For persons of strong digestion, there is no particular objection to warming or even frying, previously cooked meats. Stuffed fowl, cut up and warmed with the dressing and gravy is more appetizing than when first served.

Steaming, by which method moist heat is applied to cereals, puddings, etc., is practiced mostly on a large scale for the preparation of ready-to-eat cereals and is an excellent method, providing that the mass does not become doughy. The hay oven, the hot covered pit, etc., make use of radiant heat at a comparatively low temperature, applied for a considerable time. By these methods, the albumin may or may not be coagulated and sterilization is complete or incomplete, according to the temperature used, but the effect of the cooking is more uniform than by other methods, and while the flavor of individual viands is not so well preserved, c, the foods are generally tender. The nature of the food stuffs, the liability to tainting, especially if transported long distances, and the difficulty of regulating the temperature and determining the proper duration of cooking, as well as the temptation to excessive indulgence, has thrown considerable odium on the pit method, as at clam bakes, etc.

Bread Stuffs. Nearly all temperate and tropica! climates possess cereals that have been so long cultivated that they are unknown as wild plants. The only indigenous American cereals are a sort of wild rice and corn (maize). The earliest approach to bread-making was the parching by fire of cereals cracked, or more or less reduced to a state of meal in a mortar. The next step was the stirring up of the meal with water - doubtless, at times, with the mixture of salt, eggs, or honey or other syrup - to make a coherent mass which was cooked on a hot stone or some similar plate.

Bread, in the proper sense of the term, was developed among users of wheat, as no other cereal contains so much gluten and, indeed, only a few, as barley, rye and rice, are of a consistency to permit successful "raising." It was probably first discovered by accident that a neglected mass of wheat meal and water became distended by spontaneous fermentation, and that, if baked when in this condition, the resulting loaf was lighter, that the gluten did not cake in the mouth, and that the flavor was improved. Hence arose the general custom of using leaven, that is to say, a mass of sour dough, containing various bacteria and, especially, yeast cells, whose growth in the mass produced various organic acids, alcohol and, ultimately, carbon dioxid which distended the gluten into bubbles. Cooking checks this process by killing the saprophytes, still further lightens the bread by expanding the carbon dioxid, and changes the consistency both of the gluten walls and of the starch.

The importance of bread in the development of the race is well illustrated by the fact that the Hebrews called the Egyptians the Wheat People, and that Moses recognized the danger of an indefinite continuance of a given leaven (that is, of a culture of a given mixture of saprophytes) by directing an annual recourse to unleavened bread (crackers) and then the starting of a fresh leaven. The proper raising of bread by leaven is difficult and is attended by a freer development of lactic and other acids and of products of bacterial fermentation, than when a pure culture of yeast is employed. In this country, bread raised by leaven is called salt-rising (probably because of a false notion that salt added to flavor the bread was the cause of the rising) or milk emptyings (perhaps because the emptyings or remnants of sour milk were used to start the leaven). It can still occasionally be found in the country and in some cities there has recently developed a moderate market for such bread, because of its delicious flavor. Although the mixed culture of saprophytes, if not killed by heat, is more harmful than a relatively pure culture of yeast, provided this bread is well cooked and, especially if toasted, it may be used to tempt the appetitie of invalids, if they like it.

The success of baking is, however, much more uniform if pure yeast is employed. For persons living at a distance from the source of supply, dry yeast is more convenient. Brewer's (liquid) yeast is more likely to cause the bread to run over - that is to say, there is greater development of carbon dioxid in one part of the loaf than another and, while the irregular, overrun mass has a better flavor, the rest of the loaf is not so thoroughly carbonated. On the whole, the best results are obtained from compressed but soft yeast.

Potatoes, sugar, salt, rice flour - which prevents evaporation by its greater tenacity and hence allows bakers to sell water for bread - fat and various other ingredients are added to bread to assist in distributing the yeast, to facilitate working, or to add to its flavor, but flour, water and yeast are the only essential ingredients.

Owing to its gluten, wheat flour is usually employed, where available, for mixing with rye and other flours, in the making of bread.

Various baking powders are employed to produce gaseous distension of dough analogous to that produced by yeast. There is a general prejudice against those containing ammonium salts and alum, although the latter, according to Witthaus, leaves alumina, which is harmless. On the whole, those consisting of potassium bitartrate and sodium bicarbonate are preferred, although the routine use of any baking powder which introduces alkaline bases is to be deprecated. The occasional use of baking powder biscuits is allowable. Raised biscuits are the same as bread, but usually the fermentative process is allowed to continue further and the loaves are small.

Aerated bread was much in vogue thirty years ago. It was made by special machinery which obviated manual working of the dough, and carbon dioxid or other gas was forced into the mass. Such bread is theoretically superior, as chances of introduction of harmful bacteria are largely eliminated, and. localise neither living organisms nor chemicals, other than the gas, are incorporated with the dough. It has a peculiar flavor, not unpleasant to many persons, though it becomes tiresome and, doubtless on this account, its use has lapsed in most places.

Nearly all breads are best eaten after they have stood a day or two, as the gluten becomes thoroughly changed so that mastication does not cause a reversion to the state of dough.

Gluten breads contain relatively less starch than ordinarily found in flour, but it cannot be diminished so as to make any appreciable difference in the feeding of diabetics and, as such breads are more difficult of preparation and more expensive, they are not to be advised, except as an occasional change for the sake of variety.

There is a very general prejudice in favor of whole wheat flour and against the new roller-process flour, as opposed to ground flour. This prejudice is not well founded, as the substances excluded are indigestible and, while of some value as laxatives, their place is easily taken by other vegetable food containing cellulose. However, provided the bran and chaff are not contraindicated, such flours may be used for the sake of variety.