The Chemistry of Cookery

even those vegetables which we eat raw, all contain within their cells considerable quantities of starch. Take a small piece of dough, made in the usual manner by moistening wheat flour, put it in a piece of muslin and work it with the fingers under water. The water becomes milky, and the milkiness is seen to be produced by minute granules that sink to the bottom when the agitation of the water ceases. These are starch granules. They may be obtained by similar treatment of other kinds of flour. Viewed under a microscope they are seen to be ovoid particles with peculiar concentric markings that I must not tarry to describe. The form and size of these granules vary according to the plant from which they are derived, but the chemical composition is in all cases the same, excepting, perhaps, that the amount of water associated with the actual starch varies, producing some small differences of density or other physical variations. Arrowroot may be taken as an example. To the chemist arrowroot is starch in as pure a form as can be found in nature, and he applies this description to all kinds of arrowroot; but, looking at the ‘price current’ in the ‘Grocer’ of the current week, November 22, 1884, I find under the first item, which is ‘Arrowroot,’ the following: ‘Bermuda, per lb. 10_d._ to 1_s._ 5_d._;’ ‘St. Vincent and Natal, 1¼_d._ to 7¼_d._;’ and this is a fair example of the usual differences of price of this commodity. Five farthings to 53 farthings is a wide range, and should express a wide difference of quality. I have on several occasions, at long intervals apart, obtained samples of the highest-priced Bermuda, and even ‘Missionary’ arrowroot, supposed to be perfect, brought home by immaculate missionaries themselves, and therefore worth 3_s._ 6_d._ per lb., and have compared this with the ‘St. Vincent and Natal.’ I find that the only difference is that on boiling in a given quantity of water the Bermuda produces a somewhat stiffer jelly, the which additional tenacity is easily obtainable by using a little more of