Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. METHODS OF PKEPAKING FOOD. In the preparation of food of yore, the palate has no doubt been. the great guide. Still, a blind instinct seems also to have been at work. The cook has been led to prepare vegetables with meat; to unite grain and milk; to boil the highly nitrogenised beans with fat bacon; or peas and pork. Experience at work through countless ages has no doubt instructed Man, albeit darkly, what combinations of foods are requisite for health under certain conditions. Sauer-kraut was a wise provision of vegetable food during the long winter, when salted foods and cereals formed the chief dietary of the people. A Lenten fast of vegetables was a useful hygienic measure for clearing away the maladies incidental to such a dietary; as useful as vegetables to scurvy-stricken crews before the days of lime-juice. No wonder people long ago spoke of the anti-scorbutic properties of certain vegetables. Before proceeding with the preparation of foods, it may be well to give a Letheby Table of the comparative value of various edible articles as tissue-food and fuel-food, without any pledge as to the absolute accuracy of it. It is certainly useful, as giving a good broad idea of the value of various comestibles: CARBON. NITROGEN. Fresh Butter, 64.56 — Dry Bacon 59.87 .95 Dripping, 54.56 — Green Bacon, 54.26 .76 Lard, 48.19 — Suet, 47.10 — Salt Butter 45.85 — Fat Pork 41.13 1.06 Cocoa 39.34 1.40 Cheddar Cheese 33.44 3.06 Indian Meal, 30.16 1.20 Sugar 29.55 — Oatmeal, 28.31 1.36 Rice 27.32 .68 Seconds Flour 27.00 1.16 Split Peas 26.99 2.48 CARBON. NITROGEN. Eye Meal, 26.93 .86 Pearl Barley 26.60 .91 Barley Meal, 25.63 .68 Treacle, 23.95 — Bakers' Bread 19.75 .88 Skim Cheese 19.45 4.83 Mutton...