The Probert Encyclopaedia of Food & Drink

COOKERY

Cookery is the preparation of food so as to render it more palatable and more digestible. The art is of great importance, not only for comfort but also for health. Food is mainly prepared by submitting it to the action of fire, as by roasting, boiling, stewing, etc. These processes give each a different flavour to food, but result alike in rendering the tissues,bothof animal and vegetable food, softer and much more easily dealt with by the digestive organs.

The art of cookery was carried to considerable perfection amongst some of the ancient nations, as for instance the Egyptians, Persians, and Athenians. Extravagance and luxury at table were notable features of Roman life under the empire. Amongst moderns the Italians were the first to reach a high degree of art in this department. Their cooking, like that of the ancient Romans, is distinguished by a. free use of oil. Italian cookery seems to have been transplanted by the princesses of the House of Medici to France, and was carried there to perhaps the highest degree of perfection; even yet the skill and resource which the French cook shows in dealing often with very slight materials is a highly creditable feature in the domestic economy of the nation. British cookery during the Victorian era was mostly confined to simple, strong, and substantial dishes. The art of roasting was perhaps its strong point. During the late Victorian Era in Britain attempts were made in London and other places to diffuse a knowledge of cookery more widely among the poor. In particular the National School of Cookery, headquarterd at South Kensington, sent forth lecturers and teachers to almost all the chief towns of Great Britain with the result of establishing local centres in many places.

With the advent of the microwave oven during the late 20th century, convenience foods - cooked in a factory and containing large amounts of articifical additives, sugar and salt - which could be quickly heated in a microwave oven without the need to cook as such, resulted in a rapid decline in cookery in Britain, and a noticeable decline in public health with increases of such diseases as obesity and diabetes.
Research Cookery