Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/398

384 cuisine. Sea-weeds, as laver, and the whole tribe of mushrooms should be named, as ranking much higher in nutritive value than green vegetables. Pumpkins, marrows, and cucumbers, chestnuts, and other nuts largely support life in some countries. The bread-fruit is of high value; so also are the cocoanut and the banana in tropical climates.

Lastly must be named all those delicious but not very nutritive products of most varied kind and source, grouped under the name of fruits. These are characterized chiefly by the presence of sugar, acid, vegetable jelly, and some saline matter, often combined with scent and flavor of exquisite quality. Derived from grapes as its chief source, stands wine in its innumerable varieties, so closely associated by all civilized nations with the use of aliments, although not universally admitted to rank in technical language as a food. Next may be named sugar in its various forms, a non-nitrogenous product of great value, and in a less degree, honey. No less important are the tea-plant, the coffee-berry, and the seeds of the cacao-tree.

There is a single element belonging to the mineral kingdom which is taken in its natural state as an addition to food, namely, common salt; and it is so universally recognized as necessary that it can not be omitted here. The foregoing list possesses no claim to be exhaustive, only to be fairly typical and suggestive; many omissions, which some may think important, doubtless exist. In like manner, a rapid survey may be taken of the animal kingdom.

First, the flesh of domestic quadrupeds: the ox and sheep, both adult and young; the pig; the horse and ass, chiefly in France. Milk, butter, and cheese in endless variety are derived chiefly from this group. More or less wild are the red deer, the fallow deer, and the roe deer. As game, the hare and rabbit; abroad, the bison, wild boar, bear, chamois, and kangaroo, are esteemed for food among civilized nations; but many other animals are eaten by half-civilized and savage peoples. All these are rich in nitrogen, fatty matters, and saline materials.

Among birds, we have domestic poultry in great variety of size and quality, with eggs in great abundance furnished chiefly by this class. All the wild fowl and aquatic birds; the pigeon tribe and the small birds. Winged game in all its well-known variety.

Of fish it is unnecessary to enumerate the enormous supply and the various species which exist everywhere, and especially on our own shores, from the sturgeon to whitebait, besides those in fresh-water rivers and lakes. All of them furnish nitrogenous matter largely, but, and particularly the white fish, possess fat in very small proportion, and little of saline materials. The salmon, mackerel, and herring tribes have more fat, the last-named in considerable quantity, forming a useful food well calculated to supplement cereal aliments, and largely adopted for the purpose both in the south and north of Europe.

The so-called reptiles furnish turtle, tortoise, and edible frog.