COOKERY, or cooking, the exercise of art in the preparation of food for human sustenance. It consists not only in the application of heat under various modifi cations and circumstances, but also in the due intermixture of condiments, calculat ed as well to please the palate as to pro mote nutrition. The exercise of this art is peculiar to man, and it has been deem ed by naturalists one of his peculiar cha racteristics, that he is " a cooking animal." Dr Cullen says, that the cooking of ve getables by boiling renders them more soluble in the stomach, notwithstanding the degree of coagulation which their juices undergo. In the second place, the application of a boiling heat dissipates the volatile parts of vegetable substances, which are seldom of a nutritious nature, but, in many cases, have a tendency to prove noxious. In the third place, boil ing helps to extricate a considerable quan tity of air, that, in the natural state of vegetables, is always fixed in their sub stance ; and it is probably in this way, es pecially, that heat contributes to the di viding and loosening the cohesion of their smaller parts. Thus they are rendered less liable to ferment, and to produce that flatulence which is so troublesome to weak stomachs.
In the cookery of animal substances, some practices, previous to the applica tion of heat, are to be considered as af fecting their solubility in the stomach ; particularly salting and pickling. These processes are spoken of under the article CONDIMENTS.
The cookery of animal substances is of two kinds; as it is applied in a humid form, in boiling and stewing; or in a dry form, in roasting, broiling, and baking. By the joint application of heat and moisture to meat in boiling, the texture is certainly rendered more tender and more soluble in the stomach ; and it is only in this way that the firmer parts, as the tendinous, ligamentous, and membranous parts, can be duly softened, and their gelatinous sub stance rendered subservient to nutrition. Yet these effects are different according to the degree of boiling. A moderate boiling may render their texture more tender, without much diminution of their nutritious quality ; but if the boiling is extended to extract every thing soluble, the substance remaining is certainly less soluble in the stomach, and at the same time much less nutritious. But as boiling extracts, in the first place, the more solu ble, and therefore the saline part, so what remains is, in proportion, less alkalescent, and less heating to the system.
Boiling in digesters, or vessels accu rately closed, produces effects very diffe rent from boiling in open vessels. From meat cooked in the latter, there is no ex halation of volatile parts ; the solution is made with great success, and if not car ried very far, the meat may be rendered very tender, while it still retains its most sapid parts ; and this is esteemed always the most desirable state of boiled meat.
If a small quantity of water only is appli ed, and the heat continued long in a rno.• dcrate degree, the process is called stew ing, which has the effect of the texture of meat more tender, without ex tracting much of the soluble parts. This, therefore, leaves the meat more sapid, and in a state perhaps the most nourishing of any form of cookery ; as we learn from the admirable essays and ofCount Rumford, who found very Unusual effects produced on meat by a low degree and long-continued action of heat, both in the dry and humid way.
The application of a dry heat in the cookery of meat is of two kinds, as it is carried on in close vessels, or as it is ex posed to the air. The first of these which we shall consider is baking. In this prac tice meat has generally a covering of paste, by which any considerable exhalation is prevented, and the retention of the juices renders the meat more tender. In all cases, when the heat applied loosens, and in some measure extricates, the air, with out exhaling it, the substance submitted to this process is rendered more tender than when an exhalation is allowed. In broiling, an exhalation takes place ; but as the heat of a naked fire is more nearly ap plied, the outer sii rface is in some mea sure hardened before the heat penetrates the whole, and thereby a great exhalation is prevented, while the whole is rendered sufficiently tender ; but th;s kind of cook-. ery is suited to meats that are chosen to be eaten a little raw. Nearly a-kin to this is the practice of frying, in which the meat being cut into thin slices, and laid in a pan over the naked fire, the heat is ap plied more equally to the whole substance. But as the part of the meat lying next to the bottom of the vessel would be sud denly hardened by the heat, it is always necessary to interpose some fluid matter, usually of an oily quality, as butter. A strong heat applied to the latter renders it empyreumatic, or at least less miscible with the fluids of the stomach : so that all fried meats are less easily digested than those of any other preparation. Some times, indeed the same thing happens to baked meats, to which an oily matter, and that only, is added, to avoid the too dry ing heat of the oven. It is obvious that the preparations of stewing and frying may be frequently joined together ; and according to there being more or less of the one or other, the effects may be ima gined.