The Object Of Cooking Food

While man is so constituted that it is possible for him to live upon raw food for a considerable length of time, it is apparently designed by Nature that a large portion of his food should be cooked, for there are no savage races known who do not practise the art of cooking, in however elementary a fashion, and progress in the scale of development and civilisation is uniformly accompanied by advance in the art of cooking. Prehistoric man may have lived wholly on raw food, berries, fruits, shellfish, etc., but this diet is not suited for most tribes of man to-day, although the northern Eskimo still prefers to eat his meat raw and frozen.

It is owing to the practice of cookery that the dietary of civilised man has been so much enlarged, and that it covers a wider range of materials than that which serves for the nourishment of the lower animals. There are many articles of diet in common use, and many others which may be employed as food in an emergency, which are not only unpalatable but are wholly indigestible in the raw state, but which are rendered nutritious by cooking, and it is far less difficult to modify the mechanical preparation of foods than the secretions which digest them.

Generally speaking, foods, excepting fruits, having organised structure require cooking.

Of the different varieties of food, that which is derived from animals as a rule requires cooking more than vegetable food. It is well known that some vegetables and most fruits are eaten raw by preference without palling upon the appetite, but raw meat of almost any kind soon becomes wearisome, and if consumed exclusively may even excite disgust. Raw milk, eggs, and bivalves are an exception 262 to this statement. The process of cooking food accomplishes in general the following purposes:

I. Cooking develops certain flavours in the food, in meat particularly, which are agreeable to the palate, and thereby enables man to secure variety in taste, which is so important a stimulus to the appetite.

II. Most food is altered in consistence and made softer by cooking, although this is not always the case (eggs, for example, become harder when boiled). The food is therefore easier masticated and mixed with the various digestive fluids. It may be observed that the mere question of solidity of food does not necessarily imply greater toughness - in fact, the albuminous ingredients of meat are coagulated and made actually more solid by cooking, but at the same time they become much less tough or are more friable, in which condition they are more easily ground, torn, and separated by the teeth.

III. The chemical changes produced in food by cooking seem in some instances to favour the action of the digestive juices upon the food. This is particularly true of some of the forms of starch and of many meats.

Comparatively little attention has been paid to the chemical alterations produced in food by the various processes of cooking. Analyses of food are usually conducted upon the raw materials, and the important alterations which are occasioned by heat in various degrees are still imperfectly understood by most persons.

IV. By cooking, many varieties of parasites and germs which may be contained in the food are destroyed, and bad food which might otherwise be highly poisonous or injurious is made perfectly harmless.

V. The temperature of food which is sometimes eaten hot may in some cases favour the digestive processes, although the importance of this consideration may be exaggerated.

VI. The appearance of the food may be improved, and it becomes more appetising on this account.