Man are the ways and many the recipes For a hare, but this is best of all To place before a set of hungry guests A slice of roasted meat fresh from the spit, Hot, seasoned only with plain simple salt, Not too much done. And do not you be vexed At seeing blood fresh talc' kling from the meat, But eat it eagerly. All other ways Are quite superfluous, such as when cooks pour A lot of sticky. clammy sauce upon it.— Archestronts.
Baking is cooking by the heat radiating from a hot oven. The principle is the same as in roasting and broiling, namely, a quick searing of the outer surface for the sake of the flavor and to retain the juices, then a lower tem perature that the heat may reach the centre without burning the outside. If the oven is not hot, or water is used at first, the juices are drawn into the pan, enriching the gravy at the expense of the meat. Flesh which has tough connective tissue, cartilage and bone should be tooked a long time, and needs the solvent action of water, after the first browning. Baking renders watery vegetables drier and more savory, develops new flavors in fruits and grains and changes some of the sugar in the crust of calce into caramel and the starch in the outside of bread into dextrin. Some forms of baiting are so nearly allied to stewing that it is impossible to make a strict division, but there is a great difference in the flavor developed by the two methods. In baking., the temperature is the important point, varying from 212° to 400° for different articles. The oven thermometer is the evolution of the old-time ghand and try cake" methods. tBaking was dtme first in the hot ashes, then hi a hole in the ground—the primitive oven— where a fire was built on stones and after it had burned down to coals, food was laid in, either in clay pots, or wrapped in moist leaves, then covered with brush or leaves, and left to cook slowly for a long time. Bread-fruit in the South Sea Islands is baked in this way. Pounded and moistened grains made into a thin batter were spread on hot stones by a dextrous sweep of the hand, cooking almost instantly; this vras the first bread; the process may be seen now among the Arizona Indians in malting piki. Some one found it better to cover the oven permanently and have an opening at one end; this was the beginning of the brick oven.
At the hearth fires, a covered utensil to stand near or over the coals, and later the Dutch oven, answered for daily use; the great brick oven near the chimney soon followed, and here enough *rye and Injung bread, pies, cookies, Indian meal pudding, and beans, were baked to last a large family through the week The kitchen range is an evolution of an American invention about the beginning of the 19th century. In many European countries they still use tile and brick stoves without ovens, all of the baking being done outside the home. In America there are ovens of every size and from the tiny tin box for the gas burner or oil stove, the jacketed box of the Aladdin oven, which concentrates and utilizes all the heat from an oil lamp, the ventilated ovens of the coal and has ranges; to the immense ovens of the large baking < establishments, with their steam jets, revolving shelves and griddles and other contrivances for securing the right temperature and texture.
Frying is immersion in hot fat: from 345° to 400°. This is not boiling fat, as it is often called; it is the water in the food, or the fat, if new, which bubbles. Immersion implies depth enough to cover the articles, that the surface may be hardened before the fat can penetrate the food. A coating of egg and crumbs helps a moist surface to harden quickly and keep its shape. Some previously cooked foods are fried merely for the flavor and crisp ness of the crust Frying has been called the °curse of American cookery,n but it is the wrong use of it that merits condemnation. Tough meat and flour mixtures rank with soda, put into cold lard and left to stew and sizzle until hard and soaked with burned grease, have been all too frequently a large part of the daily food on many American tables. It may have originated when it was so much an undertaking to afire ups the brick oven, and the drafts pre vented the food in the Dutch oven from getting beyond the palest tint of brown. But there are indications that the boiler, the Scotch bowl, and the stew pan, are taking the place of the spider. When at its best frying is not to be recom mended for those with weak digestion, its only merit being its quickness, but this is gained at the expense of time in the last stage of the work, digestion. But little frying would be done if everyone had to fry his food and inhale the odors. Frying probably originated where olive-oil was in common use, and oil is still the general frying medium in countries bordering on the Mediterranean. There it is usually done well, for vegetable oil may be heated with less acrid odor than from animal fats. When a pure vegetable oil without odor can be pro cured at reasonable rates in America, and when housekeepers are willing to believe that it is more economical to fry in a large amount of fat at high temperature and drain the fried food thoroughly, than to let a smaller amount of fat be absorbed by the food, frying will be greatly improved. Sauteing is a French term meaning to or turn over. It is the common way to cook omelets, mushrooms and other foods which need merely to be browned on each side in a little fat, or stewed in hot butter and tossed about until cooked. Griddle Baking, sometimes called frying, is cooking on a hot griddle, with no fat, if of soapstone, and but little if of iron. The griddle is shallow and would not hold fat. For waffles and fancy wafers the griddle is double and revolves over the fire.