oes not, being kept a little below the
temperature of the water from which its heat is obtained, by the
constant evaporation at a temperature a little below the boiling point.

_Frying_, which is the cooking of food in hot fat, is a method not to be
recommended--Unlike all the other food elements, fat is rendered less
digestible by cooking. Doubtless it is for this reason that nature has
provided those foods which require the most prolonged cooking to fit
them for use with only a small proportion of fat, and it would seem to
indicate that any food to be subjected to a high degree of heat should
not be mixed and compounded largely of fats. The ordinary way of frying,
which the French call _sauteing_, is by the use of only a little fat in
a shallow pan, into which the food is put and cooked first on one side
and then the other. Scarcely anything could be more unwholesome than
food prepared in this manner. A morsel of food encrusted with fat
remains undigested in the stomach because fat is not acted upon by the
gastric juice, and its combination with the other food elements of which
the morsel is composed interferes with their digestion also. If such
foods are habitually used, digestion soon becomes slow and the gastric
juice so deficient in quantity that fermentation and putrefactive
changes are occasioned, resulting in serious disturbance of health. In
the process of frying, the action of the heat partially decomposes the
fat; in consequence, various poisonous substances are formed, highly
detrimental to the digestion of the partaker of the food.

ADDING FOODS TO BOILING LIQUIDS.--Much of the soddenness of
improperly cooked foods might be avoided, if the following facts were
kept in mind:--

When vegetables, or other foods of ordinary temperature, are put into
boiling water, the temperature of the water is lowered in proportion to
the quantity and the temperature of the food thus introduced, and will
not again boil until the mass of food shall have absorbed more heat from
the fire. The result of this is that the food is apt to become more or
less water-soaked before the process of cooking begins. This difficulty
may be avoided by introducing but small quantities of the food at one
time, so as not to greatly lower the temperature of the liquid, and then
allowing the latter to boil between the introduction of each fresh
supply, or by heating the food before adding it to the liquid.

EVAPORATION is another principle ofte