By this operation, the principles not properly soluble are rendered softer, more pulpy, and, consequently, easier of digestion; but the meat, at the same time, is deprived of some of its nutritive properties by the removal of a portion of its soluble constituents: the albumen and gelatin are also acted upon; the former being solidified, and the latter converted into a gelatinous substance. If, therefore, our meat be boiled too long or too fast, we shall obtain, where the albumen predominates, as in beef, a hard and indigestible mass, like an overboiled egg; or, where the gelatin predominates, as in young meats, such as veal, a gelatinous substance equally injurious to the digestive organs. Young and viscid food, therefore, as veal, chickens, etc, are more wholesome when roasted than when boiled, and are easier digested. Dr. Prout has very justly remarked, that the boiling temperature is too high for a great many of the processes of cooking, and that a lower temperature and a greater time, or a species of infusion, are better adapted for most of them. This is notorious with substances intended to be stewed, which, even in cookery books, are directed to be boiled slowly (that is, not at all), and for a considerable time.

The ignorance and prejudice existing on these points is very great, and combated with difficulty; yet, when we take into account their importance, and how intimately they are connected with health, they will be found to deserve no small share of our attention1. The loss occasioned by boiling partly depends upon the melting of the fat, but chiefly from the solution of the gelatine and os-mazone: mutton generally loses about one-fifth, and beef about one-fourth, of its original weight. Boiling is particularly applicable to vegetables, rendering them more soluble in the stomach, and depriving them of a considerable quantity of air, so injurious to weak stomachs. But, even in this case, the operation may be carried to an injurious extent; thus, potatoes are frequently boiled to the state of a dry, insipid powder, instead of being preserved in that state in which the parts of which they are composed are rendered soft and gelatinous, so as to retain their shape, and yet be very easily separated. On the other hand, the cabbage tribe, and carrots, are frequently not boiled long enough, in which state they are highly indigestible.

In conducting this process, it is necessary to pay some attention to the quality of the water employed: thus, mutton boiled in hard water" is more tender and juicy than when soft water is used; while vegetables, on the contrary, are rendered harder and less digestible when boiled in hard water.

1 Furze constitutes the principal fuel of the Cornish peasant, whence in that country, from the convenience thus offered for baking, the use of pies is so general as to have become proverbial: "The Devil will not come into Cornwall, for fear of being put into a pie".

1 Hence it is, that beef tea and mutton tea are much more calculated for invalids than the broths of these meats.