I should add, in reference to the seed-oils, that there is a possible objection to their use as frying media. Oils extracted from seeds contain more or less of _linoleine_ (so named from its abundance in linseed oil), which, when exposed to the air, combines with oxygen, swells and dries. If the oil from cotton-seed or poppy-seed contains too much of this, it will thicken inconveniently when kept for a length of time exposed to the air. Palm oil is practically free from it, but I am doubtful respecting palm-nut oil, as most of the nut oils are ‘driers.’ Extravagant cooks delude confiding mistresses by demanding butter for ordinary frying. A veneration for costliness is one of the vulgar vices, especially dominant below stairs. In many cases a worse motive induces the denunciation of the dripping and skimmed fat recommended by Gouffé as above, and the substitution of lard or butter for it. This is the practice of selling the dripping as ‘kitchen stuff.’ FOOTNOTE: [9] The necessity for this is not so great as may appear theoretically. I have tried the experiment of having veal cutlets fried in a bath previously used for fish, and was not able to detect any fishy flavour as I expected I should. This was the case even when I knew that the fish fat had been used, and I was consequently far more critical than under ordinary circumstances. Even apple-fritters may be cooked in fat that has been used for fish. I have tried this since the above was written and am surprised at the result. CHAPTER VIII. STEWING. SOME of my readers may think that I ought to have treated this in connection with the boiling of meat, as boiling and stewing are commonly regarded as mere modifications of the same process. According to my mode of regarding the subject, _i.e._ with reference to the object to be attained, they are opposite processes. The object in the so-called ‘boiling’ of, say, a leg of mutton, is to raise the temperature of the meat throughout just up to the cooking temperature in such a manner that it shall as nearly as possible retain all its juices; the hot water merely operating as a vehicle or medium for conveying the heat. In stewing nearly all this is reversed. The juices are to be extracted more or less completely, and the water is required to act as a solvent as well as a heat-conveyor. Instead of the meat itself surrounding and enveloping the juices as it should when boiled, roasted, grilled, or fried, we demand in a stew that the juices shall surround or envelop the meat. In some cases the separation of the juices is the sole object, as in the preparation of certain soups and gravies, of which ‘beef-tea’ may be taken as a typical example. _Extractum carnis_, or Liebig’s ‘Extract of Meat’ is beef-tea (or mutton-tea) concentrated by evaporation.