_Sugar._——Sugar first melts with heat, then begins to decompose, giving off water. This is also a stage on the road to pure carbon. Caramel, a familiar flavor, is sugar in the brown stage, with the water partly driven off. The art in applying intense heat to fat, starch, and sugar is to know the stopping point,——to reach the “brown taste” and stop short of the “burnt taste.” _Mineral matter._——The “ash” remains for the most part unchanged by heat, but may be lost in the water in which vegetables and meat are cooked if the water is thrown away. _Vegetable fiber_ is softened by heat and moisture, and the protein, starch, fat, and sugar are freed, making them available for our digestion and nutrition. _Meat fiber_ softens at a low temperature, that is, below the boiling point of water, with moisture; continued intense heat shrinks and hardens it. A tender steak fried with fat in a hot pan will soon resemble sole leather. =The technique of food preparation.=——From the moment the food materials enter the kitchen until the unusable portions are destroyed or carried away, there is a best way of working with them at each step, and the sum of these may be said to make a good technique. This technique will include cleanliness first and foremost, then skill in the use of tools, judgment in managing cooking apparatus and in applying heat in cooking processes, and accuracy and rapidity of execution. It will also include or add to itself the æsthetic element, the fine art of flavoring, the dainty garnishing of a dish. Moreover, this technique is the method of putting into practice some basic, scientific principle. To illustrate: The _principle_ that underlies toast-making is threefold,—— Heat evaporates moisture throughout the slice of bread. Intense heat changes the content of the starch granules on the surface of the slice of bread to dextrin. Intense heat, long continued, will change first the surface starch, and then all, to carbon (charcoal). A _good technique_ will secure the first two, and avoid the third and includes,—— The selection of bread already partially dry. The cutting of bread into slices of uniform thickness. Regulating the source of heat. Placing the slices firmly in a toaster, or on a fork, or evenly on a rack when toasting by gas. Keeping the toast at a distance from the source of heat that insures a steady but not too rapid change. Turning the toaster or the slices to cook each surface in turn and thus to make the process slower. Stopping the process before carbon is formed and the toast “burned.” (A good technique does not include scraping the toast!) The _æsthetic element_ in toast-making might be a pretty shape of the slices, say triangular pieces, and a dainty arrangement. In this case and in others it is true that the result of a good technique is æsthetic, in that correct manipulation while securing the desired chemical change also develops the pleasing golden brown that makes the toast so attractive.