[Illustration: Photograph by Helen W. Cooke
The dictionary says that "to cook" is "to prepare food by subjecting it to heat"; a brief and simple definition including some thousands of processes ranging from the universal cooking done by the sun to that performed by an accomplished French chef.
The object of cooking is to make food more digestible and more attractive. For changes occur in food when it is subjected to heat which make it more easily used by the body and which make it more agreeable in flavour--more "appetizing." An incidental but important benefit from cooking is that great heat kills the animal organisms which food sometimes contains.
The most usual processes of cooking are broiling, boiling, stewing, braising, frying, roasting and baking.
_Broiling._--Food is broiled by being held close to a fire of glowing red coals. The utensil needed for doing this is a wire broiler, which should be greased before the meat is laid in it, preferably with a bit of fat from the meat. In broiling, the chief object is to keep the juices of the meat from running out. For this reason the meat is laid close over the red coals for about ten seconds, then turned with the other side to the coals that both may be seared almost at once. Afterward it is turned frequently to prevent burning. Broiled meat is not seasoned until it is done because salt draws out its juices. Care is also taken not to cut or pierce the meat while it is cooking.
Steaks and chops are almost always broiled; fish, chicken and oysters are frequently cooked in this way.
Broiling may be done in a frying pan heated intensely hot, and greased as the wires of the broiler were with a bit of fat from the meat--a tiny bit. The meat is laid in the pan, first on one side for a few seconds, then on the other. It is turned, as when broiling over the coals, often enough to keep it from burning.
Articles of food which are thin need a hotter fire, or to be laid nearer the fire than thicker ones. This assures that the time required to brown the outside will be too brief to dry the article through and through.
A thick piece of meat will not cook through to the middle for some time and should therefore be exposed to a slower fire that the outside may not be hard before the inside is cooked. These principles apply also to the roasting and baking of thick and thin articles of food.