ury behind it. This,
frequently repeated, ends at last in acute or chronic diseases, no less
certainly than constant friction upon a stone will at length wear it
away, though it may be a long time before any impression upon it is
perceived. Similar effects arise from drinking, but generally with a
more rapid progress, from the extension and collapse of the vessels
being more sudden and violent. Plain cookery, in the exact medium
between under and over doing, is the point to be attained to render our
food salutary. The mixture of a great variety of ingredients should be
avoided, for if good in themselves separately, they are often rendered
indigestible by being compounded one with another. As we must eat every
day, there is opportunity enough for all things in turn, without
attempting any unwholesome composition. Much seasoning with spices,
contributes to make animal food indigestible. They are much safer when
used just before serving up the dish, or by adding them at the time of
eating it. Beef and pork long salted, and hams, bacon, tongues, and hung
beef, are very indigestible, and particularly improper for weak
stomachs, though they will often crave them. Boiled meat is generally
preferable to roast meat, for nourishment and digestion. Boiling
extracts more of the rank strong juices, and renders it lighter and more
diluted. Roasting leaves it fuller of gravy, but it adds to the rigidity
of the fibres. The flesh of young animals is best roasted. Fried and
broiled meats are difficult to be digested, though they are very
nourishing: weak stomachs had better avoid them. Meat pies and puddings
cannot be recommended, but strong stomachs may sustain but little
inconvenience from them. It is a confined mode of cookery, and the meat
therefore is not at all purified of its grossness. When meat pies and
puddings are used, they should be moderately seasoned. Baking meat,
instead of roasting it, is a worse manner of dressing it, from the
closeness of the oven, and the great variety of things often baking at
the same time. Stewing is not a good way of dressing meat, unless it is
done very carefully. If it is stewed till all the juices are drawn from
the meat, the latter becomes quite unfit for food: and if the stewpan be
kept close covered, there are the same objections to it as meat pies and
puddings. Hashing is a very bad mode of cooking. It is doing over again
what has already been done enough, and makes the meat vapid and hard.