Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-12-18
WOMAN AND HOME.
THE PHIL oSoPHY OF FRYlNG-CHlNA
AND GLASSWARE.
Unnatural and Unreal-Power Of Stlonce
La Femme du Peuple-Hard-
Working European Women
Politics Diam onds-Itoms.

The object of cooking is to bring about
mere chemical changes in 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 comm onest, the most convenient, the
cheapest and quickest of these methods is
frying, which can be applied to almost all
articles of food, which requires the least APP
paratus and the smallest fire, yet of all
methods is the least understood, the ono
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 adj
mixture of fat prevents chemical processes
of cooking from having their proper devel-
opment
The perfection of frying woull be to
have food friel without coming into con-
tact with the faj at ALL But as this is, of
course, a self yident impo,sibilty, the
next best thing is to have the fool come in
contact with the fat as little as possible.
This is accomplished simply by having the
fat hot. Grease of every description is capa-
BILE of being heated to 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
so 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, a doughnut for ex-
ample, dippel into beiling 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 tby
any other process, without coming in con-
tact with the fat, and the natural chemical
proce 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.
If the fat is not boiling, bubbling hot, the
process that takes place is not cooking, but
simply drenching the food with a tepd fat
and rendering it totally iudigestble 1t
makes no difference how hot tho fat is after
ward, the mischief is done the moment the
fat penetrates inside All perfectly fried food
has thin, crisp, brown outside crust (which
has in itself re!ishirg taste), and is per-
fectly free from even the suspicion of fat
inside, except what was Intentionally put
there by the cook. All housekeepers know
they do not attend to it half as scrupulously
as they would if they understood the true
philosophy of it. Boiling, bubbing, hot fat
cannot penetrate anything, and cooks to
perfection; t9pid fat penetratei everywhere
and does not cook at all, but actually pre-
vents cooking.
Any hOusekeeper who reads this, and
hooses to profit by it, need never put any
greasy, fried, half-cooked, and indigestible
food upon her table. Tho hotel secret con.
sists in 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 the fat should entirely cover the
article to be frel The reason Of this is,
that the part not at once covered by the fat
remains cold, coo!s off the fat near it, and
then absoro' the tepid fat just the same as
if it had never been hot. Frying pans
should be deep, we'll fillel, and heated to the
boiling point, AMI then it is easy to turn out
fried food, crisp. brown, and dry on the
outside, and perfectly soft, moist and we'll
cooked within. 1t is popularity of the
outside crust of things fried in boiling fat
that the fat itself drips off from it as readily
as water; hence, well-fried articles are
neither greasy in appearance nor very
greasy in reality. Frying ought to be as
easy as boiling.