The Iola register., 1883-09-28
The Canning Of Meats.

1t is, no doubt, fact that the can.
ming of meats, which has been carried
on so extensively during some years
past, has furnished market for large
portion of the inferior stock that has
been raised. This business has Indirect
ly, then, encouraged the production OF
lower class of stock that is used for can
ming purposes, this being bought at low
figures. The process of cooking and
mincing, salt and other seasoning being
added, combine to obliterate traces OF
the low quality, though upon the taste OF
those who have learned what flavor goes
with the higher classes of meat, no sue
cessful deception can be practiced by
any process of seasoning whatever.
The insipid taste, always found in the
canned meats, is an exposure of it to
those who are accustomed to eating
meats of the higher grades.
1t is the common belief that anything
is good enough for making soup. Nc
mistake could be greater than this; no
soup is first-class except it be made
from the carcass of a beast whose lean
flesh is full of rich meat juices. The
inferior portions of high-bred, we'll
fattened beast will make better soup OF
better stew than the choicest cut from
the skinny carcasses generally bought
for canning, for even the neck of the
superior beast affords cuts having the
peculiar flavor and odor of high-class
meat. No part of it can escape this,
while no portion of the low grade car
possess it. Yet the canning process
makes q market, as stated, for inferior
cattle, and in so far as it does this it, OF
course, encourages their production,
and probably, in a degree, helps to keep
up the juice of inferior stock; directly an
apparent benefit, but indirectly bar to
improvement. The eye is guide when
looking at a work of art, but the senses
of smell and taste are alone able to
make apparent the difference that exists
between high-class and low-class meat
Chemists who prepare extract of beef
now kept by druggists for making beef
tea, and for preparation in other forms
for use by the sick, are presumed to un-
derstand how wide range there is in
the qualities of the raw material they
use. They are certainly far behind if
they do not understand this. The ad-
vantage of using the highest quality of
beef for making beef extract would be
doubly apparent; first in the quantity of
the extract secured from a given
amount, and second in its flavor, odor
and nutritiousness. Yet, when we read
that one pound only of pure extract is
obtained from thirty-four pounds of lean
muscle, we are forced to think that this
can not be fair test. In other words,
that if the flesh were well charged with
osmazome and rich meat juices, as it is
in high-bred, well-fatted animals only,
the product would be larger. There are
then three tests which, taken together,
settle the question of quality in beef.
These tests are, the odor, the amount
of pure extract obtainable, and the pal.
ate of the epicure. 1t is not extraya-
giant to say that there is naturally as
wide difference discoverable in the quail.
ity of canned meats as in the fruits and
vegetables put up by the same process.
A peach of the highest quality, and ripe.
will come out of the can showing the
same quality possessed when it went in.
The same is true of sweet corn. Like
the peach or the plum, if beef of in
ferior grade and unripe, be put into the
can, it will come out as it went in, ths
skinny, insipid stuff that no cultivated
taste will tolerate Lire Stock Journal