Science in the Kitchen Part 21

PEAS PUREE.--Soak a quart of Scotch peas in cold water over night.

In the morning, drain and put them to cook in boiling water. Cook slowly until perfectly tender, allowing them to simmer very gently toward the last until they become as dry as possible. Put through a colander to render them h.o.m.ogeneous and remove the skins. Many of the skins will be loosened and rise to the top during the cooking, and it is well to remove these with a spoon so as to make the process of rubbing through the colander less laborious. Season with salt if desired, and a cup of thin cream. Serve hot.

MASHED PEAS.--Soak and cook a quart of peas as for Peas _Puree_ When well done, if the Scotch peas, rub through a colander to remove the skins. If the split peas are used, mash perfectly smooth with a potato masher. Season with a teaspoonful of salt and a half cup of sweet cream, if desired. Beat well together, turn into an earthen or granite-ware pudding dish, smooth the top, and bake in a moderate oven until dry and mealy throughout, and nicely browned on top. Serve hot like mashed potato, or with a tomato sauce prepared as follows: Heat a pint of strained, stewed tomato, season lightly with salt, and when boiling, thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold water.

PEAS CAKES.--Cut cold mashed peas in slices half an inch in thickness, brush lightly with cream, place on perforated tins, and brown in the oven. If the peas crumble too much to slice, form them into small cakes with a spoon or knife, and brown as directed. Serve hot with or without a tomato sauce. A celery sauce prepared as directed in the chapter on Sauces, is also excellent.

DRIED GREEN PEAS.--Gather peas while young and tender and carefully dry them. When needed for use, rinse well, and put to cook in cold water. Let them simmer until tender. Season with cream the same as fresh green peas.

BEANS.

DESCRIPTION.--Some variety of the bean family has been cultivated and used for culinary purposes from time immemorial. It is frequently mentioned in Scripture; King David considered it worthy of a place in his dietary, and the prophet Ezekiel was instructed to mix it with the various grains and seeds of which he made his bread.

Among some ancient nations the bean was regarded as a type of death, and the priests of Jupiter were forbidden to eat it, touch it, or even p.r.o.nounce its name. The believer in the doctrine of transmigration of souls carefully avoided this article of food, in the fear of submitting beloved friends to the ordeal of mastication.

At the present day there is scarcely a country in hot or temperate climates where the bean is not cultivated and universally appreciated, both as a green vegetable and when mature and dried.

The time required to digest boiled beans is two and one half hours, and upwards.

In their immature state, beans are prepared and cooked like other green vegetables. Dry beans may be either boiled, stewed, or baked, but whatever the method employed, it must be very slow and prolonged. Beans to be baked should first be parboiled until tender. We mention this as a precautionary measure lest some amateur cook, misled by the term "bake,"

should repeat the experiment of the little English maid whom we employed as cook while living in London, a few years ago. In ordering our dinner, we had quite overlooked the fact that baked beans are almost wholly an American dish, and failed to give any suggestions as to the best manner of preparing it. Left to her own resources, the poor girl did the best she knew how, but her face was full of perplexity as she placed the beans upon the table at dinner, with, "Well, ma'am, here are the beans, but I don't see how you are going to eat them." Nor did we, for she had actually baked the dry beans, and they lay there in the dish, as brown as roasted coffee berries, and as hard as bullets.

Beans to be boiled or stewed do not need parboiling, although many cooks prefer to parboil them, to lessen the strong flavor which to some persons is quite objectionable.

From one to eight hours are required to cook beans, varying with the age and variety of the seed, whether it has been soaked, and the rapidity of the cooking process.

_RECIPES._

BAKED BEANS.--Pick over a quart of best white beans and soak in cold water over night. Put them to cook in fresh water, and simmer gently till they are tender, but not broken. Let them be quite juicy when taken from the kettle. Season with salt and a teaspoonful of mola.s.ses. Put them in a deep crock in a slow oven. Let them bake two or three hours, or until they a.s.sume a reddish brown tinge, adding boiling water occasionally to prevent their becoming dry. Turn, into a shallow dish, and brown nicely before sending to the table.

BOILED BEANS.--Pick over some fresh, dry beans carefully, and wash thoroughly. Put into boiling water and cook gently and slowly until tender, but not broken. They should be moderately juicy when done. Serve with lemon juice, or season with salt and a little cream as preferred.

The colored varieties, which are usually quite strong in flavor, are made less so by parboiling for fifteen or twenty minutes and then pouring the water off, adding more of boiling temperature, and cooking slowly until tender.

BEANS BOILED IN A BAG.--Soak a pint of white beans over night. When ready to cook, put them into a clean bag, tie up tightly, as the beans have already swelled, and if given s.p.a.ce to move about with the boiling of the water will become broken and mushy. Boil three or four hours.

Serve hot.

SCALLOPED BEANS.--Soak a pint of white beans over night in cold water. When ready to cook, put into an earthen baking dish, cover well with new milk, and bake in a slow oven for eight or nine hours; refilling the dish with milk as it boils away, and taking care that the beans do not at any time get dry enough to brown over the top till they are tender. When nearly done, add salt to taste, and a half cup of cream. They may be allowed to bake till the milk is quite absorbed, and the beans dry, or may be served when rich with juice, according to taste. The beans may be parboiled in water for a half hour before beginning to bake, and the length of time thereby lessened. They should be well drained before adding the milk, however.

STEWED BEANS.--Soak a quart of white beans in water over night. In the morning drain, turn hot water over them an inch deep or more, cover, and place on the range where they will only just simmer, adding boiling water if needed. When nearly tender, add salt to taste, a tablespoonful of sugar if desired, and half a cup of good sweet cream. Cook slowly an hour or more longer, but let them be full of juice when taken up, never cooked down dry and mealy.

MASHED BEANS.--Soak over night in cold water, a quart of nice white beans. When ready to cook, drain, put into boiling water, and boil till perfectly tender, and the water nearly evaporated. Take up, rub through a colander to remove the skins, season with salt and a half cup of cream, put in a shallow pudding dish, smooth the top with a spoon, and brown in the oven.

STEWED LIMA BEANS.--Put the beans into boiling water, and cook till tender, but not till they fall to pieces. Fresh beans should cook an hour or more, and dry ones require from two to three hours unless previously soaked. They are much better to simmer slowly than to boil hard. They should be cooked nearly dry. Season with salt, and a cup of thin cream, to each pint of beans. Simmer for a few minutes after the cream is turned in. Should it happen that the beans become tender before the water is sufficiently evaporated, do not drain off the water, but add a little thicker cream, and thicken the whole with a little flour. A little flour stirred in with the cream, even when the water is nearly evaporated may be preferred by some.

SUCCOTASH.--Boil one part Lima beans and two parts sweet corn separately until both are nearly tender. Put them together, and simmer gently till done. Season with salt and sweet cream. Fresh corn and beans may be combined in the same proportions, but as the beans will be likely to require the most time for cooking, they should be put to boil first, and the corn added when the beans are about half done, unless it is exceptionally hard, in which case it must be added sooner.

PULP SUCCOTASH.--Score the kernels of some fresh green corn with a sharp knife blade, then with the back of a knife sc.r.a.pe out all the pulp, leaving the hulls on the cob. Boil the pulp in milk ten or fifteen minutes, or until well done. Cook some fresh sh.e.l.led beans until tender, and rub them through a colander. Put together an equal quant.i.ty of the beans thus prepared and the cooked corn pulp, season with salt and sweet cream, boil together for a few minutes, and serve. Kornlet and dried Lima beans may be made into succotash in a similar manner.

_LENTILS._

DESCRIPTION.--Several varieties of the lentil are cultivated for food, but all are nearly alike in composition and nutritive value. They have long been esteemed as an article of diet. That they were in ordinary use among the Hebrews is shown by the frequent mention of them in Scripture. It is thought that the red pottage of Esau was made from the red variety of this legume.

The ancient Egyptians believed that a diet of lentils would tend to make their children good tempered, cheerful, and wise, and for this reason const.i.tuted it their princ.i.p.al food. A gravy made of lentils is largely used with their rice by the natives of India, at the present day.

The meal which lentils yield is of great richness, and generally contains more casein than either beans or peas. The skin, however, is tough and indigestible, and being much smaller than peas, when served without rejecting the skins, they appear to be almost wholly of tough, fibrous material; hence they are of little value except for soups, _purees_, toasts, and other such dishes as require the rejection of the skin. Lentils have a stronger flavor than any of the other legumes, and their taste is not so generally liked until one has become accustomed to it.

Lentils are prepared and cooked in the same manner as dried peas, though they require somewhat less time for cooking.

The large dark variety is better soaked for a time previous to cooking, or parboiled for a half hour and then put into new water, to make them less strong in flavor and less dark in color.

_RECIPES._

LENTIL PUREE.--Cook the lentils and rub through a colander as for peas _puree_. Season, and serve in the same manner.

LENTILS MASHED WITH BEANS.--Lentils may be cooked and prepared in the same manner as directed for mashed peas, but they are less strong in flavor if about one third to one half cooked white beans are used with them.

LENTIL GRAVY WITH RICE.--Rub a cupful of cooked lentils through a colander to remove the skins, add one cup of rich milk, part cream if it can be afforded, and salt if desired. Heat to boiling, and thicken with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Serve hot on nicely steamed or boiled rice, or with well cooked macaroni.

TABLE TOPICS.

The men who kept alive the flame of learning and piety in the Middle Ages were mainly vegetarians.--_Sir William Axon._

According to Xenophon, Cyrus, king of Persia, was brought up on a diet of water, bread, and cresses, till his fifteenth year, when honey and raisins were added; and the family names of Fabii and Lentuli were derived from their customary diet.

Thomson, in his poem, "The Seasons," written one hundred and sixty years ago, pays the following tribute to a diet composed of seeds and vegetable products:--#/

"With such a liberal hand has Nature flung These seeds abroad, blown them about in winds-- ...

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce, With vision pure, into those secret stores Of health and life and joy--the food of man, While yet he lived in innocence and told A length of golden years, unfleshed in blood?

A stranger to the savage arts of life-- Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease-- The _lord_, and not the _tyrant_ of the world."

Most a.s.suredly I do believe that body and mind are much influenced by the kind of food habitually depended upon. I can never stray among the village people of our windy capes without now and then coming upon a human being who looks as if he had been split, salted, and dried, like the salt fish which has built up his arid organism.

If the body is modified by the food which nourishes it, the mind and character very certainly will be modified by it also. We know enough of their close connection with each other to be sure of what without any statistical observation to prove it.--_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

The thoughts and feelings which the food we partake of provokes, are not remarked in common life, but they, nevertheless, have their significance. A man who daily sees cows and calves slaughtered, or who kills them himself, hogs "stuck," hens "plucked," etc., cannot possibly retain any true feeling for the sufferings of his own species....Doubtless, the majority of flesh-eaters do not reflect upon the manner in which this food comes to them, but this thoughtlessness, far from being a virtue, is the parent of many vices....How very different are the thoughts and sentiments produced by the non-flesh diet!--_Gustav Von Struve._

That the popular idea that beef is necessary for strength is not a correct one, is well ill.u.s.trated by Xenophon's description of the outfit of a Spartan soldier, whose dietary consisted of the very plainest and simplest vegetable fare. The complete accoutrements of the Spartan soldier, in what we would call heavy marching order, weighed seventy-five pounds, exclusive of the camp, mining, and bridge-building tools and the rations of bread and dried fruit which were issued in weekly installments, and increased the burden of the infantry soldier to ninety, ninety-five, or even to a full hundred pounds. This load was often carried at the rate of four miles an hour for twelve hours _per diem_, day after day, and only when in the burning deserts of southern Syria did the commander of the Grecian auxiliaries think prudent to shorten the usual length of the day's march.

DIET OF TRAINERS.--The following are a few of the restrictions and rules laid down by experienced trainers:--

Little salt. No course vegetables. No pork or veal. Two meals a day; breakfast at eight and dinner at two. No fat meat is allowed, no b.u.t.ter or cheese, pies or pastry.