Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/547

Rh above-stated process with the following ingenious, and easy, method of converting horse-chesnuts into a good and wholesome :

M., a few years since, directed his countrymen, in one of the Paris Journals, first to peel the chesnuts, and to dry them either in the open air, or in a room. When perfectly dry, they should be grated and pounded. The sifted flour is to be passed into a vessel containing water, and there strongly agitated. After standing at rest for an hour, the water is carefully poured off, to prevent the loss of any sediment. This infusion should be repeated eight or nine different times, with a proportionate quantity of water, till the liquor becomes colourless and insipid. The subsided pulp is then fit to be passed into a close linen bag; and, after pressing it, to be slowly dried. The fine floury mass, or starch, thus obtained, will be found free from all bitterness and astringency; it has no longer any disagreeable taste, and affords wholesome nutriment.

Chesnuts, especially the small esculent sort, form an important article of commerce, in Italy, and in the island of Corsica; which latter alone exports annually such quantities as amount in value to 100,000 crowns. The Germans roast them among embers, and eat them with butter and salt; the French, with lemon-juice and sugar, which agrees better with weak stomachs. This leguminous fruit is also employed in several articles of confectionary; as a substitute for coffee, and in the preparation of chocolate.

Although these nuts are palatable, and less oily than most productions of a similar nature, yet, when used in abundance, they are not easy of digestion, and ought therefore to be eaten only by the healthy and robust. To promote their solution and assimilation in the stomach, they require the aid of salt, in a considerable proportion; but the addition of butter renders them still heavier, and tends to retard rather than to accelerate their conversion into alimentary matter.  CHEST, in commerce, a kind of measure, which contains an uncertain quantity of various commodities. Thus, a chest of sugar holds from 10 to 15 cwt.; a chest of glass from 2 to 300 cubic feet; of Castile soap, from $2 1⁄2$ to 3 cwt.; of indigo, from $1 1⁄2$ to 2 cwt.; computed at five score to the hundred.  CHEWING, or mastication, is the action of the teeth, by which solid food is broken, and divided into smaller particles: thus, being at the same time mixed with the saliva, it is better prepared for digestion, both on account of its pulpy state, and the solvent nature of the fluids, secreted by the salival glands, during the exertion of the adjacent muscles. Hence it is obvious, that those persons, who are in the habit of swallowing their meals with expedition, and afterwards inundate the stomach with large potations, do themselves a double injury: 1. Because their food passes through the stomach, only half digested—affording but a scanty supply of real nourishment; and 2. Their saliva is, against the order of Nature, constantly determined to other emunctories, so that it will, sooner or later, produce cutaneous, and painful diseases.

Chewing-Ball for horses, a kind of medicated bolus, for restoring