The subject of meat is so comprehensive, it would be impossible to describe it fully in this one chapter. It is a subject that needs the most careful consideration in the home, for it is on this particular point that the greatest waste is likely to occur.

It is claimed that the American housewife is to blame for the high prices of meat, because her knowledge of the different cuts is limited to the ribs and the loins The ribs of the animal comprise less than one-tenth of the beef carcass. The loins weigh less than one-sixth. So for every pound of loin there are more than five pounds of other good meat, and about nine pounds of meat to every pound of ribs. Then why not familiarize oneself with the different cuts, and specially the cheaper ones, which, if properly prepared, are more nutritious than the choicest cuts.

The question of time in planning and preparation plays an important part in the consumption of meat.

Many housekeepers, unmindful of the fact that it is economy of time and materials to plan menus two or perhaps three days ahead, are likely to forget completely about the menu until an hour or so before the meal is to be served; then in their hurry and confusion, they order fillet of beef, porterhouse steak or prime rib roasts, knowing that those are the few tender cuts that will need practically no preparation, and will take but a short time to cook. Many delectable dishes may be prepared from the poorest cuts of meat, but they need long, slow cooking, and perhaps the addition of spices and vegetables. Often a cheap cut of meat will be greatly improved, if the day before it is to be used it is carefully rubbed with olive oil and lemon juice, the acid of the lemon being a great help in tearing down the tough fibres.

Our European neighbors are skilled in the preparation of delicious dishes from every part of the animal. If it were not for the products of beef, the cost of meat would be still higher than it is at the present time.

Every particle of the animal is used. Gelatine and glue are extracted from the bones. Combs, buttons, and knife handles are manufactured from the horns, bones and hoofs.

Roughly speaking, about one-third of the animal is sold as offal.

Certain parts of the animal are sold as edible offal, such as the hearts, livers, ox-tails, sweetbreads, kidneys and kidney fat, which is used in the manufacture of butterine. The stomach is cleansed and sold as tripe. The intestines are cleansed, salted and used for sausage casings. The blood is converted into sausage, and owing to the large percentage of albumin it contains it is also coagulated and dried and used in the refining of sugar, also as fertilizers.

The skins are sent to the tanneries. The long hairs are used in the making of mattresses.

If the housewife would familiarize herself with the science of economy to the extent that packers have had to, the cost of living would soon drop at least 50 per cent.

Animal foods are divided into three classes: Meat, eggs, and milk. These foods are characterized by the nitrogenous elements or protein which they contain in abundance.

Approximate chemical composition of meat:

Water: 12 to 75 per cent.

Fat: 3 per cent in dried beef to 90 per cent in fat pork.

Protein: 10 to 22 per cent.

Carbohydrates: only a very slight amount.

Meat, to be wholesome and nutritious, should come from a healthy, well-nourished animal. The tougher cuts of meat are the much used muscles which absorb much food, making the meat rich and juicy.

1. Beef in the best condition should come from an animal from four to five years old and grass fattened. Stall fed animals contain a surplus amount of fat, not useful beyond a certain limit.

2. The meat is marbled with firm, light streaks of fat running through the muscular tissues.

3. Deep yellow fat indicates age.

4. The lean should be firm and elastic and when first cut, purplish red.

5. Flabby, dark, coarse beef, with yellow fat, comes from an old, underfed animal.

6. The skeleton of the animal is covered with a thick layer of muscular fibers, known as the lean.

7. These muscles are composed of bundles of hundreds of slender threads, held together bv connective tissues.

8. Each fibre is a bundle of tube-shaped cells, filled chiefly with protein substances.

9. There is not a movement of the body that does not require the aid of one or more sets of muscles. The more active they are the more freely the blood Hows through them.

10. The neck, shoulder, sides and legs are exercised more than the back, and consequently are tougher cuts.

11. The cooking of meat is to improve the flavor and appearance, to soften the fibers and connecting tissues,

12. When lean meat is subjected to a process of long, slow cooking, the connective tissues become gelatinized and help to hold the lean libers together in a solid, tender, juicy mass. If, on the contrary, the lean meat is subjected to a high temperature, the connective tissues will be destroyed and the meat will separate into long, tough fibers.

13. When a choice, tender cut of meat is cooked it is subjected to intense heat, which hardens the albumin on its surface, thereby sealing up the juices inside, then to a lower temperature to complete the cooking of these juices.

14. There are in all nine different cuts: Chuck, rib, loin, rump, round, fore-shoulder, hind-shank, navel-end, and brisket.

15 The rib and loin sell for nearly twice as much as the round, and from two to ten times as much as the other cuts.

The most common mistake made in preparing left-over meats is in cooking them again, instead of merely re-warming. In the majority of recipes the re-heating is done in a sauce. Upon this depends the flavor and success of the dish. The sauce should be first made, and the meat cooked in it only long enough to be thoroughly heated and seasoned. Where cream sauces are used it is better and safer to put them in a farina boiler and then add the meat.

The seasoning of re-cooked meats requires special skill, for the law of combination is by no means fixed. Veal and chicken arc the easiest meats to re-cook. Beef comes next. Lamb and mutton more often tax the resources. They need more palatable seasoning. A little acid, like chopped pickle or olive, or a tablespoonful of capers adds to their flavor, Game is usually cut into delicate slices, or minced and re-warmed in a brown sauce to which currant or other acid jellies, spices or condiments have been added.