A brief guide to the Food CollectionBethnal Green Museum
Science
A brief guide to the Food Collection
Bethnal Green Museum
Bethnal Green Museum; Exhibition catalogs; Food; Food -- Exhibitions
The most common as well as the most important form in which wheaten flour
is consumed as food is bread. In Case 25, which may be called the “Bread
Case,” the constituent ingredients, with their respective quantities used
in making bread, are exhibited. There are three methods of making bread,
the ordinary or fermented process, the unfermented process, and that
employed in making aërated bread. Bread is either _vesiculated_ or
_unvesiculated_, the latter is called unleavened bread, and consists of
bread, and of such preparations of flour as are known by the names of
biscuits, cakes, &c. of which two cases of samples are shown by Messrs.
Peek, Frean, and Co. of London, and J. W. Mackie and Sons of Edinburgh.
For other details concerning bread the visitor is referred to the printed
labels in the case.
ANIMAL FOOD OR FLESH.
According to the classification of the Food Collection, Flesh is placed
next to Wheat and other cereals in Group 3, which includes _nitrogenous
substances capable of producing both flesh and force_.
Animal food is composed of the same materials as vegetable food. It is
formed of the same elements, and presents the same proximate principles.
It contains water and mineral matters of the same kind as plants. Its
force-producing substances appear in the form of fat, and its flesh and
force-producing substances in the form of fibrin and albumen.
MILK.
Of all animal foods milk is the most important, as it may be regarded as
the type of human food. Case 55 contains an analysis of cow’s milk,
human milk, and asses milk, and is accompanied with explanatory labels.
Milk is preserved in various ways, so that it may be taken on long
voyages or otherwise employed as a diet where living animals cannot be
kept to produce it. It is preserved both in a liquid and solid state.
The latter mode of preparation appears to have the advantage.
Butter is formed from cream by the process of “churning.” The casein is
held in solution in the milk by the aid of certain salts; when these are
removed by acids the casein coagulates, and forms “curds.” When the curd
is removed with the butter and pressed it forms cheese. The best and
highest-priced cheeses are those in which there is most butter. The
casein without the butter is hard and indigestible.
THE FLESH OF ANIMALS.
At the western end of the gallery over the upright cases containing
wheat, barley, oats, maize, &c., are arranged some selected heads of oxen
in illustration of the principal breeds in this country.
The Case, 56, is specially devoted to the composition of one pound of
beef, mutton, pork, veal, lamb, and fowl. Wax models represent the
substances, and each analysis is accompanied with descriptive printed
labels.
In Case 70 are seen mounted specimens of the varieties of hares and
rabbits indigenous to the United Kingdom.
The flesh of birds, fish, and reptiles is also represented in the
Collection.
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