put into cold water, and that the pot should be heated gradually; but
Liebig, the highest authority on all matters connected with the
chemistry of food, has shown that meat so treated loses some of its most
nutritious constituents. "If the flesh," says the great chemist, "be
introduced into the boiler when the water is in a state of brisk
ebullition, and if the boiling be kept up for a few minutes, and the pot
then placed in a warm place, so that the temperature of the water is
kept at 158° to 165°, we have the united conditions for giving to the
flesh the qualities which best fit it for being eaten." When a piece of
meat is plunged into boiling water, the albumen which is near the
surface immediately coagulates, forming an envelope, which prevents the
escape of the internal juice, and most effectually excludes the water,
which, by mixing with this juice, would render the meat insipid. Meat
treated thus is juicy and well-flavoured, when cooked, as it retains
most of its savoury constituents. On the other hand, if the piece of
meat be set on the fire with cold water, and this slowly heated to
boiling, the flesh undergoes a loss of soluble and nutritious
substances, while, as a matter of course, the soup becomes richer in
these matters. The albumen is gradually dissolved from the surface to
the centre; the fibre loses, more or less, its quality of shortness or
tenderness, and becomes hard and tough: the thinner the piece of meat
is, the greater is its loss of savoury constituents. In order to obtain
well-flavoured and eatable meat, we must relinquish the idea of making
good soup from it, as that mode of boiling which yields the best soup
gives the driest, toughest, and most vapid meat. Slow boiling whitens
the meat; and, we suspect, that it is on this account that it is in such
favour with the cooks. The wholesomeness of food is, however, a matter
of much greater moment than the appearance it presents on the table. It
should be borne in mind, that the whiteness of meat that has been boiled
slowly, is produced by the loss of some important alimentary properties.