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18
Butters are certainly not good, regarded in the light of productions
from milk. Of 17 samples, more than one-half were not
altogether genuine; 6 were spurious, and 3 partly so. Where the
melting point is very high, the so-called butter consists of animal
fat of the character of tallow and lard; where it is very low, we have
butterine. One feature of the imitation butters is their comparative
dryness; they contain little water, and are very free from
taste. Instead of the 12 to 15 per cent, of water which we find in
good butters, we have only from 5 to 6 per cent. No. 21, which
was sold as butter, was almost tasteless. It was perfectly clean,
and was unobjectionable as a mere fat for cooking purposes.
Indeed it was superior to the genuine article, No. 35. One very
usual feature of a spurious butter is the cleanness, which exhibits
careful manipulation. I would sum up my experience of sham
butters in the last quarter of the past year in the following words:
dry, clean, tasteless and inodorous fats, perfectly wholesome if they
can be relished, and a fair commercial article if sold cheaply as an
imitation.
Two Lards have been examined and approved. They have been
tested both chemically and microscopically, and the results were
quite satisfactory.
Six Breads and three Flours next claim attention. At the
present time the character of Bread is only second to that of milk.
To what extent the nutritive quality of flour is reduced, by the
removal of the husk and bran, we learn by comparing the three
Flours which have been analysed. The percentage of nitrogen in
English Super Whites amounted to l.32, or 1J parts per hundred
of the flour. This is equal to 8.36 per cent, of gluten. The
percentage of nitrogen in Hungarian Flour was equal to 1.14
parts; that of gluten to 7.21 parts per hundred. But in Whole
Meal Flour the percentage of nitrogen was 1.7 parts per hundred,
which is equal to 10.76 parts per hundred of gluten. Taken by themselves,
these facts would be conclusive as to the greater value of
the whole-meal flour for making bread. But we cannot thus
easily decide.
The coarseness of whole-meal flour creates a difficulty in making
good bread. It is very retentive of water, and the resulting article