Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/114

104 wholesome, and—sentimentally regarded—less objectionable, than the fat obtained from the carcass of a slaughtered animal.

When common sense and true sentiment supplant mere unreasoning prejudice, vegetable oils and vegetable fats will largely supplant those of animal origin in every element of our dietary. We are but just beginning to understand them. Chevreul, who was the first to teach us the chemistry of fats, is still living, and we are only learning, how to make butter (not "inferior Dorset," but "choice Normandy") without the aid of dairy produce. There is, therefore, good reason for anticipating that the inexhaustible supplies of oil obtainable from the vegetable world—especially from tropical vegetation—will ere long be freely available for kitchen uses, and the now popular product of the Chicago hog factories will be altogether banished therefrom, and used only for greasing cart-wheels and other machinery.

As a practical conclusion of this part of my subject, I will quote from this month's number of "The Oil Trade Review" the current wholesale prices of some of the oils possibly available for frying purposes. Olive-oil, from £43 to £90 per ton of 252 gallons; Cod-oil, £36 per ton; Sardine or train (i. e., the oil that drains from pilchards, herrings, sardines, etc., when salted), £27 10s. to £28 per ton. Cocoa-nut, from £35 to £38 per ton of 20 cwt. (This, in the case of oil, is nearly the same as the measured ton.) Palm, from £38 to £40 10s. per ton; Palm-nut or copra, £31 10s. per ton; Refined cotton-seed, £30 10s. to £31 per ton; Lard, £53 to £55 per ton. The above are the extreme ranges of each class. I have not copied the technical names and prices of the intermediate varieties. One penny per pound is $$=$$ £9 6s. 8d. per ton, or, in round numbers, £1 per ton may be reckoned as one ninth of a penny per pound. Thus the present price of best refined cotton-seed oil is 3½d. per pound; of cocoanut-oil, 3¾d.; palm-oil, from 3½d. to 4½d., while lard costs 6d. per pound wholesale—usually 7d.

I should add, in reference to the seed-oils, that there is a possible objection to their use as frying media. Oils extracted from seeds contain more or less of linoleine (so named from its abundance in linseed-oil), which, when exposed to the air, combines with oxygen, swells and dries. If the oil from cotton-seed or poppy-seed contains too much of this, it will thicken inconveniently when kept for a length of time exposed to the air. Palm-oil is practically free from it, but I am doubtful respecting palm-nut-oil, as most of the nut-oils are "driers."—Knowledge.