Meat extract

“ Extract of Beef adds the distinctive touch to many meat and fish sauces, soups and gravies. It is a valued meat extender as it adds the meat flavor necessary to make a small amount of meat, flavor a large amount of cereal in a loaf or croquettes. Many salads and vegetable dishes are greatly improved by the addition of a bit of Extract of Beef to the sauce. ”

“ A distinction is made between a beef extract and a beef juice. The latter term applies solely to the liquid naturally remaining in the fresh meat after its proper preparation for consumption, that is, after the withdrawal of the blood and the proper cooling and storing of the flesh. The fresh meat is then subjected to strong pressure and the juices which are extracted are concentrated in vacuo to the proper consistence. The meat of old bulls is often used. A true beef juice must be extracted from the cold meat and not with the aid of heat, hot water or other solvents. ”

“ It is evident that a beef extract is only a soup or a soup stock specially prepared from beef. Beef extract first became known by the researches of the celebrated chemist Liebig, and has passed from a mere local preparation to an article which is important in commerce. Factories have been established in localities far removed from the principal markets of the world, but where cattle are extremely plentiful, as in South America, and the preparation of beef extract is carried on on a large scale, the meat of the animal being thrown away after the preparation of the extract. ”

“ The method of preparing beef extract is practically that described for making a soup stock under pressure. Instead of using only the trimmings and refuse of the animal, however, usually the whole of the flesh is employed. The bones are sometimes used in the making of a beef extract. The sound, fresh meat is cut into small pieces and extracted under pressure as already described. ”

“ The extract of meat belongs to the class of condiments. It first gratifies the palate, and then produces important results in the stomach. This is not due to the nutritive salts it contains, nor to any special effect it produces on absorption or nutrition. If an animal gets for food only extract of meat, it will succumb more quickly than if no food at all were given, as was demonstrated by Kemmerich in the case of a dog. ”

“ Extract of meat thus is not the mere seasoning which many consider it; not simply does it give a relish, and draw out nutritious properties from indifferent food, but it is in itself a nutritious substance of the highest rank. ”

“ It is not a question so much of the utilization of a large amount of nutrients as the absorption and assimilation in small quantities which will sustain life until the disordered conditions disappear. For these reasons the meat extracts have a value. There is, however, little doubt of the fact that in the popular mind a great deal more credit is given to meat extracts than should properly belong to them. ”

“ Every part of the animal is used; nothing is wasted. The flesh being cared for, the fat goes one way, the hides another; the offals a third and the blood a fourth. Some of the bones are boiled with the meat to make a particular kind of extract; whilst portions of the meat are boiled alone for tinning, other portions are cut up fine by machinery, and made into extract. ”

“ It seems to be the consensus of opinion among scientific investigators who have studied this question that the food value of these meat extracts is rather limited, and although they are a source of energy to the body they must not be looked on as representing in any notable degree the food value of the beef or other meat from which they are derived. ”

“ EXTRACTIVES IN MEAT.--The appetizing flavor of meat is due to substances called extractives. The typical flavor that serves to distinguish pork from beef or mutton is due to the difference in the extractives. Although necessary for flavoring, these have no nutritive value; in fact, the body throws them off as waste material when they are taken with the food. In some methods of cookery, such as broiling and roasting, the extractives are retained, while in others, such as those employed for making stews and soups, they are drawn out. ”

“ Meats are preserved by treating them with potassium nitrate, boric acid, sulfurous acid, salicylic acid, or benzoic acid. Cheap meat may be substituted for the more expensive. A few cases of horse meat in mince meat and sausages have been discovered. Diseased and stale meats have been found on the market. Canned meats often contain zinc, tin, and lead, and sometimes even arsenic. Aniline-red or cochineal-carmine may be added to improve the color of chopped or ground meats. Starch is sometimes added to sausage and similar meat. ”

“ Since vinegar is a preservative this suggests a method by which a surplus of beef may be kept for several days and then converted into a palatable dish.
Flavor in meat depends mainly on certain nitrogenous substances which are called extractives because they can be dissolved out or "extracted" by soaking the meat in cold water. The quality of the extractives and the resulting flavor of the meat vary with the condition of the animal and in different parts of its body. They are usually considered better developed in older than in very young animals. ”

“ This exception should be duly noted, inasmuch as it is the one redeeming feature of such proceeding that renders it fairly well adapted for the cookery of such [125] meat as cow-heels, sheeps’-trotters, calves’-heads, shins of beef, knuckles of veal, and other viands which consist mainly of membranous, tendinous, or integumentary matter composed of gelatin. To treat the prime parts of good beef or mutton in this manner is to perpetrate a domestic atrocity. ”

“ Likewise, a certain part of an old animal contains more extractives than the same part of a young one. For these reasons a very young chicken is broiled while an old one is used for stew, and ribs of beef are roasted while the shins are used for soup.
Meat that is allowed to hang and ripen develops compounds that are similar to extractives and that impart additional flavor. A ripened steak is usually preferred to one cut from an animal that has been killed only a short time. ”

“ Spread the bottom of the pot with butter, or marrow. Pack in pieces of meat, bone, gristle, the carcases of birds, two or three vegetables cut up in small pieces, two cloves, and a bouquet of herbs.
Cover the meat, etc., with cold water. Put on the lid. Heat slowly, and when it boils set back to simmer for four or five hours.
In preparing meat for this stock, look it over carefully; reject any piece which is not perfectly good, also all stuffing, skin, smoked or burnt pieces. A little beef fat can always be retained, but mutton fat should not be used as it is rank in flavour. ”

“ The lean of good fresh beef is of a bright red color, a fine close grain, and feels tender to the touch on pinching it between your thumb and finger. The fat is firm and very nearly white. The suet about the kidney, firm and quite white. If, on the contrary, the lean is coarse, tough, and of a dull color, and the fat scanty, yellow, and moist, do not buy that meat for any purpose. The same rules will apply to mutton. If the weather is so cold that the meat is frozen, thaw it by lying it all night or early in the morning in a tub of cold water. ”

“ The reason, therefore, why veal, lamb and young pork are white when cooked is that the large quantity of albumin contained in the fibres hardens, or becomes coagulated. The chief characteristic of young meat is the great proportion of gelatin contained in those parts that afterwards become hard or bony.
The quality of the flesh of animals is influenced considerably by the nature of the food on which they have been fed, for the food supplies the material which produces the flesh. If the food is not suitable and good, the meat will necessarily be inferior. ”

“ In such of the operations as are performed by the direct application of heat to the flesh of animals, namely, roasting, baking, frying, and broiling, the meat loses the vapid and nauseous taste and odour which it possesses in a raw [118] state, and becomes savoury, juicy, and grateful to the taste. These effects arise from the development of the gelatine and osmazome from the smaller vessels, and their being rendered soluble; while, at the same time a portion of the fat is liquified, and combines with them after they are disengaged. ”

“ It is a matter of experience that beef and mutton are more easily digested than veal and pork. Veal broth, however, contains more nutritious matter than mutton broth or beef tea. Poultry and wild birds, if young, yield a tender and digestible meat. ”

“ A sufficient quantity of mutton or [100] beef suet, butter, lard, or oil, being melted in a pan, and made boiling-hot, the meat is laid in it. It is not necessary that the meat be wholly immersed in the boiling fat; if it be immersed in part, it will be quite sufficient. When flesh is the substance to be fried, the pieces, previously to their being put into the pan, are sometimes brushed over with eggs and crumbs of stale bread, flour, or any other farinaceous substance. ”

“ A certain degree of consistency is established by each manufacturer for each variety of potted goods made, and to obtain this consistence more or less fat [52] meat of some kind is added. It may thus be of some advantage to add the fat of pork rather than the fat of beef or mixtures of the two. It is claimed by many manufacturers that a single kind of meat does not give the desired flavor in potted and deviled goods. Therefore, meats of different origin are finely ground and mixed together, and a sufficient quantity of oil or fat added to secure the required physical consistence. ”

“ Any kind of meat can be used to make a meat-and-potato hash; but, of course, nothing is so good as corned beef. Cold roast, boiled, or broiled beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or tongue can be freed from skin, fat, and bones, seasoned highly with salt and pepper, and cooked like corned beef hash. Even two or three kinds of meat can be used. If it happens that you have a bit of steak, a part of a chop, and perhaps a slice of tongue, use them all. ”

“ When Freeze-Em-Pickle is dissolved in water with the proper quantity of sugar and salt, the brine will be decidedly sweet and of the proper specific gravity to properly cure Hams, Bacon, Shoulders, Corned Beef, Dried Beef, etc., with a Delicious Flavor, without loss from spoiling. The meat will not be too Salty, but will have that Peculiar Sugar-Cured Flavor which is so much liked. By the use of the Freeze-Em-Pickle Process anyone can make fine cured meats, whether or not they have ever had any previous experience in the curing or handling of meats. ”

“ The result of this process is, that size and weight are attained by a deposit of fat, rather than by the construction of muscular fiber, which alone is true meat; while, as a necessary consequence, the characteristic flavor and other qualities of fully developed beef and mutton are greatly wanting in modern meat.
Much more unsatisfactory is the supply of vegetable and dairy produce to our great city, particularly of the former. ”

“ Beef peptonoids and peptonised beef-jelly are also most valuable preparations for the sick-room. Unlike beef-tea and beef extracts, which consist only of the juice of the meat, more or less perfectly extracted, they are the meat itself in a fluid form, fit to be taken at once into the body without any work for the feeble digestion of the invalid. ”

“ The younger the animal, the greater is the proportion of water and the lower the nutritive value of meat. It should be understood, however, that not all of meat is edible material; indeed, a large part of it is made up of gristle, bones, cartilage, nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue. The amount of these indigestible materials also varies in different animals and different cuts, but the average proportion in a piece of meat is usually considered to be 15 per cent. ”

“ Meat is composed of muscular tissue, connective tissue or gristle, fatty tissue, blood-vessels, nerves, bone, etc. The value of meat as food is due chiefly to the nitrogenous compound it contains, the most valuable being the albuminoids: the gelatinoid of meat is easily changed into gelatin by the action of hot water. Gelatin when combined with the albuminoids and extractives has considerable nutritive value. Extractives are meat bases, or rather meat which has been dissolved by water, such as soup stock and beef tea. ”

“ The solution is then filtered, the bitter principle, formed during the digestion, removed by the addition of a little pancreatic emulsion, and the liquor, which has been neutralised by the addition of carbonate of soda, evaporated to a thick syrup or extractive consistence.
Fluid meat is the only preparation which entirely represents, and yields the amount of nourishment afforded by, lean meat; it differs altogether from beef tea and extracts of meat, as all these contain only a small portion of the different constituents of meat. A patent has been granted to its inventor, Mr Darby. ”

“ Boil five pounds of meat in water enough to have one quart when it is done; chop the meat very fine when it is cold, and add a quarter of a pound of suet, or salt pork, three pounds and a half of sugar, three of chopped apple, two and a half of box raisins and one of Sultana raisins, one of citron, and a pint of syrup of preserved peach, quince, or both; or any other syrup you may have; add salt, nutmeg, and powdered clove. To mix the ingredients, remove the fat from the juice of the meat and put it into a kettle with the apple, sugar, raisins, and citron, and let them boil a few minutes ”