The Chemistry of Cookery

the dissolved casein. The filtered pea-soup sets to a stiff jelly on cooling, and promises to be a special food of some value, but for the reasons above stated, I am not yet able to speak positively as to its quantitative value. The experience of any one person is not sufficient for this, the question being, not whether it contains nutritive material—this is unquestionable—but whether it is easily digested and assimilated. As we all know, a food of this kind may ‘agree’ with some persons and not with others—_i.e._ it may be digested and assimilated with ease or with difficulty according to personal idiosyncrasies. The cheesy character of the abundant precipitate which I obtain by acidulating this solution is very interesting and instructive, regarded from a chemical point of view. The solubility of the casein is increased by soaking the peas for some hours, or, better still, a few days, in the solution of bicarbonate of potash. Another question is opened by these experiments, viz. what is the character and the value of the fibrous solid matter remaining behind after filtering out the clear pea-soup? Has the alkali acted in an opposite manner to the acid in the ripening pear? Is it merely a fibrous refuse only fit for pig-food, or is it deserving of further attention in the kitchen? Should it be treated with dilute acid—say a little vinegar—to break up the fibre, and thereby be made into good porridge? Other questions crop up here as they have been cropping continually since I committed myself to the writing of these papers, and so abundantly that if I could afford to set up a special laboratory, and endow it with a staff of assistants, there would be some years’ work for myself and staff before I could answer them exhaustively, and, doubtless, the answers would suggest new questions, and so on _ad infinitum_. I state this in apology for the merely suggestive crudity of many of the ideas that I have thrown out. Before leaving the subject of peas, I must here repeat a practical suggestion that I published in