Meat pies, scallops, sauces, fricassees, pates, and other fancy dishes composed of a mixture of animal foods, rich pastry, fats, strong condiments, etc., are by no means to be recommended as hygienic, and will receive no notice in these pages.

In comparative nutritive value, beef ranks first among the flesh foods.  Mutton, though less nutritive, is more easily digested than beef.  This is not appreciable to a healthy person, but one whose digestive powers are weak will often find that mutton taxes the stomach less than beef.

Veal or lamb is neither so nutritious nor so easily digested as beef or mutton.  Flesh from different animals, and that from various parts of the same animal, varies in flavor, composition, and digestibility.  The mode of life and the food of animals influence in a marked manner the quality of the meat.  Turnips give a distinctly recognizable flavor to mutton.  The same is true of many fragrant herbs found by cattle feeding in pastures.

THE SELECTION OF MEAT.—­Good beef is of a reddish-brown color and contains no clots of blood.  A pale-pink color indicates that the animal was diseased; a dark-purple color that the animal has suffered from some acute febrile affection or was not slaughtered, but died with the blood in its body.

Good beef is firm and elastic to the touch; when pressed with the finger, no impression is left.  It should be so dry upon the surface as scarcely to moisten the fingers.  Meat that is wet, sodden, and flabby should not be eaten.  Good beef is marbled with spots of white fat.  The suet should be dry and crumble easily.  If the fat has the appearance of wet parchment or is jelly-like, the beef is not good.  Yellow fat is an indication of old, lean animals.

Good beef has little or no odor.  If any odor is perceptible, it is not disagreeable.  Diseased meat has a sickly odor, resembling the breath of feverish persons.  When such meat is roasted, it emits a strong, offensive smell.  The condition of a piece of beef may be ascertained by dipping a knife in hot water, drying it, and passing it through the meat.  Apply to the nose on withdrawal, and if the meat is not good, a disagreeable odor will be quite perceptible.

Good beef will not shrink greatly in cooking.  In boiling or stewing, the shrinkage is computed to be about one pound in four; in baking, one and one fourth pounds in four.  Beef of a close, firm fiber shrinks less than meat of coarse fiber.

Good veal is slightly reddish or pink, and the fat should be white and clear.  Avoid veal without fat, as such is apt to be too young to be wholesome.

Good mutton should be firm and compact, the flesh, fine-grained and bright-red, with an accumulation of very hard and clear white fat along the borders of the muscles.

Meat should not be kept until decomposition sets in, as by the putrefaction of the albuminous elements certain organic poisons are generated, and flesh partaken of in this condition is liable to result in serious illness.  Meat containing white specks is probably infested by parasites and should not be used as food.