The Chemistry of Cookery

the muscles, the firm lean parts of the meat, were quite eatable, and eaten by myself and other members of my family. There was no taste of boric acid, and the meat was unusually tender. The curious element of this process is the very small quantity of the boric acid which does the work so effectually. For some time past most of the milk that is supplied to London has been similarly treated by adding borax or a preparation chiefly composed of borax, and named ‘glacialine.’ This suppresses the incipient lactic fermentation, which, in the course of a few hours, otherwise produces the souring of milk, and thus prepared the milk remains for a long time unaltered. The small quantity of borax that we thus imbibe with our tea, coffee, &c., is quite harmless. M. de Cyon, who has studied this subject experimentally, affirms that it is very beneficial. CHAPTER XI. THE COOKERY OF VEGETABLES. MY readers will remember that I referred to Haller’s statement, ‘Dimidium corporis humani gluten est,’ which applies to animals generally, viz. that half of their substance is gelatin, or that which by cookery becomes gelatin. This abundance depends upon the fact that the walls of the cells and the frame-work of the tissues are composed of this material. In the vegetable structure we encounter a close analogy to this. Cellular structure is still more clearly defined than in the animal, as may be easily seen with the help of a very moderate microscopic power. Pluck one of the fibrils that you see shooting down into the water of hyacinth glasses, or, failing one of these, any other succulent rootlet. Crush it between two pieces of glass and examine. At the end there is a loose spongy mass of rounded cells; these merge into oblong rectangular cells surrounding a central axis of spiral tube or tubes or greatly elongated cell structure. Take a thin slice of stem, or leaf, or flower, or bark, or pith, examine in like manner, and cellular structure of some kind will display itself, clearly demonstrating that whatever may be the contents