Mast (food)

“ While the mastication is going on the saliva becomes mixed with the food. In the saliva is the ptyalin, which begins to digest the starch. Starch that is well masticated is not so liable to ferment as that which gets scant attention in the mouth. Starches and nuts need the most thorough mastication. If thorough mastication were the rule, meat gluttons would be fewer, for when flesh is well chewed large quantities cause nausea.
Milk digests best when it is rolled around in the mouth long enough to be mixed with saliva. To treat milk as a drink is a mistake, for it is a very nourishing food. ”

“ If he still refuse his food, though the dressing be finished, he may be assured that his stomach is disordered, and he must be cordialled. In winter, a warm mash of malt is most eligible; but, if not at hand, a bran mash with an admixture of oatmeal, and a quart of good ale, may be given. In summer, a cordial ball will restore the tone of his stomach, without increasing the heat of his body so much as a mash would. ”

“ It is a matter of taste whether we like well or underdone meat, but underdone fish is the most unwholesome as it is the most repulsive food that can be offered to us, and in no process of cooking is more judgement required than in the cooking of fish. Fillets of fish of all kinds, either boiled, steamed, or baked, look transparent when raw, but are milk white when cooked sufficiently. If the French method of frying is practised, the large quantity of fat cooks it very quickly, and as soon as it is brown it is done. ”

“ Mastication facilitates swallowing.—Many foods cannot be swallowed without first going through some preparation in the mouth. Soft, moist, pultaceous foods, such as milk pudding and porridge, can be and often, indeed, are swallowed with little or no preliminary chewing. On the other hand, it is a mechanical impossibility to swallow large lumps of tough food, or very dry food, even though, like flour, it be in a finely divided state. ”

“ Mastication acts reflexly upon the stomach.—It is now known that the act of mastication influences the stomach reflexly, promoting the flow of gastric juice and thus preparing the stomach for the entrance of food into it. If the œsophagus of a dog is cut so as to allow the swallowed food to escape instead of passing into the stomach, it is found that the mastication of [Pg 103] food causes a considerable flow of gastric juice. Food introduced into the stomach unaccompanied by mastication is less effective in promoting the gastric flow. ”

“ It would seem, therefore, that the perfection of nutrition requires the proper mixture of saliva added to all food substances, and that mastication is not only a means of separation in order to give saliva a chance but a valve opener for salivary glands in order to make the proper solution for the stomach; and, that taste exists, in one of its important functions, to indicate how long the process should continue and when it has effected its healthful purpose.
Any one who tries it, no matter how perverted the taste has become by abuse, will find that Nature is not only kind but alluring. ”

“ Rub through a hair sieve with a wooden spoon. Stir in the milk and some salt, pour back into the saucepan and stir until it boils. If the artichokes do not thicken the soup sufficiently, sprinkle in a little sago or semolina when it is returned to the saucepan. Serve with fried bread.
CHAPTER XVIII. FIFTY RECIPES FOR FISH. The consumption of fish as a daily article of food is not nearly so large as it ought to be if we studied our health. It must be admitted that it is much more expensive than meat, and cannot be bought so readily. ”

“ Need we comment, in view of the natural brevity of this process, upon the desirability for purely physiological reasons of prolonging within reasonable limits the interval of time the food and saliva are commingled in the mouth cavity? It seems obvious, in view of the relatively large bulk of starch-containing foods consumed daily, that habits of thorough mastication should be fostered, with the purpose of increasing greatly the digestion of starch in the very gateway of the alimentary tract. ”

“ Animal food does not need the same amount [Pg 174] of mastication as vegetable food, since it is not digested in the mouth, though some contend that the mixture of proteid with alkaline saliva facilitates its subsequent peptonisation. Cooked animal food is, however, all the better for some mastication, owing to the coagulation of the proteids, and, in order to insure the efficient mastication of meat, fish, and poultry, Dr. Sim Wallace recommends that they should be given in large pieces cut thin. “Flat pieces about one inch square generally necessitate a certain amount of mastication. ”

“ Certainly it is not very easy to make fine sauces or ragouts in such a vessel; but a dressing of the meat is actually accomplished, and the negroes and savages, who are principally the persons to make use of what is thus cooked, are not very delicate: but I can imagine a tolerable remedy for even the objection you have found. The food might be inclosed in a vessel small enough to be contained in our capacious half of a gourd, and thus be cooked upon the principle so much used in chemistry, the application of a milder heat than fire. ”

“ The temperature of the saliva is too low to dissolve the starch fibre unaided. Each of the digestive juices has its own work to do, and the saliva acts directly upon the starchy food; hence the importance of thoroughly masticating such food as bread, potatoes, rice, cereals, etc. The action of heat, in baking, which causes the vapor to rise, and forms the crust of starchy food, produces what is called dextrine, or partially digested starch. ”

“ We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by eating the food that God provided for our use.”
“Grains used for porridge or mush should have several hours’ cooking; but soft or liquid foods are less wholesome than dry foods which require thorough mastication.”
When porridges are used, something dry like zwieback or crisp crackers should be eaten with them to induce mastication. ”

“ Our attention must not be too exclusively directed to soups and other semi-liquid articles of food. These pass away too rapidly from the stomach, are swallowed too hastily, and violate a natural law in superseding the necessity of mastication, and a proper admixture with the salivary secretion. ”

“ Some time is required for the conversion of the starch by this animal diastase, and in some animals there is a [187] special laboratory or kitchen for effecting this preliminary cookery of vegetable food. Ruminating animals have a special stomach cavity for this purpose in which the food, after mastication, is held for some time and kept warm before passing into the cavity which secretes the gastric juice. The crop of grain-eating birds appears to perform a similar function. ”

“ Dry food needs first to be well moistened; and it is not surprising that it promotes a more abundant flow of saliva than moist food, though the secretion thus excited may be poor in ferment. Hence it follows that if we desire to give foods which compel mastication, they should be tough or dry. On the whole, vegetable foods necessitate more thorough mastication than animal. The carnivora can scarcely be said to masticate at all the flesh which they consume ”

“ Then, too, some fish contain very few extractives, which, when present, as has been learned, are the source of flavor in food. As some of the methods of cooking, boiling in particular, dissolve the few extractives that fish contain and cause the loss of much of the nutritive material, it becomes almost necessary to serve a sauce with fish so prepared, if a tasty dish is to be the result. ”

“ In considering the reasonableness of masticating everything that has taste until it is absorbed by Nature's Food Filter, it must be remembered that the only liquid food provided for man that is not artificial is milk, and the natural means provided for taking milk into the stomach is by sucking, which is like mastication. ”

“ Prepared food is more or less divided, so that to some extent mastication is superseded. For the rest, in the kitchen starch is hydrated, fibre softened or made brittle, dough vesiculated, albumen coagulated, and indigestible matter removed.
Any one may perceive how impossible it would be to masticate a mouthful of flour, and how raw meat would clog the teeth. Hurrying over our meals, as we do, we should fare badly if all the grinding and subdividing of human food had to be accomplished by human teeth. ”

“ According to Van Someren, if the habit of masticating efficiently is once acquired, the food is not swallowed before it is converted into the liquid state, the swallowing of unmasticated lumps being effectually prevented by a pharyngeal reflex.
Mastication, by breaking the food up into small particles, enables it to be brought into intimate contact with the digestive juices.—Such comminution is especially needful in the case of raw vegetable foods of the tougher kind, in order to break up their cellulose framework, and to set free the contained starch, proteids, and fats. ”

“ It has the appearance of lard but can be heated to a much higher temperature without burning, is fully equal to butter when used as shortening, and dough bread, fish or other articles of food fried in it will not absorb it so readily as they will lard, nor will it transmit the flavor of one food to another. ”

“ It has sufficient flavour to please the taste, but not enough to excite to surfeit. Through a quality peculiar to itself, it favours the intestinal and gastric absorption, mixing easily with other food; and, assimilating with the juices of the stomach, it aids and favours the digestive functions. There is no other alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under certain given circumstances, but oysters never. ”

“ These soups, although not well known here at present, are a valuable food; they are easy to make, wholesome, and nourishing. After the fillets of fish have been removed, directions for which are given amongst the fish recipes, take the bones, wash them well in cold water, and cut away any black substance that may be adhering to them. Break them up and put into a saucepan with a teaspoonful of salt; when it boils remove the scum and put in one dozen white peppercorns, a fagot of herbs, one onion, and one carrot ”

“ Gone are the days when the men divided themselves up into societies for the destruction of salt beef and pork. Slush, as the duff made from large quantities of beef fat was called, is one of the absent morsels of food. ”

“ The object in introducing here these remarks on cooking food is to show that it forms an important integral part of the work of digestion, and has a direct bearing on the management of all forms of dyspepsia.
Haste in eating, with imperfect mastication, is a common cause of indigestion in this country. Mastication is the first step in the digestive [p. 446] process. It is important, therefore, that we have good teeth and that we take time to thoroughly masticate our food, for by so doing we prepare it for being acted upon by the juices of the stomach. ”

“ Such portions of whole grain as may be swallowed without mastication, will pass on and out without danger of the putrefactive changes which result from an excess, or deficient mastication of cooked food. ”

“ If any fish sauce is left, nothing is nicer to warm it in; if not, make a little with 1 gill of milk or water, 1 oz of butter, and 1 oz of flour. Flake the fish up, butter a plate, put the fish in and pour the sauce over. Sprinkle with brown bread crumbs, and bake in the oven for a quarter of an hour.
SMALL FISH Any kind of small fish will do for this dish. Wash and dry them; well butter a sheet of stiff writing paper, lay the fish in, sprinkle them with a little very finely chopped onion or shallot, parsley, pepper, and salt. ”

“ For the temperature of the water or steam, never exceeding 212°, is insufficient to produce the partial charring, which roasting and broiling effect. But, as in stewing, the gelatine, albumen, osmazome, and fat, are [115] developed and disengaged, and becoming united with the liquid in the vessel, form a soup, or broth. The paler colour of boiled meat is owing to the blood being separated and diffused in the water. In frying, the boiling fat or oil enters into the interstices of the fibres, which the disengaged animal juices have left empty. ”

“ Water into which fish is put should be just boiling, not rapidly boiling, as the motion sometimes breaks the fish into pieces.
If we wish to make soup, broth, or beef-tea, we cut meat into small pieces and put it into cold water, which is then gradually brought to a high temperature. The cold water dissolves the substances of the meat, which it has a better opportunity of doing from many small pieces than from one large one, and gradually becomes highly and agreeably flavoured. Meanwhile, the meat becomes more and more tasteless and colourless and is, at last, fit only to be thrown away. ”

“ To cure meat, especially beef, by cutting it into long thin slices and drying it in the sun.
Jury-mast. A small temporary mast often made of a yard; set up instead of a mast that is broken down.
Larboard (or port) . The left side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Lay to (lie to) . To reduce sail to the lowest limits, so as to become nearly stationary. ”