The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
I might enumerate other methods of cooking cheese by thus adding it in
a finely-divided state to other kinds of food, but if I were to express
my own convictions on the subject I should stir up prejudice by naming
some mixtures which many people would denounce. As an example I may
refer to a dish which I invented more than twenty years ago—viz. fish
and cheese pudding, made by taking the remains from a dish of boiled
codfish, haddock, or other _white_ fish, mashing it with bread-crumbs,
grated cheese, and ketchup, then warming in an oven and serving after
the usual manner of scalloped fish. Any remains of oyster sauce may be
advantageously included.
I find this delicious, but others may not. I frequently add grated
cheese to boiled fish as ordinarily served, and have lately made a fish
sauce by dissolving grated cheese in milk with the aid of a little
bicarbonate of potash, and adding this to ordinary melted butter.
I suggest these cheese mixtures to others with some misgivings as
regards palatability, after learning the revelations of Darwin on the
persistence of heredity. It is quite possible that, being a compound of
the Swiss Mattieu with the Welsh Williams (cheese on both sides), I may
inherit an abnormal fondness for this staple food of the mountaineers.
Be this as it may, so far as the mere palate is concerned; but in the
chemistry of all my advocacy of cheese and its cookery I have full
confidence. Rendered digestible by simple and suitable cookery, and
added with a little potash salt to farinaceous food of all kinds, it
affords exactly what is required to supply a theoretically complete and
a most economical dietary, without the aid of any other kind of animal
food. The potash salts may be advantageously supplied by a liberal
second course of fruit or salad.
One more of my heretical applications of grated cheese must be
specified. It is that of sprinkling it freely over ordinary stewed
tripe, which thus becomes _extraordinary_ stewed tripe. Or a solution
of cheese may be mixed with liquor of the stew. It may not be generally
known that stewed tripe is the most easily digestible of all solid
animal food. This was shown by the experiments of Dr. Beaumont on his
patient, Alexis St. Martin, who was so obliging (from a scientific
point of view) as to discharge a gun in such a manner that it shot away
the front of his own stomach and left there, after the healing of the
wound, a valved window through which, with the aid of a simple optical
contrivance, the work of digestion could be watched. Dr. Beaumont found
that while beef and mutton required three hours for digestion, tripe
was digested in one hour.[14]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account