Why We Cook our Food. While some of all classes of food may be eaten raw, yet we have gradually come to submit most of our foods to the heat of a fire, in various ways; this process is known as cooking. While cooking usually wastes a little, and sometimes a good deal, of the fuel value of the food and, if carelessly or stupidly done, may make it less digestible, in the main it makes it both more digestible and safer, though much more expensive. This it does in three ways: by making it taste better; by softening it so as to make it more easily masticated; and by sterilizing it, or destroying any germs or animal parasites which may be in it.
Cooking Improves the Taste of Food. It may seem almost absurd to regard changing the taste of a food as of sufficient importance to justify the expense and trouble of a long process like cooking. Yet this was probably one of the main reasons why cooking came into use in the first place; and it is still one of the most important reasons for continuing it. No one would feel attracted by a plate of slabs of raw meat, with a
handful of flour, a raw potato or two, and some green apples; but cook these and you immediately have an appetizing and attractive meal. Any food, to be a thoroughly good food, must "taste good"; otherwise, part of it will fail to be digested, and will sooner or later upset the stomach and clog the appetite.
Cooking Makes Food Easier to Chew and Digest. The second important use of cooking is that it makes food both easier to masticate and easier to digest. As we have seen, it bursts the little coverings of the starchy grains, and makes the tough fibres of grains and roots crisp and brittle, as is well illustrated in the soft, mealy texture of a baked potato, and in the crispness of parched wheat or corn. It coagulates, or curdles, the jelly-like pulp of meat, and the gummy white of the egg, and the sticky gluten of wheat flour, so that they can be ground into tiny pieces between the teeth.
THE KITCHEN SHOULD BE CARED FOR AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ROOMS IN THE HOUSEWe could hardly eat the different kinds of grains and meals and flours in proper amounts at all, unless they were cooked; indeed they require much longer and more thorough baking, or boiling, than meats. The amount of cooking required should always be borne in mind when counting the cost of a diet, as the fuel, time, and labor consumed in cooking vegetable articles of diet often bring up their expense much more nearly to that of meats than the cost of the raw material in the shops would lead us to expect.
Cooking Sterilizes Food. A third, and probably on the whole, the most valuable and important service rendered by cooking is, that it sterilizes our food and kills any germs, or animal parasites, which may have been in the body of the animal, or in the leaves of the plant, from which it came; or, as is far the commoner and greater danger, may have got on it from dirty or careless handling, or exposure to dust.
While it was undoubtedly the great improvement that cooking makes in the taste of food that first led our ancestors—and probably chiefly induces us—to use the process, it is hardly probable that they would have continued to bear the expense, trouble, and numerous discomforts of cooking, had they not noticed this significant fact: that those families and tribes that had the habit of thoroughly cooking their food, suffered least from diseases of the stomach and intestines, and hence lived longer and survived in greater numbers than the "raw fooders." We are perfectly right in spending a good deal of time, care, and thought on cooking, preparing, and serving our food, for we thus lengthen our lives and diminish our sicknesses.
Civilized man is far healthier than any known "noble savage," in spite of what poets and story-tellers say to the contrary.
The Three Methods of Cooking. The three chief methods of cooking—baking, or roasting; boiling, or stewing; and frying—have each their advantages as well as disadvantages. No one of them would be suitable for all kinds of food; and no one of them is to be condemned as unwholesome in itself, if intelligently done; although all of them, if carelessly, or stupidly, carried out, will waste food, and render it less digestible instead of more so. In the main, the methods that are in common use for each particular kind of food, or under each special condition, are reasonable and sensible—the result of hundreds of years of experimenting. The only exceptions are that, on account of its ease and quickness, frying is resorted to rather more frequently than is best; while boiling is more popular than it should be, on account of the small amount of thought and care involved in the process.
Cooking Improves the Taste of Food. It may seem almost absurd to regard changing the taste of a food as of sufficient importance to justify the expense and trouble of a long process like cooking. Yet this was probably one of the main reasons why cooking came into use in the first place; and it is still one of the most important reasons for continuing it. No one would feel attracted by a plate of slabs of raw meat, with a
handful of flour, a raw potato or two, and some green apples; but cook these and you immediately have an appetizing and attractive meal. Any food, to be a thoroughly good food, must "taste good"; otherwise, part of it will fail to be digested, and will sooner or later upset the stomach and clog the appetite.
Cooking Makes Food Easier to Chew and Digest. The second important use of cooking is that it makes food both easier to masticate and easier to digest. As we have seen, it bursts the little coverings of the starchy grains, and makes the tough fibres of grains and roots crisp and brittle, as is well illustrated in the soft, mealy texture of a baked potato, and in the crispness of parched wheat or corn. It coagulates, or curdles, the jelly-like pulp of meat, and the gummy white of the egg, and the sticky gluten of wheat flour, so that they can be ground into tiny pieces between the teeth.
THE KITCHEN SHOULD BE CARED FOR AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ROOMS IN THE HOUSECooking Sterilizes Food. A third, and probably on the whole, the most valuable and important service rendered by cooking is, that it sterilizes our food and kills any germs, or animal parasites, which may have been in the body of the animal, or in the leaves of the plant, from which it came; or, as is far the commoner and greater danger, may have got on it from dirty or careless handling, or exposure to dust.
While it was undoubtedly the great improvement that cooking makes in the taste of food that first led our ancestors—and probably chiefly induces us—to use the process, it is hardly probable that they would have continued to bear the expense, trouble, and numerous discomforts of cooking, had they not noticed this significant fact: that those families and tribes that had the habit of thoroughly cooking their food, suffered least from diseases of the stomach and intestines, and hence lived longer and survived in greater numbers than the "raw fooders." We are perfectly right in spending a good deal of time, care, and thought on cooking, preparing, and serving our food, for we thus lengthen our lives and diminish our sicknesses.
Civilized man is far healthier than any known "noble savage," in spite of what poets and story-tellers say to the contrary.
The Three Methods of Cooking. The three chief methods of cooking—baking, or roasting; boiling, or stewing; and frying—have each their advantages as well as disadvantages. No one of them would be suitable for all kinds of food; and no one of them is to be condemned as unwholesome in itself, if intelligently done; although all of them, if carelessly, or stupidly, carried out, will waste food, and render it less digestible instead of more so. In the main, the methods that are in common use for each particular kind of food, or under each special condition, are reasonable and sensible—the result of hundreds of years of experimenting. The only exceptions are that, on account of its ease and quickness, frying is resorted to rather more frequently than is best; while boiling is more popular than it should be, on account of the small amount of thought and care involved in the process.
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