The Chemistry of Cookery

in excess of the proportion required to form water by combination with the oxygen. My own view of the composition of this incrustation (lignin properly is called) is that it consists of a carbo-hydrate united with a hydro-carbon, the latter having a resinous character; but whether the hydro-carbon is chemically combined with the carbo-hydrate (the resin with the cellulose), or whether the resin only mechanically envelopes and indurates the cellulose I will not venture to decide, though I incline to the latter theory. As we shall presently see, this view of the constitution of the indurated forms of cellular tissue has an important practical bearing upon my present subject. To indicate this in advance, I will put it grossly as opening the question of whether a very great refinement of scientific cookery may or may not enable us to convert nutshells, wood shavings, and sawdust into wholesome and digestible food. I have no doubt whatever that it may. It could be done at once if the incrusting resinous matter were removed; for pure cellulose in the form of cotton and linen rags has been converted into sugar artificially in the laboratory of the chemist; and in the ripening of fruits such conversion is effected on a large scale in the laboratory of nature. A Jersey pear, for example, when full grown in autumn is little better than a lump of acidulated wood. Left hanging on the leafless tree, or gathered and carefully stored for two or three months, it becomes by nature’s own unaided cookery the most delicious and delicate pulp that can be tasted or imagined. Certain animals have a remarkable power of digesting ligneous tissue. The beaver is an example of this. The whole of its stomach, and more especially that secondary stomach the _cæcum_, is often found crammed or plugged with fragments of wood and bark. I have opened the crops of several Norwegian ptarmigans, and found them filled with no other food than the needles of pines, upon which they evidently feed during the winter. The birds, when cooked, were scarcely eatable on account of the