Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1875 — The Gridiron. [ARTICLE]

The Gridiron.

This is a kitchen utensil made of iron, as the name indicates. It differs from a griddle in a very important respect; the griddle is a solid, flat surface on which meat or any compost may be fried in fat. Everybody in the country knows a griddle. It has been in use from time immemorial, and the soft memories of griddlecakes linger in the mind of every one who was raised in this or any other land of cakes. A frying-pan is used for the same purpose as a griddle, and for other purposes, the chief of them indicated by the name. It is for frying. But a gridiron is another and a totally different article. Its nature, design and duty are in a line of service distinct and different in all that concerns the comfort, health and life of the boarder who, tor the time being, is your guest, aud looks to you to be liis minister in things pertaining to his daily foot!. Have you a f rid iron? Or, not having oue, do you now what it is ? It consists of several narrow, separated iron bars usually lying parallel, secured at the ends, so that they will support a slice of meat, or a cleft chicken, over a l>ed of glowing coals. The process of cooking meat on a gridiron is broiling, in contradistinction from frying, which is done in a griddle or pan. In the latter case the flesh is cooked in its own fat, which becomes get or fixed in the meat, baked, jellied, and the food is tough, hard and indigestible. In the broiling process the outside is quickly charred, the juices are retained and the meat is more tender, better flavored and far more digestible. The same difference exists between"baking and roasting. Put a piece of beef or a turkey into a pan and shut it up in a hot oven till it is done and you call it roasted, but it is not; it is baked. Put it on a spit in a Dutch oven standing before the fire, or hang it over the coals and let it cook and drip, basting it meanwhile with things appropriate, and the meat will be ro<uted. The difference between baked and roasted meats is similar to the difference between fried and broiled. And the difference in the taste, though great, is not so great as the difference in the digestibility of the two. The frying-pan is the source of a large part of the dyspepsia that abounds in the country. And so painfully sensible are many people on this subject they will not eat that which is fried, preferring to fast rather than become the victim of a fit of indigestion, which, with them, is sure to follow the eating of meats that are thus cooked. I do not deny that the frying-pan has its fuses. And the saying “ out of the fryingpan into the fire” is *o ancient that it is certain the utensil is of no modern date. But many evils in this world are of long standing, and antiquity is no palliation of their ill-deserts. It does indeed render them more respectable, and much harder of extirpation, but they do not grow better with age; and their respectability does not forbid their criticism.

There is a moral aspect also in which this gridiron'versus frving-pan question is to be viewed. Good digestion is in order to the normal exercise of the moral faculties. Much of that depression of sSpirit which gets the name of religious melancholy, gloom, loss of hope, actual despair, comes of dyspepsia. A writer on physiology says: “Many persons do not exactly knew where their stomach is, and a still larger number are apt to forget that it lies very close underneath the heart.’’ Just so nearly related in morals, as in physics, are the stomach and the heart This is another and constraining consideration in favor of roasting and broiling and against baking and frying our me&t.-*-. I rename," in A r . T. Observer. —Justice of the Peace Northrup, of Ellicottville, N. Y., feels very spiteful toward the Fourth of July. His mightiness went around that day in his magisterial capacity and forbade the ringing of the Episcopal Church bell. One T. R. Aidrick. however, entertained a kind of notion that even a mighty magistrate had no such jurisdiction, and, therelore, as a test, he rang that bell. Next morning, Northrup issued a warrant for AidrickV arrest, charging him with contempt of court, and when the “prisoner” was brought before him he fined him $lO. Aidrick won’t pay, and he wants to know how the high and mighty Northrup is going to Collect that fine.