when used for cooking certain foods. This fact should lead to great care on the part of the housewife, both in purchasing and in using utensils for cooking purposes.
Iron utensils, although they are, when new, apt to discolor and impart a disagreeable flavor to food cooked in them, are not objectionable from a health standpoint, if kept clean and free from rust. Iron rust is the result of the combination of the iron with oxygen, for which it has so great an affinity that it will decompose water to get oxygen to unite with; hence it is that iron utensils rust so quickly when not carefully dried after using, or if left where they can collect moisture. This is the reason why a coating of tallow, which serves to exclude the air and moisture, will preserve ironware not in daily use from rusting.
"Porcelain ware" is iron lined with a hard, smooth enamel, and makes safe and very desirable cooking utensils. German porcelain ware is unexcelled for culinary purposes.
"Granite ware" is a material quite recently come into use, the composition of which is a secret, although pronounced by eminent chemists to be free from all injurious qualities. Utensils made from it are light in weight, easily kept clean, and for most cooking purposes, are far superior to those made from any other material.
What is termed "galvanized iron" is unsuitable for cooking utensils, it being simply sheet iron coated with zinc, an exceedingly unsafe metal to be used for cooking purposes.
Tin, which is simply thin sheet iron coated with tin by dipping several times into vats of the melted metal, is largely employed in the manufacture of cooking utensils. Tinware is acted upon by acids, and when used for holding or cooking any acid foods, like sour milk, sour fruits, tomatoes, etc., harmful substances are liable to be formed, varying in quantity and harmfulness with the nature of the acid contained in the food.
In these days of fraud and adulteration, nearly all the cheaper grades of tinware contain a greater or less amount of lead in their composition, which owing to its greater abundance and less price, is used as an adulterant of tin. Lead is also used in the solder with which the parts of tinware are united. The action of acids upon lead form very poisonous compounds, and all lead-adulterated utensils should be wholly discarded for cooking purposes.
Test for Lead-Adulterated Tin.—Place upon the metal a small drop of nitric acid, spreading it to the size of a dime, dry with gentle heat, apply a drop of water, then add a small crystal of iodide of potash. If lead is present, a yellowish color will be seen very soon after the addition of the iodide. Lead glazing, which is frequently employed on crockery and ironware in the manufacture of cooking utensils, may also be detected in the same manner.
Cooking utensils made of copper are not to be recommended from the point of healthfulness, although many cooks esteem them because copper is a better conductor of heat than iron or tin. The acids of many fruits combine with copper to form extremely poisonous substances. Fatty substances, as well as salt and sugar, act upon copper to a greater or less degree, also vegetables containing sulfur in their composition and produce harmful compounds.
Utensils made of brass, which is a compound of copper and zinc, are not safe to use for cooking purposes.
TABLE TOPICS.
Bad cooking diminishes happiness and shortens life.—Wisdom of Ages.
Says Mrs. Partington: "Many a fair home has been desiccated by poor cooking, and a man's table has been the rock on which his happiness has split."
SIGNIFICANT FACT.—Lady—"Have you had much experience as a cook?" Applicant—"Oh, indeed I have. I was the cook of Mr. and Mrs. Peterby for three years."
L.—"Why did you leave them?"
A.—"I didn't leave them. They left me. They both died."
L.—"What of?"
A.—"Dyspepsia."
Cooking is generally bad because people falling to routine; habit dulls their appreciation, and they do not think about what they are eating.—Didsbury.
Lilly (Secretary of the cooking class)—"Now girls, we've learned nine cakes, two kinds of angel food, and seven pies. What next?"
Susie (engaged)—"Dick's father says I must learn to bake bread."
Indignant chorus—"Bread? How absurd! What are bakers for?"
It is told of Philip Hecgnet, a French, physician who lived in the 17th, century, that when calling upon his wealthy patients, he used often to go to the kitchen and pantry, embrace the cooks and butlers, and exhort them to do their duty well. "I owe you so much gratitude, my dear friends," he would say; "you are so useful to us doctors; for if you did not keep on poisoning the people, we should all have to go to the poorhouse."
There are innumerable books of recipes for cooking, but unless the cook is master of the principles of his art, and unless he knows the why and the wherefore of its processes, he cannot choose a recipe intelligently and execute it successfully.—Richard Estcourt.
They who provide the food for the world, decide the health of the world. You have only to go on some errands amid the taverns and hotels of the United States and Great Britain, to appreciate the fact that a vast multitude of the human race are slaughtered by incompetent cookery. Though a young woman may have taken lessons in music, and may have taken lessons in painting, and lessons in astronomy, she is not well educated unless she has taken lessons in dough!—Talmage.
HOUSEHOLD WORKSHOP
Every kitchen should have windows on two sides of the room, and the sun should have free entrance through them; the windows should open from the top to allow a complete change of air, for light and fresh air are among the chief essentials to success in all departments of the household. Good drainage should also be provided, and the ventilation of the kitchen ought to be even more carefully attended to than that of a sleeping room. The ventilation of the kitchen should be so ample as to thoroughly remove all gases and odors, which, together with steam from boiling and other cooking processes, generally invade and render to some degree unhealthful every other portion of the house. It is the steam from the kitchen which gives a fusty odor to the parlor air and provides a wet-sheet pack for the occupant of the "spare bed." The only way of wholly eradicating this evil, is the adoption of the suggestion of the sanitary philosopher who places the kitchen at the top of the house.
To lessen to discomforts from heat, a ventilator may be placed above the range, that shall carry out of the room all superfluous heat, and aid in removing the steam and odors from cooking food. The simplest