Cooking

From Cooking Wiki

COOKERY is the art of preparing food for the nourish- ment of the human body. When given its proper importance in the consideration of health and comfort, it must be based upon scientific principles of hygiene and what the French call the minor moralities of the household. All civilized nations cook their food, to improve its taste and digestibility. The degree of civilization is often measured by the cuisine.

Cooking (from the Latin coquo, to boil, bake, heat, dry, scorch, or ripen) is usually done by the direct application of heat. Fruits and some vegetables which are eaten in a natural state have really been cooked or ripened by the heat of the sun. Milk and eggs, which are types of perfect food, would be useless as food unless they came from the warm living animal. Fish, flesh, and fruits which have been dried in the sun or smoked, and are often eaten without any further preparation, have undergone a certain process of natural cooking.

Heat seems to create new flavors, and to change the odor, taste, and digestibility of nearly all articles of food. It swells and bursts the starch cells in flour, rice, and potatoes; hardens the albumen in eggs, fish, and meat; softens the fibrous substances in tough meats, hard vegetables and fruits. It develops new flavors in tea, cofiee to roasted meat, crusts of bread, baked beans, etc.

Gold is also an important matter to be regarded in the preparation of food. Sweet dishes and certain flavors, like honey, ices, and custards ; the water, wine, or milk we drink ; our butter, fruits, and salads, are all more palatable when cold.

Water, or some other liquid, in connection with heat is necessary in many forms of cookery. Grains, peas, beans, dried fruits which have parted with nearly all their moisture in the ripening or drying process necessary for their preservation, need a large portion of water in cooking, to soften and swell the cellulose, gluten, and starch before they can be masticated and digested. In some vegetables and fruits water draws out certain undesirable flavors ; it softens and dissolves the gelatinous portions of meat, and makes palatable and nourishing many substances which would be rendered unwholesome by a dry heat.

Air, or the free action of oxygen, upon our food while cooking develops certain flavors not otherwise to be obtained. Meat roasted or broiled has a much finer flavor than when boiled, baked, or fried. Toasted bread, thin corn cake baked before the fire, roasted apples, and many articles cooked in the open air, show the benefit of this free combined action of heat and air.

Drying in the sun was one of the earliest modes of cookery. Then came roasting before an open fire, or broiling over the coals, and baking in the hot ashes. This last was the primitive oven. As the art of making cooking-utensils developed, stewing, boiling, and frying were adopted. Then, to economize heat, portable ovens were invented ; these were originally a covered dish set over or near the fire, having sometimes a double cover filled with coals. Afterwards, stoves which kept the fire and heat in a limited space were introduced ; and improvements have been made in them so extensively that we now have them with conveniences for doing every form of cooking with wood, coal, oil, or gas.

Some one gives this distinction between man and other animals : " Man is an animal that builds a fire and uses it to cook his food." It is quite important then, as a step- ping-stone to cooking, to learn the properties and management of a fire.