PREFACE
The Complete Library of COOKING consists of five volumes that cover the
various phases of the subject of cooking as it is carried on in the
home. These books are arranged so that related subjects are grouped
together. Examination questions pertaining to the subject matter appear
at the end of each section. These questions will prove helpful in a
mastery of the subjects to which they relate. At the back of each
volume is a complete index, which will assist materially in making
quick reference to the subjects contained in it.
This volume, which is the first of the set, deals with the essentials of
cooking, cereals, bread, and hot breads. In Essentials of Cooking,
Parts 1 and 2, are thoroughly treated the selection, buying, and care of
food, as well as other matters that will lead to familiarity with terms
used in COOKING and to efficiency in the preparation of food. In
Cereals are discussed the production, composition, selection, and care
and the cooking and serving of cereals of all kinds. In Bread and Hot
Breads are described all the ingredients required for bread, rolls, and
hot breads of every kind, the processes and recipes to be followed in
making and baking them, the procedure in serving them, and the way in
which to care for such foods.
Whenever advisable, utensils for the preparation of food, as well as
labor-saving devices, are described, so as to enable beginners in the
art of COOKING to become acquainted with them quickly. In addition, this
volume contains breakfast, luncheon, and dinner menus that will enable
the housewife to put into practical, every-day use many of the
recipes given.
It is our hope that these volumes will help the you to acquire the
knowledge needed to prepare daily meals that will contain the proper
sustenance for each member of your family, teach you how to buy your
food judiciously and prepare and serve it economically and
appetizingly, and also instill in you such a love for COOKING that you
will become enthusiastic about mastering and dignifying this art.
CONTENTS
ESSENTIALS OF COOKING 4
The Problem of Food 4
Selection of Food 6
Food Substances 7
Food Value 11
Digestion and Absorption 12
Preparation of Food 12
Methods of Cooking 13
Heat for Cooking 19
Utensils for Cooking 27
Preparing Foods for Cooking 33
Order of Work 38
Table for Cooking Foods 39
Care of Food 41
Menus and Recipes 47
Terms Used in COOKING 50
2 / 151
CEREALS 56
Production, Composition, and Selection 56
Cereals as a Food 60
Preparation of Cereals for the Table 63
Indian Corn, or Maize 65
Wheat 70
Rice 73
Oats 78
Barley 80
Rye, Buckwheat, and Millet 82
Prepared, or Ready-to-Eat, Cereals 82
Serving Cereals 83
Italian Pastes 83
Breakfast Menu 89
BREAD 91
Importance of Bread as Food 92
Ingredients for Bread Making 93
Utensils for Bread Making 101
Bread-Making Processes 101
Making the Dough 102
Care of the Rising Dough 104
Kneading the Dough 106
Shaping the Dough Into Loaves 107
Baking the Bread 107
Scoring Bread 109
Use of the Bread Mixer 111
Serving Bread 111
Bread Recipes 112
Recipes for Rolls, Buns, and Biscuits 118
Toast 122
Left-Over Bread 124
HOT BREADS 125
Hot Breads in the Diet 125
Principal Requirements for Hot Breads 125
Leavening Agents 126
Hot-Bread Utensils and Their Use 130
Preparing the Hot-Bread Mixture 133
Baking the Hot-Bread Mixture 134
Serving Hot Breads 136
Popover Recipes 136
Griddle-Cake Recipes 138
Waffle Recipes 140
Muffin Recipes 141
Corn-Cake Recipes 144
Biscuit Recipes 145
Miscellaneous Hot-Bread Recipes 147
Utilizing Left-Over Hot Breads 149
Luncheon Menu 149
3 / 151
with energy. What this proportion should be, however, cannot be stated
offhand, because the quantity and kind of food substances necessarily
vary with the size, age, and activity of each person.
FOOD VALUE
22. Nearly all foods are complex substances, and they differ from one
another in what is known as their value, which is measured by the work
the food does in the body either as a tissue builder or as a producer of
energy. However, in considering food value, the person who prepares food
must not lose sight of the fact that the individual appetite must be
appealed to by a sufficient variety of appetizing foods. There would be
neither economy nor advantage in serving food that does not please those
who are to eat it.
While all foods supply the body with energy, they differ very much in
the quantity they yield. If certain ones were chosen solely for that
purpose, it would be necessary for any ordinary person to consume a
larger quantity of them than could be eaten at any one time. For
instance, green vegetables furnish the body with a certain amount of
energy, but they cannot be eaten to the exclusion of other things,
because no person could eat in a day a sufficient amount of them to give
the body all the energy it would need for that day's work. On the other
hand, certain foods produce principally building material, and if they
were taken for the purpose of yielding only energy, they would be much
too expensive. Meats, for example, build up the body, but a person's
diet would cost too much if meat alone were depended on to provide the
body with all the energy it requires. Many foods, too, contain mineral
salts, which, as has been pointed out, are needed for building tissue
and keeping the body in a healthy condition.
23. To come to a correct appreciation of the value of different foods,
it is necessary to understand the unit employed to measure the amount of
work that foods do in the body. This unit is the CALORIE, and it is
used to measure foods just as the inch, the yard, the pound, the pint,
and the quart are the units used to measure materials and liquids;
however, instead of measuring the food itself, it determines its food
value, or fuel value. To illustrate what is meant, consider, for
instance, 1/2 ounce of sugar and 1/2 ounce of butter. As far as the
actual weight of these two foods is concerned, they are equal; but with
regard to the work they do in the body they differ considerably. Their
relative value in the body, however, can be determined if they are
measured by some unit that can be applied to both. It is definitely
known that both of them produce heat when they are oxidized, that is,
when they are combined with oxygen; thus, the logical way of measuring
them is to determine the quantity of heat that will be produced when
they are eaten and united with oxygen, a process that causes the
liberation of heat. The calorie is the unit by which this heat can be
measured, it being the quantity of heat required to raise the
temperature of 1 pint of water 4 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the name
of the thermometer commonly used in the home. When burned as fuel, a
square of butter weighing 1/2 ounce produces enough heat to raise 1 pint
of water 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and it will yield the same amount of
heat when it is eaten and goes through the slow process of oxidation in
the body. On the other hand, 1/2 ounce of sugar upon being oxidized will
produce only enough heat to raise the temperature of 1 pint of water
about 230 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, as will be seen, 1/2 ounce of butter
has a value of approximately 100 calories, whereas 1/2 ounce of sugar
contains only about 57-1/2 calories.
11 / 151
Other foods yield heat in varying degrees, and their food value is
determined in exactly the same way as that of butter and sugar. To give
an idea of the composition of various food materials, as well as the
number of calories that 1 pound of these food materials will yield, food
charts published by the United States Department of Agriculture are here
presented. As an understanding of these charts will prove extremely
profitable in the selection of food, a careful study of them at this
time is urged. In addition, reference to them should be made from time
to time as the various kinds of foods are taken up, as the charts will
then be more easily comprehended and their contents of more value.
DIGESTION AND ABSORPTION OF FOOD
24. The third requirement in the selection of food, namely, its
digestion and absorption, depends considerably on the persons who are to
be fed. Food that is chosen for adults entirely would not be the same as
that intended for both young persons and adults; neither would food that
is to be fed to children or persons who are ill be the same as that
which is to be served to robust adults who do a normal amount of work.
No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down here for this phase of
food selection, but as these lessons in COOKING are taken up in turn,
the necessary knowledge regarding digestibility will be acquired.
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