Matzoon and other similar preparations are essentially soured milks, prepared under controlled conditions. These preparations are the common form of milk in certain parts of the Orient, where milk is never used sweet.

Kumyss is milk slightly soured and fermented with one species of yeast. This is a Russian method. These preparations are excellent for invalids and exhausted people, for they can sometimes be assimilated because of the fine curds when sweet milk cannot.

Condensed milk is a practical method of preserving milk. The milk is evaporated under pressure at a high temperature in apparatus constructed for the purpose. Cane sugar or glucose is sometimes added. A new patent process condenses the milk at low temperature, preserving it for a short period, as compared with the condensed milk in tins, but it keeps well for several days, and bears transportation. Condensed milk may be used in cooking, when clean fresh milk is not available. The unsweetened kinds are most useful, but, like pasteurized milk, must be treated with care after the cans are opened.

Cheese.—Cheese is made from the curd of milk, and contains the most nutritive parts of the milk in highly concentrated form. In the process of manufacture, the milk is first curdled by rennet, and the whey strained out. The curds after preliminary treatment, varying according to the style of cheese to be made, are finally pressed together very slowly in a cheese press, which is screwed down more tightly as the cheese becomes dryer. The cheeses are then covered with cheesecloth and “ripened” slowly, the ripening process giving characteristic consistency and flavor. This ripening is due to the action of bacteria and molds. (See page 97.) Foreign varieties of cheese, made originally in some one locality, have marked colors, quality, and flavors, as Brie, Camembert, Roquefort, and the Swiss cheeses. Parmesan is an Italian cheese, excellent with macaroni and spaghetti.

American cheeses vary in color, in strength of flavor, in creaminess, and in degree of hardness. Much the greater part is, however, of the general type known as “American cheddar” or “standard factory” cheese.

Club cheese is an American cheese of good quality, put up in small jars. It is a soft cheese, excellent to serve with crackers, but is too expensive for common use.

Cottage cheese is a home product made from sour milk, and used at once.

Composition and nutritive value.—Cheese is high in protein, and usually in fat. (See Fig. 40.) Note the small amount of water, which makes cheese a very concentrated food. The protein content makes it a meat substitute, for those with whom cheese does not disagree. Being a dense as well as concentrated form of food, it should be eaten in small quantities, and in combination with other food materials in such a way that it will become finely divided, or it will not be easily digested. The ash content is high, the most valuable of the ash constituents of the milk being retained in the cheese.

The cost of cheese.—The foreign cheeses are expensive, but American cheeses may be classed among the moderate priced foods and they compare favorably with other protein foods.

Cheese costs more than beans, and less than most cuts of meat. A good American cheese costs about twenty-five cents per pound. Taking account of composition as well as cost per pound, we find that a given amount of money buys about twice as much food value when spent for cheese as it would if spent for beef. See Fig. 45.

Care of cheese in the pantry.—Cheese should be kept dry and covered, that its odor may not be noticeable. Soft cheese should be kept in the ice box. The receptacle for cheese should be thoroughly sterilized before each new purchase is put away.

GENERAL METHODS AND RECIPES

EXERCISES

1. Compare the composition of eggs, milk, and cheese.

2. How may an egg which has been kept too long in cold storage be detected?

3. What is the effect of the boiling temperature of water upon an egg?

4. Compare a hard- and a soft-cooked egg for digestibility.

5. What are the dangers from unclean milk?

6. How may the milk supply be safeguarded?

7. Why is cheese a meat substitute?

8. What caution should we exercise in using it?

9. What precaution must we take in cooking cheese?

CHAPTER X

Fats are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but have much more carbon than the other kinds of foodstuffs. Notice in Fig. 46 that olive oil and lard are pure fats; the other fat foods containing water, protein, and ash. Fat is available in various forms, with differing flavors and a wide range of prices. To many people it is unpalatable in some of its cheapest forms; yet its use is important, and some kind should be included in the diet. Fluid and emulsified fats are the most easily digested, hence olive oil, cream, and egg yolk are highly desirable. Bacon and butter belong nearly in the same class. A vigorous man at hard labor can digest fat of any kind without difficulty, and needs it because it gives so much fuel in proportion to its bulk.

Fat tends to retard gastric digestion, and delicate persons must be careful about taking with it other foods which are hard to digest, or taking it in the form of fried foods, pastries, rich cakes, and sauces. Persons with delicate appetite, who lose weight because they do not get enough fuel, may be benefited by taking a little more fat in the diet, especially if they do not digest starch and sugar readily, but a very large amount (over 6 or 7 ounces a day) will not be perfectly digested.

Fat as a food.—Beef fat, as it occurs with lean, is a digestible fat. If thoroughly browned in the cooking process, it is most palatable, and the taste for it should be cultivated. In gravy, it may be used with potato, instead of butter. Fat tried out from suet, may be used in place of butter as an ingredient in some puddings, and even in batter mixtures. It may also be used with vegetables when the price of butter is prohibitive. See Fig. 47.

Bacon is a digestible and agreeable form of fat, but it is not so cheap as beef fat, though cheaper than butter.

Fat pork is lower in price than bacon, and can be assimilated by vigorous people, especially those living out of doors.

Cream is one of the most delicious fatty food materials, and is digestible, but ranks with butter and bacon as to cost. While it is not a cheap food, it is not such an extravagance when moderately used as some people suppose, who have not worked out the problem. Usually the most economical source of cream is to take it from the top of the bottle of milk. The remaining partially skimmed milk may be used at table or in cooking or for making cottage cheese.

Butter is a digestible fat, ranking at present among the more expensive food materials.

Watchfulness is necessary with both cream and milk that cleanliness and quality may be insured.

Butter substitutes.—These are made from beef fat and other edible fats and oils, and are much less expensive than butter. They may be used in cooking with good result. The usual trade names are butterine, or oleomargarine, or some word similar to these. Oleomargarine has the same food value as butter at lower cost, but lacks fine flavor.

Olive or sweet oil.—The fat content of olive oil is one hundred per cent, its fuel value being equal to that of lard. See Fig. 46. It is made in Italy, France, Spain, and California, the oils from the different countries differing somewhat in flavor. The cheaper grades are sometimes adulterated with corn oil or cottonseed oil, which have the same food value but should, of course, be sold under their own names and not at olive oil prices. An American firm is now manufacturing olive oil in Spain; this and the California olive oil are of high grade. Italian oil by the gallon is of good quality, and usually somewhat less expensive than the French. It is a costly food material, but valuable in the dietary. Never buy it in small bottles, as this adds greatly to the cost. The most economical method is to purchase by the gallon in a tin can. If kept cool, it will not deteriorate except very slowly. Always wipe off the mouth of the bottle or can before pouring out the oil.

Fat as a cooking medium.—Fat is necessary for the sauté, and for deep fat frying. For deep fat frying several preparations are made from cottonseed oil that are agreeable to use and of moderate price.

Lard has been the most commonly used, but many people object to the flavor. Beef drippings should be saved and kept cool in covered jelly glasses. These drippings are useful for browning vegetables, meatballs, and in pan-broiling if a small amount of additional fat is necessary.

When deep fat frying is used, great pains must be taken to see that the fat is sufficiently hot in order that the food material may not soak fat, and the cooked food must be kept hot when the fat is draining off on absorptive paper. The best fats for this purpose are the vegetable oils. The refined cottonseed oils now on the market are excellent. For details of use see page 120. Keep a box of sand to pour into it, if the kettle of fat takes fire. Never pour water into blazing fat.

GENERAL METHODS AND RECIPES

The making of sauces and gravies.—Many sauces and gravies are made from a fat, mixed with a starchy substance, the two mingled with a liquid. The fat gives flavor and nutriment, the starch is used for thickening, the liquid also gives flavor. You are now familiar with the cooking of fat and starch, and can readily understand that the combination of all these ingredients is not an easy matter. The fat will float upon the top of the liquid unless the right amount of starch or flour is used, and the flour will have a tendency to lump. There are several good methods in use. The method given for your experiment is one of the simplest, because it uses only a few utensils, and gives uniformly good results. It requires no more watchfulness than the other methods.

These sauces and gravies are not foods for little children and invalids.

Sugars are of common occurrence in the vegetable world in the fruits and juices of many plants. Pure grape juice may contain as high as 25 per cent of glucose though usually it is not so concentrated. Glucose is also found in considerable amount in sweet corn and onions. It is not so sweet as cane sugar (sucrose). Fructose is one of the sweetest of sugars, and helps to give honey its great sweetness.

Lactose or milk sugar is found chiefly in milk. It is the least sweet of all the sugars. If there were as much cane sugar in milk, we should soon grow tired of it because it would be too sweet. It is sometimes added to milk to make its fuel value higher, especially in case the milk has been diluted, as in the diet of babies and invalids.

Maltose or malt sugar is formed from starch in germinating seeds.

Sucrose or cane sugar is most commonly manufactured from sugar cane and sugar beets. To a much smaller extent it is made commercially from the sugar maple, sorghum cane, and sugar palm, and it is found in considerable amount in some common fruits and vegetables.

Its manufacture forms a great industry, and its consumption is enormous, some ten million tons coming into commerce annually, and this does not represent the total consumption.

Figure 48 shows the composition of several common sugars. Notice that the granulated sugar is a pure foodstuff, being 100 per cent carbohydrate, while all the others contain traces of protein, ash, and water. Sugar is a fuel food, exclusively, like olive oil and other pure fats.

Sugar is a valuable food material, but should not be used in excess; the tendency in the United States is rather toward an excessive use of sugar. It is liable to cause an acid fermentation in digestion, when taken in large amounts, and is sure to irritate the stomach. It should be well diluted by other foods. The amount that may be eaten daily varies for most people from two ounces for young children to four ounces for adults, but many people cannot eat these amounts without more or less irritation of the stomach. It is a common practice to oversweeten cakes and desserts, the sweetness of the sugar often disguising other agreeable flavors. The liking for sweets should be well under control, for the eating of too much sugar is a habit easy to form, and one which crowds out other valuable foods.

Cane Sugar is sold both brown and white, and is manufactured in powdered, granulated, and solid form, the latter usually cut in cubes or dominoes.

The canes are first crushed, the juices passing from the machine being of a rather dark greenish color. This juice is first clarified and filtered, and then boiled down in order to crystallize the sugar, the liquid sirup forming molasses. In the older methods the sirup was boiled in open pans, and the crystals filtered from the molasses by a slow process. In the modern process the sirup is boiled at a low temperature in vacuum pans, and the sugar is separated from the molasses by a centrifugal machine, built on the same principle as a cream separator. The principles of beet sugar manufacture are essentially the same, with some differences in detail.

The molasses manufactured in the older method is richer in cane sugar and is a better table molasses than the new process molasses, the latter being used chiefly for the manufacture of alcohol. Molasses is either dark or light, the darker having a stronger flavor especially suited to gingerbread and Indian meal pudding. Molasses comes in the bulk, and may be slightly acid; or in cans, in which case no acid fermentation should have taken place. Where canned molasses is used in a batter, it is sometimes necessary to use baking powder instead of soda. “New Orleans” is a light-colored molasses, “Porto Rico” dark.

Brown sugar has not passed through the refining processes necessary to the whitening of the sugar. It is softer than the granulated white, has a decided brownish color and a rich flavor.

In buying sugar it is economy to purchase granulated in large quantities, a fraction of a cent per pound being saved in this way. The cut sugar comes in convenient boxes, which keep the product clean. Powdered sugar may be bought in small quantities, three or five pounds, since it is not used so much in cooking as the granulated.

Candy, homemade and purchased.—Candy, if not eaten between meals, is an allowable form of sugar. The best time for eating it is at the end of a meal, one or two pieces. Even in this case, however, it would be better for the body if the craving for sweet were satisfied by fruit rather than candy.

Candy made at home costs less than high grade commercial candy, even counting in the labor. It is superior to cheap grade candy, which may even contain poisonous coloring matter. It is a pleasure to make it at times, and it is always a pleasing gift at the holiday season.

GENERAL METHODS AND RECIPES

Laboratory management.—The holiday time is the natural season for the candy-making lesson. It is not worth while to spend much time on this topic, at the sacrifice of others.

EXERCISES

1. What is meant by a fuel food?

2. Why should fat be taken daily?

3. Compare the cost of different kinds of fat.

4. Why is beef fat less expensive than butter?

5. How is fat mixed with other ingredients in a sauce?

6. What is the chief point to consider in the cookery of fat?

7. What is the difference between cane sugar and honey?

8. Compare the cost of a pound of homemade candy with that of good quality bought at a shop.

9. How is fat changed in digestion?

10. How is sugar changed in digestion?

CHAPTER XI

Wheat flour is the important material in this group, but muffins and biscuit may be varied by the use of corn meal, rye, and Graham flour, and cooked cereals may also be utilized. The ingredients are flour, salt, a liquid, sometimes a fat, eggs, and sugar. The flavorings are spices, essences, fruit juice, dried fruits, nuts, chocolate. The mixture must be smooth, but it is also necessary to make it porous or “light.” This is accomplished by means of leavening agents, “to leaven” meaning “to make light.”

Leavening agents.—The batter, or dough, is leavened by introducing into it air or a gas that expands when heated in the oven, thus making the whole more porous and larger in bulk.

The proportions of the main ingredients.—Attempts are made to define the degrees of stiffness of batters and doughs, but these distinctions are not very accurate. A “pour batter” is liquid enough to pour, and a “dough batter” soft enough to drop from a spoon; a “soft dough” is next in grade, and “dough” is the stiffest of all.

To understand proportioning the ingredients, the nature of the ingredients when heated must be taken into account. Butter and other fats melt when heated, and behave like a liquid in the mixture. Therefore, when there is a very large amount of butter, no other wetting is necessary, as in pound cake. We may make a scale, with a thin popover mixture at one extreme, with no butter in it, and the stiff pound cake at the other, with butter the only liquid (except the flavoring). Between these two are the mixtures of medium stiffness, with both butter and liquid. This general rule may be given: As the quantity of butter is increased, the batter must increase in stiffness, and there must be either less liquid or more flour.

A beaten egg looks like a liquid and behaves so during the mixing, but in the oven it stiffens. For this reason we can make a sponge cake with many eggs and no liquid in the mixing, and use no other leavening agent than the air beaten into the egg.

One old-fashioned rule for sponge cake reads: Take the weight of the eggs in sugar and half their weight in flour, with the juice and rind of a lemon for ten eggs. Such a rule was adapted to the days when eggs were cheap. We should now use fewer eggs in sponge cake, and this means that water and baking powder must replace the eggs omitted.

Baking.—This is a science and an art that requires much practice. Do not be discouraged if you do not succeed at first.

Concerning the utensils for baking, see Chapter II. The cups or pans are prepared by warming and greasing. Use a bit of soft paper or a brush for greasing the pan and ordinarily an inexpensive fat, reserving butter for delicate cake. Flour sprinkled on a pan is sufficient for biscuit and cookies. Line a pan for loaf cake with white paper, and grease the paper.

See that the oven is ready before the mixing begins. We shall not be able to bake accurately until our ovens are equipped with thermometers. In the meantime we must use some simple oven test. The indicators on the doors of some ovens are a guide, although they are not really accurate according to the scale of the thermometer. A glass door is also a convenience.

A loaf should be baked at a lower temperature than a biscuit or muffin. Why?

For loaves, 380° F. Test by the hand, counting fifteen slowly, fifteen seconds. A piece of white paper will become a delicate brown in five minutes.

For biscuits, muffins, and small cakes, 425° to 450° F.—Test by the hand, a count of ten. A piece of paper becomes a deeper golden brown in five minutes.

Any mixture containing baking powder may stand some little time before it is put in the oven, provided it is kept cold. The action of the baking powder is not immediate, and is very slight at a low temperature.

The stages of the baking are first, the rising; second, the crusting over; third, the baking of the interior; and last, a shrinkage of the whole.

Many ovens bake unevenly, and pans must be shifted. This should be done with care and not before the third stage of the baking. It is often well to cool off the oven the latter part of the time. An oven that is too hot may be cooled by a pan of water. Paper may be laid over the top of the cake if the browning has been too rapid. These are all makeshifts, and indicate a poor oven, or poor management of the fire. Do not look into the oven for the first ten minutes of baking, and always close the oven door gently.

When we are privileged to have electric ovens, with glass doors, and an accurate thermometer, baking will be an easy and accurate process.

EXPERIMENTS AND RECIPES

Laboratory management.—Effective work in batters cannot be accomplished with less than ¹⁄₂ cup liquid, though a smaller portion is sometimes used. It is well to have some group work, so that the pupils may learn to beat larger quantities. If there is a school lunch room, large quantities may be utilized there.

Pastry.—Pastry is a stiff dough with a large proportion of shortening, and is flaky when baked rather than porous. Pastry and pies should not be used as a staple food, but when well made and properly masticated, pies may be eaten occasionally by people in good health. The crust should be flaky, and thoroughly baked.