Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-03
THE WELSH RABBIT
It's Not Always as Digestible as It
Should Be, but That Is
THE FAULT OF THE COOKING.
Cheese Properly Treated Makes the Cheap
est Food There IA
ADDING BI-CARRONATE OF POTASH
WRITTEN FOR TIE p1spArcH.1

have dealt with the problem of nutrition OF
scientific basis, that the protein or nitro
genous material is perhaps the most in
portant and the most costly element in the
dietary of a workingman. In this country
where meat is abundant the main source fol
the supply of protein is found In the con-
sumption of meat.
In Europe, especially in the southern and
eastern parts, where meat is scare and dear,
the chief source of protein is found in cheese.
In Great Britain bread and cheese, with a
mug of beer, largely constitute the dietary
of the vast body of the people.
1t will be observed that in dealing with
food that can be bought in given quantities
at the present time in our markets for %
cents, one gets certain proportion of pro-
tein. According to Prof. Atwater's tables,
if one pays 25 cents for a pound of sirloin
of beef, the protein in that beef costs at the
rate of LOG cents per pound. Whereas, If
one pays % cents for skinned milk cheese
at the rate of cents per pound for three
pounds and an eighth, he secures one pound
| Of protein at cost of 13 cents. Each man
in active work requires substantially one
quarter of pound of protein day, which
can be supplied at cents, disregarding
small fractions, BY three-quarteters OF
l
cents pound, which for skinned milk
cheese is a high price.
The Secret Is in the Cooking.
It therefore follows that if one likes
cheese ank knows how to cook SKINNED
milk cheese so as to make it digestible, this
necessary food material protein can be Sc
cured at q very low cost. L give here some
extracts from DR.. Mattieu Williams
Chemistry of Cookery" and I myself
have made some very delicious compounds
by mixing cheese with other ingredients:
81 regard cheese as the most important of
all that I have to describe in connection
with nv subject-the science of cookery. It
contains more nutritious material than any
other food that is ordinarily obtainable, and
its cookery is singularly neglected, is prac-
tically an unknown art, especially In this
country. We commonly eat it raw, al
though in its raw state it is peculiarly in
digestible; and in the only cooked form
familiarly known among us here-that of a
Welsh rabbit or rarebit-it is too often rem
dered still more indigestible, though this
need not be the case.
''Can we assimilate or convert into our
own substance the cheese food as easily as
we may the flesh food I replied that we
certainly cannot if the cheese is eaten raw,
but have no doubt that we may if it be suit
ably cooked. A Swiss or Scandinavian
mountaineer can and does assimilate raw
cheese as q staple article of food and proves
its nutritive value by the result but feebler
bipeds of the plains and towns cannot do
the like.
Splendid for Mountain Climbing.
sIn the fatherland of my grandfather,
Louis Gabriel Mattieu, one Of the common
est dishes of the peasant who tills his own
freehold and grows his own food, is fondu.
This is mixture of cheese and eggs, the
cheese grated and beaten into the egg as in
making omeiettes, with small addition of
new milk or butter. 1t is placed in little
pan like flower pot saucer, cooked gently,
served as it comes off the fire, and eaten
from the vessel in which it is cooked. I
have made many a hearty dinner on one of
these, plus a lump of black bread and a
small bottle of genuine, but thin, wine; the
cost of the whole banquet at little auberge
being usually less than si1pence. The
cheese is in pasty condition and partly
dissolved in the milk and butter have
tested the sustaining power of such a meal
and long fasting after it. 1t is rather too
good, over nutritious, for man doing
only sedentary work.
ga dilute and delicate modification of
this may be made by taking slices of bread,
or bread and butter, soaking them in bat
ter made of eggs and milk-without flour
then placing the slices of soaked bread i'll a
pie dish, covering each with thick coating
of grated cheese, and thus building up
strati6ed deposit to fill the dish. The sur
plus batter may be poured over the top; or,
if time is allowed for saturation, the trouble
of preliminary soaking may be saved by
simply pouring all the batter thus. This,
when gently baked, supplies delicious and
highly nutritious dish.
Bi-Carbonate OF Potash With 1t.
s'Take quarter of pound of grated
cheese; add to it gill of milk in which is
dissolved as much powdered bi-carbonate of
potash as will stand upon 3-penny piece,
and little mustard and pepper. Heat this
carefully until the cheese is completely dis
solved. Then beat up three eggs, yolks and
whites together, and add to them this solu-
tion of cheese, stirring the whole. Now |
tray that will bear heating; put little |
butter on this and heat the butter until it |
frizzles; then pour the mixture into the tray,
and bake or fry it until it is nearly solidifed.
A cheaper dish may be made by increasing |
the proportion of cheese-say, six to eight |
ounces to three eggs, or only one egg to a |
quarter of pound of cheese tor hard |
working man with powerful digestion.
'The bicarbonate of potash is an original
novelty that will possibly alarm some Of my
non-chem1cal readers. I advocate its use
for two reasons: First, it effects better
solution of the caseine by neutralizing the
free Tactic acid that inevitably exists in
milk supplied in towns, and any free acid
that may remain in the cheese. My second
reason is physiological and of greater
weight. Salts of potash are necessary con-
stituents of human food. They exist in all
kinds of wholesome vegetables and fruits
and in the juices of fresh meat, but they are
wanting in cheese, having, on account of
their great solubility, been left behind in
the whey"
There is an enormous waste of SKINNED
milk in this country for lack of knowledge of
how to deal with it and how to cook it.
Skinned milk cheese is hardly marketable,
and it ought not to be, because in its raw
state it is very unwholesome. believe the
milk is mostly fed to hogs at the
butter factories or BY the farmers There is
3 great fortune waiting for the man who
will invent the right method of making a
of skinned milk cheese with the
exact proportion of bi-carbonate of potash
required for its solution, if that is a possible
hing, and then introducing it as cooking
cheese with the necessary instructions tor
lealing with it EDWARD ATKINSON.
A Monkey Learning a New Tongue.
Having but little interest in a white-face
monkey, who is very shy of me, 1 rarely
showed him the slightest attention until
within the past few weeks, when 1 observed
1im trying to utter the capuchin sound for
food.. which always secured for Puck,
,apuchin monkey, banana or some nuts,
H.