The Cooking Class by F. O. Raymond

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 20, 1906

The Cooking Class

By F. O. Raymond

F. O. RAYMOND

Proteids

THE proteids include albumen, casein, gluten, gelatin, and fibrin. These are all similar in that they contain nitrogen, and perform the same office in the body—that of building and keeping in repair the vital tissues.

Albumen in its purest form is found in the white of egg. It stands as the type of a large class of substances whose distinguishing characteristic is that they coagulate or harden when heat is applied. They are found in varying percentage in nearly every article of food. Fruits contain very little, while some nuts contain as high as twenty-eight per cent.

Casein differs from albumen in that it is not affected by heat, but coagulates in the presence of an acid. Curd of sour milk is the most familiar example. Legumin, or vegetable casein, is found in beans, peas, and lentils. Casein can not be seen until the milk sours and curd forms. Milk contains about three per cent of casein, beans and peas about twenty-five per cent, and the brown German lentils thirty-three per cent.

Gluten is the tough, gummy proteid element of wheat, rye, and barley. Rye, barley, and the soft winter varieties of wheat contain from ten to fourteen per cent of gluten, while the hard northwestern spring wheats yield as high as twenty per cent.

Gelatin is obtained from sea-moss and the bones and tendons of meat. It is comparatively low in nutritive value.

Fibrin is the least important of the proteids. It is that substance which, by its coagulation, entangles the blood corpuscles and forms the clot. It is found chiefly in the blood of flesh-meats.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Served at the Washington Branch Sanitarium Cream Asparagus Soup Nut French Soup Stuffed Potatoes Creamed Cauliflower Vegetarian Turkey Celery Olives Bread and Butter Fruit Rolls Crackers Granose Biscuit Zwieback Nut Cake with Unfermented Grape Juice Pumpkin Pie Jellied Cranberries Stuffed Dates Canned Strawberries Peaches Prunes Apples Oranges Grape Fruit California Grapes and Nuts

Recipes

Nut French Soup

Take 3 pints water, ¼ lb. Sanitas nut soup stock, 2 cups strained tomato, ¼ teaspoonful powdered sage, 1 rounding tablespoonful browned flour, 1 large onion, 2 bay leaves, ½ teaspoonful thyme. Slice the onions, and mix all the ingredients together; boil slowly one hour; strain, reheat, salt, and serve. This soup requires plenty of salt to bring out the flavor.

Creamed Cauliflower

Separate cauliflower into small portions, rejecting all tough, woody parts; wash, and steam until tender. Turn into a vegetable dish, and pour on sufficient rather thin cream sauce to nearly or quite cover.

If preferred, the head of cauliflower, after soaking an hour in salted water to drive out any insects, may be tied in cheese-cloth, boiled or steamed, then separated into portions, and served with cream sauce.

Vegetarian Turkey

For the dark part take 2 cups brown lentils cooked and sifted, ½ cup black walnut meats ground or chopped fine, ½ pound protose mashed, 3 eggs, a little cream, a little grated onion, salt. Mix all together, adding dark toasted bread crumbs to make just stiff enough to retain its form well when shaped into legs, etc. Insert piece of macaroni to imitate leg bone. Bake to a light brown.

For the light meat take 2 cups Lima beans (cooked and sifted), ½ cup sweet almonds (blanched and ground), ½ lb. nuttolene, ½ cup crisp celery chopped fine, salt. Mix all together, using toasted white bread crumbs to make of same consistency as the dark meat.

For dressing take a nicely baked pound loaf of white bread, soak for fifteen minutes in warm water, wring dry, tear to pieces, and add 1 cup cream, 2 eggs, and celery salt. Mix all together with a fork, keeping as light as possible.

With dressing in the center, form white meat into a roll or other convenient shape, bake to a nice brown, and serve a slice of this on a meat platter with a leg, a dressing of brown gravy, and a garnish of parsley.

If desired to form a turkey, take a dripping-pan and in it mold the dressing in shape of the body, pack white meat around it, shaping at the same time, then form the legs and neck of dark meat, the wings of white, and pin parts together with wooden meat skewers. When ready for the oven, pour into the pan around the turkey a rather thin brown gravy, and bake, basting occasionally until nicely browned.

Brown Gravy

1 medium-sized onion, 2 tablespoonfuls butter or cooking oil, 1 tablespoonful flour, 2 cups strained tomato, 2 cups thin cream or rich milk, salt, 1 tablespoonful minced parsley.

Slice the onion, and slightly brown it in the butter or oil, then add the flour and brown, taking care not to scorch any, add tomato, cream, and perhaps a little water to make of right consistency. Boil up well, salt to taste; and just before serving add the minced parsley.

Stuffed Dates

Wash dates, cut one side lengthwise to remove the seed, which replace with a walnut, pecan, or other nut meat. Cover some or all of the dates with a sugar icing, perhaps of different colors.

A recipe for nut cake will be given next week.

In this dinner some of the dishes are quite complex, and the variety is far too great for any individual to even taste every one, so that from a health standpoint the meal can not be recommended as could a more simple one.

Upon careful examination, the menu will be found well balanced,—quite free from excess of proteid, fat, or sugar. Vegetarian turkey, and nut cake are the proteid dishes, and also those containing the most fat. Pie, cake, dates, and cranberries are the sweets. But any article upon the menu, taken in moderation and proper combination with several others, will be found perfectly wholesome to the average person.

In a future lesson will appear a sample of our every-day bill of fare.

Washington, D. C.