THE NEGLECTED ROAST.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12111, 4 July 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE NEGLECTED ROAST.

The " Lancet"- has ■ aroused . a certain amount of interest by harping back to the good old-fashioned methodV of cookirig roasts, and has taken up the cose in favour of the "cookirig jack." It declares that the preference for meat openly roasted before the fire; is not a mere sentiment, for the flavour of meat so cooked is Infinitely superior, and the tissue is generally more tender than when it is baked. Now, the flavour and tenderness of meat have much to do with its digestibility, and consequently with Its real value as food. Without relish and appetite, digestion is sluggish and heavy. As a matter of fact, there is a great difference between the two methods of cooking—roasting and baking. In the latter case, the meat in reality ia: cooked in hot air, which has a tendency to decompose the! fat into acrid substances. Roasting, also, is a less rapid method' of cooking than is baking, and slow cooking has very decided advantages in regard to preserving the- nutritive value of the meat. Nor is the roasting.spit .a thing of the past. In large houses, where neither space nor expense is under consideration, these open stoves have beAi specially built to make possible this old-fashioned, but still the best, means of roasting.. The "Lan.ceti" has it that the "modern cook," or person who calls herself such, although she may.be positively instructed to roast meat before the fire, commonly ignores her instructions at every possible opportunity, and puts the joint in the oven. This is scarcely fair to the modern cook, since instruction in the use of the roasting spit is not, as a rule, included in the curriculum, and this for the simple reason that the exigencies of modern existence, and, above all, the present prices of coal, have necessitated the more perfect combustion of fuel. London houses are fitted with close stoves, that render the notion of open cooking an impossibility. One of the newer makes of stoves is designed to allow an open or a closed fire, but the fire. that' will cook a joint in front of the fibs consumes such quantities of coal as almost to prohibit its use. Gas stoves, which are now so universally in use, especially in town, have survived the main prejudice which existed against their use. For joints they are especially good, since the meat can.be put into the oven at a temperature sufficiently hot to seal the pores of the meat and retain the nutritions juices, and then tempered to any degree. The meat is. hung and basted in the same way as on the old roasting spit, and that is about as near as the modern cook can go to. the methods of old. She is recommended to study the slow methods adopted by savage tribes. By one method, in which stoves made hot with glowing charcoal are employed, a large joint, no matter how tough, may be exquisitely cooked and made tender and tasty, and it ds doubtful whether any form of so-called civilised cooking can compare with .this. . f