It is evident, that whether the heat be applied di rectly or indirectly, there must be a considerable loss in the cooking of animal substances in public institutions, where the allowance of meat is gene rally weighed out in its raw state, and includes bones, and is served out cooked, and sometimes with out bone, and it is a matter of importance to ascer tain nearly their relative proportions. Much, no doubt, depends upon the piece of the meat cooked, and the degree of cookery, and tle attention be stowed on it. We have been informed by persons who salt rounds of beef to sell by retail, after they are boiled, that they are able to get 19 lb. of cold boiled beef from 251b. raw; but the meat, it must be confessed, is always rather underdone. Messrs Dunkin and Gamble boiled in steam 56 lb. of Cap tain's salt beef ; the meat, when cold, without the bones, which amounted to 51b. 6 OZ. weighed only 35 lb. In another experiment, 113 lb. of prime mess beef gave 9 lb. 10 oz. of bones, and 471b. 8 oz. meat ; and in a third, 213 lb. mess beef gave 18 lb. 8 oz. bones, and 103 lb. 10 oz. meat ; or, taken in the aggregate, 372 lb. of salt beef, including bones, fur nish, when boiled, 186 lb. 2 oz. without bone, being about 50 per cent. ; or, disregarding the bone alto gether, salt meat loses, by boiling, about 44.2 per cwt. We are indebted to Professor Wallace (of the University of Edinburgh) for the detail of a very accurate and extensive experiment in a public estab lishment, of which the results were, That, in pieces of 10 lbs. weight, each 100 lbs. of beef lost, on an average, by boiling, 26.4 ; baking, 30.2 ; and roast ing, 32.2: mutton, the leg, by boiling, 21.4 ; Toast ing, the shoulder, 31.1; the neck, 82.4; the loin, 85.9. Hence, generally speaking, mutton loses, by boiling, about one-fifth of its original weight, and beef about one-fourth ; again, mutton and beef lose, by root ing, about one-third of their original weight.
The loss arises in roasting from the melting out of the fat and evaporating the water, but the nutri tious matters remain condensed in the cooked solid ; but in boiling, the loss arises partly from fat melted out, but chiefly from gelatine and osmazome dissolv ed in the water in which the meat is boiled ; there is therefore a real loss of nourishment unless the broth be used, when this mode of cooking becomes the most economical.
Vegetable substances are most commonly boiled or baked ; or if apparently fried or roasted, the is always much water present; which prevents the greater action of the 'fire from penetrating below the surface. The universal effect of cookery upon vegetable substances, is to dissolve in the water some of their constituents, such as the mucilage and starch, and to render those that are not pro perly soluble, as the gluten and fibre, softer and more pulpy.
We cannot pretend to enter into the details of the various processes, nor explain the many precautions requisite to ensure success. For practical receipts we recommend L' Art de Cuisinier, par A. Beauvil Hers ; A New System of Domestic Cookery, by a Lady ; and, lastly and chiefly, Apicius Redivivas, or the Cook's Oracle, in which, along' with the plainest directions, there is more of the philosophy, and, if we may so speak, of the literature of gastroriorele, than in any work we have seen. The reader is also re furred to a very curious volume by Mr Aceum on Adulterations of Food, and to a German work on the same interesting subject by Knoblauch. The un precedented success of the Abnanach des Gourmands, and of the Manuel des Ampleglrions, shows how much may be made of the subject by a man of ta lents; nor do the writings of M. Grintod de la Bey niere surpass in wit the entertaining articles in the rival Reviews ( Edinbargh, No. XII. Cbsorterli, No. XLV.), or the extracts we have seen from the Tabella Ciboria, just published.