Thus far in our lessons we have learned about only two ways of cooking the various grains which form so large and so important a part of our diet, namely, that of steaming the whole or broken grains, making a form of mush ; and that of boiling them in a large quantity of liquid, making gruels.

Wheat, rye, corn, buckwheat, and some other grains lit are ground coarse, and called meal, or fine, and called flour; and in these coarse or fine forms they are used in a great variety of ways, but always with water or some other liquid, for the same reason that we learned about in making mush.

These mixtures of moistened meal or flour are called doughs if the mass is only slightly moistened, and hatters if enough liquid is used to make a mixture that will pour, or that can be beaten. Dough is from a word meaning " to wet or moisten;" and hatter is from a word meaning " to beat."

Other ingredients are added to change and improve the texture and flavor, and then these mixtures are cooked in a great variety of ways, - boiling, steaming, baking, and frying. They may all be classed under the general names of breads, cakes, pastry, and puddings, and in one form or another are probably used in every family at every meal.

When properly combined and prepared they afford cheap, wholesome, and palatable forms of food. But their proper combinations involve so much knowledge of the principles of chemistry as applied to cookery, that we have purposely left the study of them till you shall have become familiar with some of the simpler forms of cooking.

Flour or meal, if merely wet, and then heated or cooked, will be dry, tough, and compact, and when eaten it will be difficult for the digestive fluids to penetrate the mass. To be digestible, doughs and batters must be light and porous. There are various ways of making them so. For the present we shall consider only one of these ways, as illustrated in our receipt for suet pudding, and that is by the use of baking-powder.

Baking-powder is a mixture of an acid salt (cream of tartar) and a carbonate of an alkali (soda),-substances which do not act upon each other when dry. We will put a teaspoonful of baking-powder in two tablespoonfuls of water and see what happens. A chemical action takes place, by which carbonic acid gas is liberated. This gas, as it tries to escape, fills the liquid, and causes effervescence. Soon the gas disappears and the liquid is still, and is neither acid nor alkaline, because the soda and cream of tartar have neutralized each other. But if there had been too much soda in the baking-powder the liquid would have had an alkaline taste, and if too much acid, an acid taste.

On account of the difficulty of measuring in the kitchen these two substances in the correct proportion, some manufacturers have mixed them by weight for us and called them baking-powders. And until you have learned more about cooking, it will be safest to use soda and cream of tartar in the form of baking-powder.

Now in making our pudding, if we put baking-powder in the flour, and mix it thoroughly, so that every particle of flour will have its share of the powder, when the flour is wet and made into dough carbonic acid gas will be liberated and try to escape, as it did from the water; but on account of the sticky and elastic nature of the gluten in the wheat flour, the gas cannot escape so readily, but will stretch and expand the dough and make it full of bubbles or air cells. Then, if the dough be cooked quickly, before the gas escapes, the starch grains will be ruptured by the combined effect of heat and moisture, the glutinous walls of the air cells will be hardened, and we shall have a light, porous loaf of pudding. Loaf is from the word hlifian, " to raise, to lift up."

This receipt also shows us how dough may be made more tender by the use of fat or shortening. Suet is one form of beef fat. It is used in doughs or flour mixtures to make them tender. It is a wholesome and economical form of fat, and particularly suitable for winter diet. By adding different flavoring ingredients, such as ginger, molasses, nutmeg, or fruit, we may make a variety of puddings with one formula.

Suggestion to the Teacher.

Broiling is an important lesson, and follows the lesson on Invalid Cookery, as it is the most wholesome way of cooking meat for invalids.

It will be impossible to give the pupils a lesson in roasting meat, either before the fire or in a hot oven ; but by a thorough explanation of the action of heat in broiling the principles of roasting may be made clear. See " Boston Cook Book," pages 13, 14, 20, 21, 220-223, 233, 239, 24G, 256, 257, 261, 263.

As the proper making of flour or dough mixtures is one of the most difficult forms of cooking, do not attempt to crowd much of it into one lesson. The action of baking-powder in the suet pudding, briefly explained, is enough foi the first lesson.