FoodNetArchive

Cassell's dictionary of cookery

1892

Page 1508

Presented as published in 1892. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The object of all the contrivances is the same, namely, to secure a sufficiently low degree of temperature for the preservation of the meat during the voyage, and to produce it at such a cost as would repay the importers." An eminent dietetic authority who took a deep interest in the preservation of meat re- marks: — "The application of cold is, in my opinion, the most fitting mode of solving the problem, and it should be effected either by inducing the inhabitants of countries where ice is alDundant in the cold season, to grow animals for our markets, or by storing large quantities of ice in an economical manner at the ports of other meat-producing countries. We need not despair of seeing the time when the whole carcase of an animal will be imported in a state fit to be cut up in our shops for immediate sale, and when the exporters from Australia will supply themselves -with ice for this purpose from the southern hemisphere, or when the pastures of the North American con- tinent will become our chief, as they may be our nearest, sources of supply. Canada offers unbounded facilities for this purpose, by reason of its great ice-fields, its pastures, and agricul- tural population, as well as its nearness to this country ; and should the present high price of meat continue it will induce commercial men to organise a system, both of feeding animals and of exporting the meat in ice, which may be very profitable to the Canadians." The preservation of food by keeping it at a low temperature is sufficiently well known. In such countries as Eussia, where the climate during winter is one long frost, the preservative action of cold is largely taken advantage of. Cattle, poultry, &e., are killed when the frost begins, allowed to become frozen through, and in this condition brought to market and sold at the large winter fairs. Fish are dealt with in the same fashion, and are kept for months quite fresh and wholesome. Provisions thus preserved only require the precaution of being* gradually thawed before use by immersion in cold water. Refrigerating Machines.— The manu- factui-e of ice by machinery is one of the most interesting applications of science, and this has now become a practical trade. In 1851, M. Rezet, of Rouen, volatilised ether in a clos3 vessel by exhausting the air from its surface.. After the air, the ether-vapour itself was ex- hausted by a pump, then condensed by the aid of cold water, and forced back into the same vessel, by which a continual absorption of caloric from the surroimding bodies was effected, and a continual refrigeration obtained as long as the circulation of ether was kept up by working the piunp.