Kitchencraft

Southland Times, Issue 23436, 17 February 1938, Page 15

Kitchencraft

USE OF GELATINE IN COOKERY

(By

SARAH)

Gelatine, which has so greatly come into use in the preparation of jellied soups, blancmanges, whips, and other light, airy desserts, may come from three sources: (1) Animal gelatine, (2) vegetable gelatine, (3) fish gelatine. Isinglass or fish gelatine is a tough, whitish, translucent substance, prepared from the air or swim bladder of the sturgeon, cod or similar fishes. Russia, Brazil and the United States furnish the bulk of the world’s supply. It is employed in the manufacture of fish glue, and in the household for the preparation of dessert. Gelatine from animal tissue has, to a very large extent, supplanted it in cookery on _ account of its considerably lower price. Vegetable gelatine, agar agar, or vegetable isinglass is prepared in large quantities in Japan from a certain red seaweed, and is used in the preparation of jellies, soups and for clarifying rice spirits. It is nearly white, semi-trans-parent, tasteless and odourless, and is marketed in stick or block form and also cut small. Animal gelatine has come into general use. Collagen, which comprises the fibres of connective tissue, is one of the chief sources of gelatine into which it is transformed by boiling. USEFUL PROPERTIES Gelatine readily swells in cold water, and as small a quantity as 1 per cent, will set a jelly. It has come into popu-