Veal should be delicately white, though it is often juicy and wellflavoured when rather dark in colour. If the fat round the kidney be white and firm-looking, the meat is prime, and recently killed. Veal will not keep so long as an older meat, especially in hot or damp weather; when deteriorating, the fat becomes soft and moist, the lean flabby, spotted, and spongy. The fillet of a cow-calf, preferable to that of a bull-calf, is known by the udder, and by the softness of the skin. Lamb will not keep long after it is killed. The large vein in the neck is bluish in colour when the forequarter is fresh, green when becoming stale. In the hind-quarter, if not recently killed, the fat of the kidney will emit a faint smell, and the knuckle will have lost its firmness. Pork. When good, the rind is thin, smooth, and cool to the touch; when changing from being too long killed, it becomes flaccid and clammy. Enlarged glands in the fat, called kernels, are marks of an ill-fed or diseased pig. Bacon and Ham should have a thin rind, the fat firm, the lean a clear red, without intermixture of yellow. To judge of the state of a ham, plunge a skewer into it right to the bone; on drawing it back, if particles of meat adhere to it, or if the smell be disagreeable, the ham is not good. A short thick ham is to be preferred. Venison.-When good, the fat is clean, bright, and of considerable thickness. To know when it is necessary to cook it, plunge a knife into the haunch, and from the scent the cook must determine accordingly on dressing or keeping it. greenish tinge. Poultry, when young, have the legs and combs smooth; when old, they are rough, and on the breast are long hairs, instead of feathers. Fowls and chickens should be plump on the breast, fat on the back, and white-legged. Geese.-Bills and feet are red when old, yellow when young. When fresh killed, the feet are pliable, stiff when too long kept. Geese are called green, while they are only two to four months old. Ducks. Choose them with supple feet, and hard, plump breasts. Tame ducks have yellow feet, wild ones red. Pigeons.-Suppleness of the feet show them to be young; when getting bad from keeping, the flesh is flaccid. Partridges, when young, have yellow legs and dark-coloured bills. Old partridges are indifferent eating. Hares and Rabbits, when old, have the haunches thick, the ears dry and tough, and the claws blunt and rugged. A young hare has claws smooth and sharp, ears that easily tear, and a narrow cleft in the lip. A leveret is distinguished from a hare by a knob or small bone near the foot. Woodcocks and Snipes, when old, have feet thick and hard; when young and fresh killed, they are soft and tender. When their bills become moist, and their throats muddy, they have been too long killed. Turbot, and all flat white fish, are rigid and firm when fresh; the under side should be of a rich cream colour. When out of season, or too long kept, this becomes a bluish white, and the flesh soft and flaccid. A clear, bright eye in fish is also a mark of being fresh and good. Cod is known to be fresh by the rigidity of the flesh, the redness of the gills, and the clearness of the eyes. Crimping much improves this fish. Turkeys and Poultry generally.-The Salmon.-Flavour and excellence deage of the bird is chiefly to be at-pend upon its freshness and the shorttended to. An old turkey has roughness of time since it has been caught; and reddish legs; a young one smooth for no method can completely preserve and black. When fresh killed, the the delicate flavour it has when just eyes are full and clear, and the feet taken out of the water. moist. When it has been kept too long, the parts about the vent have a Mackerel must be perfectly fresh. The firmness of the flesh, and the clearness of the eyes, are the criterions of fresh mackerel, as they are of all other fish. Herrings can only be eaten when very fresh, and like mackerel, will not remain good very long after they are caught. Fresh-water fish, including Trout, Carp, Tench, Pike, Perch, &c., present the same indications of being fresh or otherwise as previously stated. Lobsters recently caught have always some remains of muscular action in the claws, which may be excited by pressing the eyes with the finger; when this cannot be produced, the lobster has been too long kept. The tail preserves its elasticity if fresh, but loses it as soon as it becomes stale. When light, lobsters are watery and poor. Crabs. Crabs have an agreeable smell when fresh, and are chosen by observations similar to those exercised in the choice of lobsters. Prawns and Shrimps, when fresh, are firm and crisp. Oysters, when fresh, have their shells firmly closed; when the shells of oysters are opened they are dead, and unfit for food. GROUP 4. Containing Alkaloids, which act upon the ner- Tea, coffee, cocoa, vous system as stimulants or sedatives. tobacco, hemp, opium. III. BREAD AND BREAD-MAKING. General Observations on Bread, Biscuits, and Cakes. carbonic acid produced. The carbonic acid gas, escaping from the mass, vesiculates the bread. This process is Bread is vesiculated, without being fermented, by two processes; 1, by the addition of substances which during their decomposition give out carbonic acid, as carbonate of soda and hydrochloric acid; 2, by making the bread with water charged with carbonic acid gas. The first is the pro In addition to the receipts for Bread-called the rising of the bread. It is in this stage that the starch enters into making on page 110, we enter at some length here into this important sub- a state of change which assists its ject. By means of skilful cultivation, subsequent solution in the stomach. mankind have transformed the original forms of the Cereals, poor and illflavoured as they perhaps were, into various fruitful and agreeable species. Classified according to their respective richness in alimentary elements, the Cereals stand thus:Wheat and its varieties, Rye, Barley, cess which makes what is known as Oats, Rice, Indian Corn. Everybody "Unfermented Bread. The second knows it is wheat flour which yields the best bread. Rye-bread is viscous, process consists in mixing water, conhard, less easily soluble by the gastric taining carbonic acid gas under presjuice, and not so rich in nutritive sure, with flour, so that when the power. Flour produced from barley, dough is baked the escape of the carIndian corn, or rice, is not so readily bonic acid gas vesiculates the bread. - made into bread; and the article, when made, is heavy and indigestible. All food is called bread which is made from the flour of grains or seeds made into a dough and baked. Bread is either vesiculated or unvesiculated. The latter is called unleavened bread, and consists of such preparations of flour as are known by the name of biscuits and cakes. Vesiculated bread is prepared in two ways, either by fermentation or aeration. In all cases fermented bread is made from the flour of wheat, or a mixture of this with the meal or flour of other grain. Oats, barley, maize, rye, will not alone make fermented bread. The meal of these grains is added to wheaten flour when they are made into bread. In the making of fermented bread yeast is added to the flour, and the gluten of the flour is put into a state of change, and a little of it is decomposed. A small portion of the starch is formed into glucose, which is decomposed, and alcohol formed, and This process makes what is called "Aerated Bread." Both forms of vesiculated Bread are adapted for general use. The ingredients used in the above three processes of making wheaten bread are as follows: Ingredients in a 4lb. loaf by the or. dinary or fermented process : Flour Water lb. oz. Ingredients in two 4lb. loaves by process, then, is rather injurious than the unfermented process : Flour Carbonate of Soda Muriatic acid Water lb. oz. gr. 710 One pound of the crumb of bread, if digested and oxidised in the body, will produce an amount of force equal to 1,333 tons raised one foot high. The maximum of work which it will enable a man to perform is 267 tons raised one foot high. One pound of crumb of bread can produce at the maximum 1 oz. of dry muscle or flesh. On examining a grain of corn from any of the numerous cereals used in the preparation of flour, such as wheat, maize, rye, barley, &c., it will be found to consist of two parts the husk, or exterior covering, which is generally of a dark colour, and the inner or albuminous part, which is more or less white. In grinding, these two portions are separated, and the husk being blown away in the process of winnowing, the flour remains in the form of a light brown powder, consisting principally of starch and gluten. In order to render it white, it undergoes a process called "bolting." It is passed through a series of fine sieves, which separate the coarser parts, leaving behind fine white flour-the "fine firsts" of the corn dealer. The process of bolting, as just described, tends to deprive flour of its gluten, the coarser and darker portion containing much of that substance; while the lighter part is peculiarly rich in starch. Bran contains a large proportion of gluten; hence it will be seen why brown bread is so much more nutritious than white; in fact, we may lay it down as a general rule, that the whiter the bread the less nourishment it contains. Magendie proved this by feeding a dog for forty days with white wheaten bread, at the end of which time he died; while another dog, fed on brown bread made with flour mixed with bran, lived without any disturbance of his health. The "bolting" In beneficial in its result; and is one of the numerous instances where fashion has chosen a wrong standard to go by. In ancient times, down to the Emperors, no bolted flour was known. many parts of Germany the entire meal is used; and in no part of the world are the digestive organs of the people in a better condition. In years of famine, when corn is scarce, the use of bolted flour is most culpable, for from 18 to 20 per cent. is lost in bran. Brown bread has, of late years, become very popular; and many physicians have recommended it to invalids with weak digestions with great success. This rage for white bread has introduced adulterations of a very serious character, affecting the health of the whole community. Potatoes are added for this purpose; but this is a comparatively harmless cheat, only reducing the nutritive property of the bread; but bone-dust and alum are also put in, which are far from harmless. Bread-making is a very ancient art indeed. The Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks, used to make bread, in which oil, with aniseed and other spices, was an element; but this was unleavened. Every family used to prepare the bread for its own consumption, the trade of baking not having yet taken shape. It is said that, somewhere about the beginning of the thirtieth Olympiad, the slave of an archon, at Athens, made leavened bread by accident. He had left some wheaten dough in an earthen pan, and forgotten it; some days afterwards he lighted upon it again, and found it turning sour. His first thought was to throw it away; but, his master coming up, he mixed this now acescent dough with some fresh dough which he was working at. The bread thus produced, by the introduction of dough in which alcoholic fermentation had begun, was found delicious by the archon and his friends, and the slave, being summoned and catechised, told the secret. It spread all over Athens; and everybody wanting leavened bread at once, certain persons set up as bread-makers, or bakers. In a short time bread-baking became quite an art, and "Athenian bread" was quoted all over Greece as the best bread, just as the honey of Hymettus was cele brated as the best honey. dies, "toddy," which is a liquor that flows from the wounded cocoa-nut tree; and, in the West Indies, "dunder,' or the refuse of the distillation of rum. The dough then undergoes the well-known process called kneadThe yeast produces fermentation, a process which may be thus described:-The dough reacting upon the leavening matter introduced, the starch of the flour is transformed into saccharine matter, the saccharine matter being afterwards changed into alcohol and carbonic acid. The dough must be well "bound," and yet allow the escape of the little bubbles of carbonic acid which accompany the fer In our own times, and among civil-ing. ized peoples, bread has become an article of food of the first necessity; and properly so, for it constitutes of itself a complete life-sustainer, the gluten, starch, and sugar which it contains representing azotized and hydro-carbonated nutrients, and combining the sustaining powers of the animal and vegetable kingdoms in one product. cause the numerous little holes which are seen in light bread. Wheaten Bread.-The finest, whole-mentation, and which in their passage, somest, and most savoury bread is made from wheaten flour. There are, of wheat, three leading qualities,the soft, the medium, and the hard wheat; the last of which yields a kind of bread that is not so white as that made from soft wheat, but is richer in gluten, and consequently, more nutritive. Rye Bread. - This comes next to wheaten bread; it is not so rich in gluten, but is said to keep fresh longer, and to have some laxative qualities. Barley Bread, Indian-corn Bread, &c. -Bread made from barley, maize, oats, rice. potatoes, &c., "rises" badly, because the grains in question contain but little gluten, which makes the bread heavy, close in texture, and difficult of digestion; in fact, corn-flour has to be added before panification can take place. In countries where wheat is scarce and maize abundant, the people make the latter a chief article of sustenance, when prepared in different forms. Bread-making. The yeast must be good and fresh, if the bread is to be digestible and nice. Stale yeast produces, instead of vinous fermentation, an acetous fermentation, which flavours the bread and makes it disagreeable. A poor thin yeast produces an imperfect fermentation, the result being a heavy unwholesome loaf. When the dough is well kneaded, it is left to stand for some time, and then, as soon as it begins to swell, it is divided into loaves; after which it is again left to stand, when it once more swells up, and manifests, for the last time, the symptoms of fermentation. It is then put into the oven, where the water contained in the dough is partly evaporated, and the loaves swell up again, while a yellow crust begins to form upon the surface. When the bread is sufficiently baked, the bottom crust is hard and resonant if struck with the finger, while the crumb is elastic, and rises again after being pressed down with the finger. The bread is, in all probability, baked sufficiently if, on opening the door of the oven, you are met by a cloud of steam which quickly passes away. Panification, or bread-making, consists of the following processes, in the case of Wheaten Flour. Fifty or sixty per cent. of water is added to the flour, with the addition of some One word as to the unwholesomeleavening matter, and preferably, of ness of new bread and hot rolls. yeast from malt and hops. All kinds When bread is taken out of the oven, of leavening matter have, however, it is full of moisture; the starch is been, and are still used in different held together in masses, and the bread, parts of the world; in the East In-instead of being crusted so as to ex |