Meats will be regarded as essential by the majority, and naturally they
come first in considering food; and beef is taken as the standard, being
identical in composition with the structures of the human body.
BEEF, if properly fed, is in perfection at seven years old. It should then
be a light red on the cut surface, a darker red near the bone, and
slightly marbled with fat. Beef contains, in a hundred parts, nearly
twenty of nitrogen, seventy-two of water, four of fat, and the remainder
in salts of various descriptions. The poorer the quality of the beef, the
more it will waste in cooking; and its appearance before cooking is also
very different from that of the first quality, which, though looking
moist, leaves no stain upon the hand. In poor beef, the watery part seems
to separate from the rest, which lies in a pool of serous bloody fluid.
The gravy from such beef is pale and poor in flavor; while the fat, which
in healthy beef is firm and of a delicate yellow, in the inferior quality
is dark yellow and of rank smell and taste. Beef is firmer in texture and
more satisfying to the stomach than any other form of meat, and is usually
considered more strengthening.
MUTTON is a trifle more digestible, however. A healthy person would not
notice this, the digestive power in health being more than is necessary
for the ordinary meal; but the dyspeptic will soon find that mutton gives
his stomach less work.
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