COOKERY FOR LICENSED VICTUALLERS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 786, 30 March 1905, Page 24

COOKERY FOR LICENSED VICTUALLERS.

(By " Cuisinier,” in the London " L.V. Gazette.”) —Unwholesome or Noxious Food — Unwholesome or noxious food may be divided into the following classes :— 1. Animals of which the flesh is occasionally or constantly injurious. 2. of which the flesh becomes injurious under special circumstances. 3. Animjals of which the flesh, is rendered unwholesome by disease. 4. Animals of which the flesh is rendered dangerous by parasites.

5. Tainted animal food. 6. Unwholesome vegetable food. But it should be noted that differences of constitution and temperament are among the causes which may inlluence the time required for digesting a given article of food. These influences are sopowerful that articles digested with ease by some persons disagree most decidedly with others, without any abnormal condition of the stomach being the cause of the mischief. 'khat the flesh of the pig should sometimes cause diarrhoea is not, much to be wondered at, considering with what foul garbage that animal is often fi d. That a similar result should occasionally be produced by lobsters and crabs is still less surprising. Shell-fish produce dyspepsia and nettlerash in some people,, klussels and the like are, a® a. rule, poisonous in the breeding season. Oysters cannot be eaten with impunity, even when fresh and in season. It is estimated that over forty species of fish are occasionally poisonous, ,andi

some of those found in the tropical seas manifest an extraordinary degree of virulence. It is said that eaters of the yel-low-billed sprat have been known to expire before they could swallow one mouthful; and two sailors who had been Warned not to eat a small bladder-fish, but who thought they might safely venture to partake of its liver, were both dead within twenty minutes. The flesh of animals that have come to a sudden duath through accidents is not injurious on that account, though it is hurtful in cases of prolonged suffering or terror. It is known that the flesh of hunted hares will not keep long, and Liebig, in his “Letters on Chemistry/'’ relates that five persons were made seriously ill by the flesh of a roebuck which had been caught in a snare, and had struggled violently before death. This renders perfectly credible the widespread belief that a skin complaint is occasioned by the flesh of cattle that have been overdriven.

A question of great importance, concerning which a great deal of uncertainty prevails, is the mischief to be apprehended from the use of diseased meat, an article which is consumed to a much greater extent than is commonly supposed. Of course, much depends on the nature of the disease, and sometimes extraordinary instances occur of immunity from harm when the worst consequences might have been looked for; but the cases of undoubted mischief are quite sufficiently serious to justify the most searthing investigation. Allusion has already been made to the garbage with which swine are too often fed, and to the injurious quality sonetimes thereby imparted to the meat. To the same cause is ascribed the fact that the flesh of these animals is occasionally infested with parasites, which are as dangerous as they are disgusting, for, if they are given a chance, they make themselves equally at home in the sinews of the human body. Extraordinary as it may seem, considering the early progress of microscopic research, it was not till the year 1860 that the occurrence of fatal cases in Germany led to the discovery that a certain minute worm, established in the muscular fibre of the pig, keeps on feasting there till its full growth of about one-thirtieth of an inch is attained, and its voracity satiated. It then coils itself in the spiral form which has won for it the name of trichina spiralis, and envelopes itself in a coon-like cell called a cystus or cyst, and mainly conoosed of carbonate of lime.

It appears that other animals are troubled with the trichina complaint, or trichinosis, including birds, frogs, and rats. These last, in particular, are said to be much infested with them, and some persons think that omnivorous swine get them from this ignoble source. If pork containing a number of these apparently harmless specks be eaten raw, as is frequently the practice in Germany with regard to ham, or if in the form of jo nt or sausage it be imperfectly cooked, the calcareous shell, being soon dissolved by j the gastric juice of the unfortunate con-.; sumer. the little worm awakens to a new I life in the intestinal canal, unfolds its spiral, seeks companions of its kind, and . through a prolificness amounting to as I many as five hundred at birth, a multi- I tude of young settlers is produced in a few days, which, starting in various directions, grub their way to the muscles |

that best suit them. If the wretched sufferer, who affords them involuntary hospitality, ’ has sufficient strength of constitution to endure the long ordeal of their hill development, they release him from bis torture by falling asleep in the charmed calcerous receptacle, which this time no gastric juice is likely to dissoH e. In the free state the trichina is not easily discernable, but its rounded capsules are easily detected with the aid of a strong magnifying glass. The unprotected worm is certainly killed by submitting the meat to a. heat of about 150 degrees, whereas, when it is encapsuled the heat should not be less than that of boiling water; nor should this temperature be of short duration or merely superficial, as is too often the case in cooking joints of pork. Frequently the interior of a large piece of boiled or roasted meat does not reach a heat beyond 150 degrees, and if a raw-looking redness remains anywhere, that part may be assumed to have gone scarcely bey one 130 degrees. Even if the awful trichina did not exist there would still be sufficient cause for caution in using the flesh of swine. It had long been suspected that the tapeworm, which attains to such enormous length in the human intestinal canal, reaching sometimes to eighteen or twenty* feet, and slowly undermining the constitution, was in some mysterious manner connected with a email thread-like woim, ending in a bladder-like expansion, is in reality the first stage of development of the tape-worm. It nestles in a capsule much softer than that of the trichipa, but at the same time much larger so as to be easily detected by the naked eye. It is unnecessary to follow into all its details the shady side of the subject of food, but it would be incomplete without a notice of a class of dangers to which a passing allusion has more than once been made namely, those incurred by eatingvarious kinds of food when in a state of incipient decomposition. Unfortunately, opinions, and even facts, are conflicting upon this subject. We are not likely to be fascinated by the example of the Siamese, who are said to make a favourite condiment with rotten fish; or by that of the Chinese, who bury eggs m the easth until the white is set, the yolk green, and the smell utterly a’ e: but none the less do we like our venison or game to have just a piquant touch of

decay, or our cheese ripe enough to promote digestion by communicating its ovn quality of transformation to the rest of the food. No general rule, however, can be laid down. Game, when only sufficiently tainted to please the palate of the epicure, h.as caused severe diarrhoea in persons unaccustomed to it. But it may sfifely be said; that we should encourage rather than combat the sensitiveness. of the olfactory organs. If at any time steriu necessity should force us to make the best of tainted provisions, there are two palliatives that should not be neglected; firstly, boiling with charcoal, and secondly, toasting, grilling, or frying, so as to thoroughly expel the volatile products of decay, and to check their further production. A strong seasoning should also be resorted to in order to mitigate as much as possible the repug nance of the stomach. In vegetable products there are not so many dangers and perplexing controversies as in the region of animal food; but there are several points on which advice is useful. Indigestibility will, in some instances, be found to attach more or less to whole series, as, for instance, to the kernel fruits, such as filberts, almonds, cocoanuts, and thte like. In other cases the facility or difficulty of digestion will very much depend on individual temperament, as for instance, with melons, which some people can indulge in freely, whilst others must partake of them with the greatest caution. Season does not affect vegetable products in the islan-j'e: W!ay as apimjal ones; vee it must be remembered that unripe fruit is'a causq of frequent t mifechiet* especially amongst children, and should be particularly shunned when colera, or any form of enteric disease, is prevalent. Incipient decomposition in vegetable food does not present nearly so repulsive an aspect, nor so forbidding an odour as in animal food, and one is less surprised to find that opinions differ as to where the threshold of rottenness lies. It is a very innocent stage of decay that •> na - k ® s a medlar ripe, but as a rule it is best to consider as unwholeson e all changes n the consistency of fruits or vegetable that are produced by injury or too long keeping. Many species of mushrooms are poisonous, and the greatest care should be ex-

ercised in purchasing them on this account. Ihe simplest and easiest way of testing the quality of field mushrooms is to introduce a silver spoon or coin, or an onion, into the vessel in which the mushrooms are cooking. If, on taking either of these out, they assume a bluish-i black or dark coloured appearance, there are certainly some dangerous fungi in the pan. if, on the other hand, the metal or onion, on being withdrawn from the liquor, wears its natural appearance the fungi may be regarded as wholesome.