Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/121

Rh BEEF.

Australian and Foreign Meat—Although it is difficult to equal, and impossible to surpass, the best British grown beef and mutton, we have as a nation immensely benefited by the enormous and ever-increasing imports of meat from America, Australia and New Zealand. The large supplies of beef which reach us from the river La Plata and elsewhere have undoubtedly kept down prices, so that meat is no longer a luxury except among the poor. Much of the beef from South and North America reaches us alive, but it is not of this phase of the trade that we need speak. The great development arose when it was found that cattle and sheep could be slaughtered and dressed on the other side of the ocean, then packed close together in freezing chambers on board ship, and so imported here. Actual freezing, many contend, injures the quality of meat, and certainly if the meat is heated carelessly on arrival it quickly deteriorates. As a matter of fact, however, most meat is now "chilled," that is packed in chambers in which the air is made cold, but is not suffered to reach freezing point. Moreover, it is packed in loose-woven cloth wrappers, and on arrival in England is removed to cold storage chambers, and gradually exposed to higher temperature before it is put on the market. When carefully treated, mutton and lamb are none the worse for the long chilly voyage. Beef, however, is apt to lose somewhat of its natural firmness and elasticity; it therefore requires to be carefully stored, and, when cooked, should be subjected for some minutes to very high temperature, which should be subsequently lowered, otherwise the albuminous constitutents will soon drain out in the gravy, leaving the mass of meat stringy, tasteless,