The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-12-31
WOMAN AND HOME.
TIE PHILOSOPHY OF FRYING-cHiNA
AND GLASSWARE.
Unnatural and UnreaI-Power of silence
La Femme du Penpie-Hard
worain. European Women
Politics Diamonds Items.
u. B. Hoigkins in the Housekeeper.l


The object of cooking is to bring about
mere chemical changes ia articles Of food
when exposed to the influence of heat.
BAKING, frying boiling, or roasting are all
only so many methods of applying heat
The commonest, the most convenient, the
cheapest and quickest of these methods is
frying. which can bs applied to almost all
articles OF food, which requires the least ap-
paratuS and the smallest fire, yet of all
methods is the least understood, the one
which destroys most food and is the cause
Of more Indigestion and dyspepsia than all
the other methods combined. The reason
Of this is, that in many substances the ad-
~ xturo of fat prevents chemical processes
Of cooking from having their prOpsr devel-
r2nent.
The perfection of frying would be to
ave food friel without coming into con-
act with the fat at all. But as this is, of
course, a self-evident impossibility, the
next bsst thing is to have the food come in
contact with the fat as little as possible.
Thi. is accomplished simply by having the
fat hot Grease of every description is capa-
BILE Of being heated to a very much higher
temperature than water; in fact it can be
made almost three times as hot as boiling
water When fat is at its boiling point it is
50 hot that any article OF food brought in
contact with it is actually burnt, and this is
precisely the reason why, for purposes Of
frying, fat should always be boiling hot.
For any article of food, doughnut for ex-
ample, dipped into boiling fat, is imme-
diately covered all over by thin crust Of
burnt dough which prevents the fat from
penetrating further in, and enables the rest
Of the doughnut to be exposed to greater
degree OF heat than can be applied to it Thy
any other process, without coming in con
tact with the fat, and the natural chemical
processes go on inside with greater degree
OF perfection than can be obtained by any
other method.
Perfect frying is the perfection of cooking,
but so soon as the fat is not sufficiently hot
to create the burnt crustS around the arti-
Gle fried, the fat penetrates it and absolutely
prevents cooking from taking place at ALL,
Ii the fat is not boiling, bubbling hot, the
process that takes place is not cooking, but
simply drenching the food with q tepid fat
and rendering it totally indigestible. tt
makes no difference how hot the fat is AFTER
ward, the mischief is done the moment tho
fat penetrates inside All perfectly fried food
has thin, crisp, brown outside crust (which
has in itself polishing taste), and is per-,
fectly free from even the suspicion of fat}
inside, except what was Intentionally putt
there by the cook. All housekeepers know
that to fry well their fat should be hot But
tuey QO HOb dCUSuI TO IL ntliE as SCfuDulOuSIy
they would if they understood the true
: philosophy of it. Boiling, bubbling, hot fat
cannot penetrate anything, and cooks to
perfection; tepid fat penetrates everywhere
and does not cook at all, but actually pre-
vents cooking.
Any housekesper who reads this, and
chooses to profit by it, need never put any,
greasy, fried, half-cooled, and indigestibe}
food upon her table The hotel secret con
sists i'll having the fat boiling hot before(
the things are put in. There is one other(
condition which follows naturally from this
first one, but which is almost invariably
lost sight OF even by good cooks, and that
is that tue fat should entirely cover the
article to be fre1. The reason OF this is, {
that the part not at once covered by the fat
remains cold, cools off the fat near it, and
then ab5orbs the tepid fat just the same as
ii it had never been hot. Frying pans
should be deep, we'll filed, and heated to thet
boiling point, and then it is easy to turn out
fried food, crisp, brown, and dry on the
outside, and perfectly soft, moist and well
cooked within. 1t is IA popularity of thet
outside crust of things fried in boiling fat,
that the fat itself drips off from il as readily
as water; hence, well-fried articles arei
neither greasy in appearance nor very
greasy in reality. Frying ought to be as
easy boiling