The Chemistry of Cookery

other refuse fat with lime-water, agitating the mixture when heated, and then neutralising with an acid. The product thus obtained is described as admirably adapted for culinary operations, and the method is applicable to the purpose here under consideration. Further on in the same volume is a ‘Note on Suets and Alimentary Fats’ by M. Dubrunfaut, who tells us that the most tainted of alimentary fats and rancid oils may be deprived of their bad odours by ‘appropriate frying.’ His method is to raise the temperature of the fat to 140° to 150° Cent. (284° to 302° Fahr.) in a frying-pan; then cautiously sprinkle upon it small quantities of water. The steam carries off the volatile fatty acids which produce the rancidity in such as fish oils, and also removes the neutral offensive fatty matters that are decomposable by heat. In another paper by M. Fua this method is applied to the removal of cellular tissue of crude fats from slaughter-houses. It is really nothing more than the old farmhouse proceeding of ‘rendering’ lard, by frying the membranous fat until the membranous matter is browned and aggregated into small nodules, which constitute the ‘scratchings’—a delicacy greatly relished by our British ploughboys at pig-killing time, but rather too rich in pork-fat to supply a suitable meal for people of sedentary vocations. The action of heat thus applied and long-continued is similar to that of the strong sulphuric acid. The impurities of the fat are organic matters more easily decomposable than the fat itself, or otherwise stated, they are dissociated into carbon and water at about 300° Fahr., which is a lower temperature than that required for the dissociation of the pure oil or fat. By maintaining this temperature, these compounds become first caramelised, then carbonised nearly to blackness, when all their powers of offensiveness vanish. In the more violent factory process of purification by sulphuric acid the similar action which occurs is due to the powerful affinity of this acid for water: this may be strikingly shown by adding to thick syrup or pounded sugar about its own bulk of oil