CARELESS COOKING.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1819, 19 December 1879, Page 4

CARELESS COOKING.

It is one of the most common mistakes of the cook to give too little time to the cooking of meat and vegetables. She is careless about getting them over the fire in season, and to mate up for the delay, she attempts to “rush things” by using a very hot fire, spoiling the food by too furious boiling or baking. Hard boiling toughens the fibre of meat, and spoils the texture of vegetables, but a long steady boiling heat gradually softens or makes tender the toiughcst fibres. Many persons suppose that certain articles of food do not agree with them, when the whole difficulty arises from the imperfect manner in which they are prepared. Some vegetables are thought to bo especially provocative of flatulence, but a more thorough cooking usually remedies that evil. Flatulence has other causes, as overeating, or too great a proportion of sugar in the diet, but those articles of food which are usually associated with the evil may be robbed of these terrors by a more prolonged cooking. Cook dry beans several hours, a gentle but steady simmering—five hours are not too many, even after an all night soaking. Dry peas need the same treatment. Vegetables need more and more time os they grow older. By spring, onions should be boiled an hour or more. Parsnips need more than the twei ty minutes boiling usually prescribed for them.