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Some Kitchen Kinks: Cowpeas

Cowpeas. - Cowpeas (a common leguminous vegetable in the southern United States), also called blackeye peas, Whip-poor-will peas, Lady peas, cornfield peas, etc., are most excellent cooked like shelled beans when green. The young pods are also served like string beans. The ripe, dry beans, which are also very palatable and nutritious, may be cooked like dried beans or lentils.

POTATOES There are many varieties of this vegetable. Tastes differ as to the most desirable kinds. In America and in England the white, mealy varieties are the most prized. On the Continent of Europe the "Yellow Holland" is a favorite variety. The white potato, when light and dry, is of delicate flavor and thought to be easy of digestion. It is especially suited for boiling, steaming, and baking, and for soups and purées. The yellow potatoes are more suitable for preparations in which it is desirable that the whole or pieces of potatoes shall retain their shape when cooked.

Such potatoes are the best kind to use for salads, ragouts, hash, and for the fried potato known as "Pommes de terre soufflée," which is like a Saratoga chip, except that it puffs up like a little sack filled with air. In general the yellow potato has a richer flavor than the white.

The potato is in such common use that it would seem as if all its characteristics would be well understood and it would be cooked in perfection.

Unfortunately, the contrary is true, and perhaps no other vegetable is so carelessly cooked as a rule.

The potato is a starchy food that contains enough moisture in its composition to cook the starch. This moisture is in the form of a watery juice, in which is dissolved the nitrogenous matter, the various salts, sugar, gum, etc. The starch cells are surrounded and penetrated by this watery bath. In cooking, the nitrogenous juice is coagulated in part at least by the heat, the starch granules swell and burst, and the starch absorbs the watery part of the juice. When this stage is reached, if the moisture has been in the right proportion, all parts of the potato will present a light, dry, glistening appearance. Every one concedes that such a potato will not cause digestive disturbance. However, the moisture is not always in the right proportion. Ripe potatoes and potatoes grown on a well-drained or sandy soil will, as a rule, be dry and mealy if properly cooked. Potatoes grown in a wet season or in a heavy, damp soil as a rule contain too large a proportion of moisture for the starch. Old potatoes that are allowed to sprout will be watery, probably owing to the withdrawal of some of the starch for food for the growing sprouts.

A poisonous substance called solanin is found in or near the skin of potatoes which have grown exposed to the sun or a strong light. Solanin also develops when potatoes are allowed to sprout, and serious illness has been known to follow the eating of exposed and sprouted potatoes.

The green color which a potato exposed to a strong light takes on is largely due to the grains of chlorophyll developed in the parts of the tuber exposed to the light. The strong flavor is probably due to some substance which develops along with the chlorophyll. It will be seen that potatoes intended for the table should not be exposed to strong light or be allowed to sprout.