What Meat Should Look Like Recipe

The most perfect meats are taken from well-fed, full-grown animals, that

have not been over-worked, under-fed, or hard-driven; the flesh is firm,

tender, and well-flavored, and abounds in nutritious elements. On the

other hand, the flesh of hard-worked or ill-fed creatures is tough,

hard, and tasteless.



All animal flesh is composed of albumen, fibrin, and gelatin, in the

proportion of about one fifth of its weight; the balance of its

substance is made up of the juice, which consists of water, and those

soluble salts and phosphates which are absolutely necessary for the

maintenance of health. It is this juice which is extracted from beef in

the process of making beef tea; and it is the lack of it in salted meats

that makes them such an injurious diet when eaten for any length of time

to the exclusion of other food.



The flesh of young animals is less nutritious, and less easily

masticated than that of full grown animals, on account of its looser

texture. Beef, which has firmer and larger fibres than mutton, is harder

to digest on that account, but it contains an excess of strengthening

elements that is not approached by any meat, save that of the leg of

pork.



The tongues of various animals, the fibres of which are small and

tender, are nutritious and digestible; the heart is nutritious because

it is composed of solid flesh, but the density of its fibre interferes

with its digestibility; the other internal organs are very nutritious,

and very useful as food for vigorous persons on that account, and

because they are cheap. The blood of animals abounds in nutritive

elements; the possibility of its use as a general food has closely

engaged the attention of European scientists; notably of the members of

the University of Copenhagen, who recommend its use in the following

forms, in which it is not only suitable for food, but also capable of

preservation for an indefinite time. First, as sausages, puddings and

cakes--being mixed with fat, meal, sugar, salt, and a few spices--to

serve as a much cheaper substitute for meat, and intended especially for

the use of the poor classes; and second, as blood-chocolate, more

especially suitable to be used in hospitals, as well as otherwise in

medical practice, in which latter form it has been recommended by

Professor Panum, at a meeting of physicians at Copenhagen, and is now

being employed in some of the hospitals of that city.



Bones consist largely of animal matter, and earthy substances which are

invaluable in building up the frame of the body. In order to obtain all

their goodness, we must crush them well before putting them into soups

or stews.

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