisable to use that which contains most starch. Rice, for example, has much of it; probably this accounts for the fact that lively children are very fond of it. A hundred pounds of rice include eighty-five of starch; while a hundred pounds of wheat contain but about seventy-four pounds. A judicious housekeeper will know very well that a less quant.i.ty is taken of rice than of flour. The various kinds of farina and barley possess but about one-half the starch of rice; and potatoes are so poor in that, that five pounds of potatoes yield no more starch than one pound of rice. All this is a matter of great importance to our housewives.

The usefulness of soup-material lies, however, not always in its great nutritive capacity, but very often in the facility with which it may be cooked. Thus we cannot boil rice in the broth itself; it must, to loosen its cells properly, be boiled first in water; this takes a little over half an hour, and requires of course a place on the fire, and hence more fuel. The cell of the farina or pearl-barley, on the other hand, was crushed already by the grinding; therefore it needs but little attention, and may be boiled in the broth itself without any loss of time. When making scientific observations on food, such circ.u.mstances must not be overlooked; for time and fuel cost money, and may, in the eyes of practical housewives, raise the price of the article too much; while to a scientific man the same article may appear very cheap.

There are other viands which, though not very nutritive, are yet very popular and in common use. As an example of this cla.s.s, we may give the potato.

That the latter is poor in starch, was stated above. Its extensive use is surprising, when we consider, that, according to calculation, the little nutriment obtained from the potato is paid more highly for than that of flour. And yet there is good reason for the extensive use of the article. Its preparation, in the first place, is an easy one, especially when the potato is boiled whole, without being peeled. This is a great convenience for the housewife, who, besides the time devoted to the house, needs time for work from the proceeds of which she may support herself. She values, therefore, any dish which can be prepared with little expense of time and money; more than any other article may the potato be said to possess this quality. From it a meal can be prepared in half an hour, and the cook need not watch it constantly; potatoes do not boil over. Besides all this, there is another advantage, and it is this which makes it a favorite even with the rich; already, when boiling, its starch is transformed into sugar, giving the potato a more pleasant flavor than any other cheap dish can be said to have. How easily the potato starch is converted into sugar may be noticed best in half-frozen potatoes, because there the cells containing the starch burst during the process of freezing.

CHAPTER XV.

LEGUMINOUS VEGETABLES.

The greens which we put in soup cannot be considered nutriment, but rather a kind of spice, and perhaps also as a means of giving us the benefit of some medicinal qualities which they in part contain. We will dwell no longer on this subject, but proceed to the most nutritive articles of food we use, viz., the leguminous vegetables.

Pease, beans, and lentils are so extremely rich in fat and muscle-forming elements, that in this regard they excel bread and are almost on a level with meat. No wonder, therefore, that they are very favorite articles if well cooked, when we consider the fact that they are so very cheap. Where people are too poor to buy meat every day, legumes must not be found wanting. They play a great part in barracks and prisons; and in order to keep pace with the immense progress gastronomical science has made, one of the above-named articles ought to be used in those establishments on all days on which there is no meat.

The element common to all three is called legumine. It is richer in starch than bread and contains nearly three times more of it than the potato. Partly legumes contain also ready-made sugar; this may be tasted in green pease. Besides this, their flesh-forming parts are in greater quant.i.ty than those of other plants, while their quant.i.ty of water is less, and it is therefore not advisable to take them dry. New pease and beans have, moreover, the advantage of being eatable together with their hulls and pods, as these, when yet green, contain likewise sugar and starch.

But we must recommend, above all, not to eat the hulls of dried legumes.

This may be avoided if, when boiled, the cook crushes them and strains them through a coa.r.s.e sieve, by which process the hulls are left. If this is not done, we run the danger of disturbing the functions of the body, inasmuch as these dry hulls are dissolved neither by the saliva of the mouth nor the gastric juice of the stomach.

Most every one that once in his life had culinary labor to perform, is acquainted with the fact that the cooking of legumes is often accompanied by a peculiar circ.u.mstance. Pease sometimes may boil by the hour without getting soft; it happens even that young pease, soft by nature, become harder and harder by boiling; while, at other times, the same pease have become soft and burst open after but half an hour's cooking. The reason of this lies not in the pease, but in the water they are boiled in. Our housewives undoubtedly know, from the experience of their wash-days, that there is hard water and soft. Soap, when put in hard water, breaks into small pieces, while it dissolves in soft water completely and forms a slimy liquid. Science has solved this mystery: spring-water contains lime, which combines chemically with the fat in soap and forms with it an insoluble element; while rain-water contains little or no lime, and therefore dissolves soap. The same is the case in regard to the legumine. The lime in spring-water, which settles on the bottom of vessels as sediment, combines with some const.i.tuent parts of the pea and forms a very hard, indigestible body; rain-water, however, dissolves legumine completely.

It must now appear evident to all, that much fuel and nutritive element is gained by cooking pease, beans, and lentils in soft water. To comfort those who, on the plea of uncleanliness, are opposed to rain or cistern water, we desire to state that rain-water when poured through linen or cotton cloth is not in the least impure; especially if it be allowed to stand quietly for a few hours and then have the sc.u.m removed from its surface.

Pease, beans, and lentils produce in the healthy body blood, flesh, milk, and fat. By their being strained through a coa.r.s.e sieve they lose such disagreeable qualities as, for example, the bloating they produce in the body, which makes them very unpopular with many.

Another great advantage in leguminous vegetables lies in this, that they contain phosphorus, a principle needed for the formation and preservation of the bones and brain; therefore we may justly maintain that legumine is good for the body and mind both.

CHAPTER XVI.