Buckeye cookery

Men and races grow in proportion to their skill in combining heat and s muscle-producing foods. The hardy Scotch use oatmeal largely, which is i rich in nitrogen. The Irish, who endure a large amount of hard labor on cheap fare, eat potatoes, oatmeal, cabbage, and milk, while the lime and 4 hosphates are said to be derived from the ‘‘hard”’ water impregnated with ‘s fie, The English add bacon (heat-producing) to beans, rich in nitrogen, : and to rice, which abounds in starch (carbon), add milk and eggs, which feed muscle. The Italian eats macaroni, which is principally starch, with cheese, rich in nitrogen. The use of chemistry in cooking is to teach how to supple- ment one kind of food by another which contains the essential elements 1 ise ke < a ra a S, Ce ee ee ee ee eS = _ ee Nes eee Oe ES a A Od Vege Se ae which the first lacks. For instance, venison contains fifteen per cent nitro- pe to fifty-two carbon, or as one to three and a half, while the ratio should. e one to four or five. To make it perfect and satisfying food, we have ~ only to supplement it with something rich in carbon, as wheat bread, oat- . meal, potatoes, or rice. A farmer’s dinner of salt pork and boiled cabbage a is nearly perfect for an out-of-door laborer in cold weather. The cabbage is rich in nitrogen and the pork in carbon. It isa proper dinner dish, because it requires four and a half hours to digest, while a supper may be made on venison, which is digested in an hour. Beef has fifteen per cent of nitrogen, but is not so easily digested as venison, and is fit only for a. breakfast or din- her dish. Wheat bread does not contain nitrogen enough for a working- 4 man’s diet, and butter eaten with it does not supply the lack. Some kind of ae lean meat is needed to make perfect food. The more active the life out of a Hoors the nearer can health be sustained on a diet of lean meat only. Beans contain, next to meats, the most nitrogen, and are excellent food for laborers.” The cabbage ranks next, and afterward come oats, wheat, and barley. The ae potato contains seventy-five per cent. water. An analysis of the dry mat- . er shows one-tenth of it to be nitrogen, so that its nutritive value is nearly ioe equal to wheat, while its great productiveness recommends ‘+ particularly a \ , THE OHEMISTRY OF FOOD. 517 fo densely populated countries. A dozen large potatoes are equal toa pound of flour. The onion is very rich in nitrogen,—one onion being equal to three potatoes of equal size in nutritive value. Milk contains all the important elements of food; yet adults need solid food. Add to milk eggs, rich in nitrogen, rice and sugar, rich in carbon, and you have a nutritious dish, easily digested. Butter-milk is a wholesome drink, particularly in summer, as the nutritive power of the milk is but little reduced by the removal of the butter, while - the sourness, due to the formation of lactic acid, aids digestion. Eggs contain a great deal of carbon, and are, for that reason, good food for cold weather. They are too concentrated for exclusive diet, and should be eaten with coarse food, or that which is composed largely of starch. In making cakes, the oil of the yolks of eggs used makes the perfect blends ‘ing of lard or butter impossible, and hence unwholesome. For this reason sponge cake, which contains no butter, is less objectionable. Breads differ but little in these elements. Corn meal contains more oil an less nitrogen than others, and oatmeal is vichest in nitrogen. The easy blending of the elements, and the tough glucen of wheat, make it the most available grain for bread. Wheat bread alone will support life longer than any other food except animal flesh. The proportion of nitrogen to car- bon is one to five, which is nearly correct for a sedentary person. For active, out-door life more nitrogen is needed, and is best supplied by lean meats.