Anne Cazor

Hervé This

Robert Méric

Comptes Rendus Chimie

http://france.elsevier.com/direct/CRAS2C/C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–1515Historic chronicle / Chronique historiqueLavoisier and meat stockHervé This*, Robert Méric, Anne Cazor* Corresponding autE-mail address: he1631-0748/$ - see frondoi:10.1016/j.crci.2006Groupe INRA de gastronomie moléculaire, laboratoire de chimie des interactions moléculaires,collège de France, place Marcelin-Berthelot, 75005 Paris, FranceReceived 19 June 2006; accepted after revision 13 July 2006Available online 23 August 2006AbstractAntoine-Laurent de Lavoisier published his results on ‘meat stock’ preparation in 1783. Measuring density, he stated that ‘foodprinciples’ were better extracted using a large quantity of water. This result was checked. To cite this article: H. This et al.,C. R. Chimie 9 (2006).© 2006 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.RésuméDans un article datant de 1783, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier décrit ses études des « bouillons de viande ». En mesurant ladensité des solutions aqueuses obtenues par cuisson de tissu musculaire de bœuf (Bos taurus) dans de l’eau par un dispositif de saconception, il détermine la quantité de matière dissoute. Ses expériences, refaites dans les conditions historiques, ont été comparéesà des mesures effectuées à l’aide d’outils modernes : comme l’écrit Lavoisier, la quantité de matière sèche augmente avec laquantité d’eau utilisée pour l’extraction ; en revanche, la précision affichée était sans doute exagérée. Pour citer cet article :H. This et al., C. R. Chimie 9 (2006).© 2006 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.Keywords: Lavoisier; Meat; Stock; Molecular gastronomy; DensityMots-clés : Lavoisier ; Viande ; Bouillon ; Gastronomie moléculaire ; Densité1. IntroductionMeat stock, i.e. the aqueous solution obtained bythermal processing of animal tissues in water, hasbeen a very important food in history of mankind, asit is already mentioned by Apicius, four centuries BC[1]; in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, stock recipeswere put at the beginning of most French culinarybooks [2–4]. Since the 18th century, many chemistswere interested in meat-stock preparation [5–9].hor.rve.this@college-de-france.fr (H. This).t matter © 2006 Académie des sciences. Published b.07.002Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (Paris, 1743—id., 1794)is perhaps the most famous chemist involved in thiswork. In 1783, he studied meat-stock preparationusing density to evaluate its quality [10]. We reporthere experimental tests of his results.Lavoisier was a ‘general farmer’ as well as a mem-ber of the Academy of Sciences, to which the govern-ment asked questions of social or political interest thatneeded experiments [11]. He was interested in meatstock after the Minister of Navy consulted the RoyalSociety of Medicine about the diet that hospitals shoulduse. It was recognized that meat stock was not properlyknown, and, in particular, that the proportions of meatand water and the quality of meat used were noty Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.Table 1Density and dry matter results from LavoisierProportion of meat/water Density measured(data from Lavoisier)Dry matter (g for 1 l of wateradded to the meat)Sensory appreciation0.25 1.002322 3.8871 Very weak0.5 1.003080 5.1907 Weak but enough for convalescent1 1.007347 12.6763 Strong, goodH. This et al. / C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–1515 1511assessed. In his 1783 article, Lavoisier quotes Geoffroyle Cadet [8], who published in 1730 a work on the sametopic: Geoffroy le Cadet wanted to analyze the chemi-cal composition of stock, so that he boiled meat manytimes, always changing the water he used (he later eva-porated the water to know the quantity of ‘extractive’material dissolved from the meat). In comparison,Lavoisier wanted only to know the total mass of the‘matter’ (he writes “gelatinous matter”) that meat wasloosing in water during stock preparation done accord-ing to traditional culinary rules. It should be noted thatLavoisier, as other chemists of the same time, assumesthat the dry matter is “nutritious”, not considering thechemical composition of this dry matter. This assump-tion was the basis of a later dispute between French andGerman chemists [12].There is no ‘Materials and Methods’ section inLavoisier’s paper. However, he describes carefullyhow he determined dry matter of stocks using a specialdensitometer he built himself (see below). Using thisdevice, Lavoisier wrote that he could determine densitywith a precision of 10−6, but he did not explain how hewas doing this calculation. His first study was to deter-mine the proportion of meat and stock that makes a‘proper’ stock. He changed these proportions fromfour pounds of water per pound of meat up to onepound of meat for one pound of water. His results forFig. 1. Plot of the dry matter as a function tSemimembranosus beef muscle are given in Table 1and plotted in Fig. 1; the perfect correlation (R2 = 1)between density and dry matter of stocks at differentproportions of meat is surprising.Anyway Lavoisier concludes from his experimentsthat “the proper proportion to make stock is about twopart of water for one part of meat.” This conclusion isbased on a very rough interpolation of a limited numberof experiments (it is not even said if the experimentswere repeated with different meats from one animal orof different animals). A second conclusion given in thepaper is that there is a good correlation between densityand dry matter content. Third Lavoisier concludes thatthere is more extracted matter when meat is boiled in alarge quantity of water than when boiled in a limitedquantity of water. Then Lavoisier compares differentkinds of meat of the same animal and observes largedifferences in density and in dry matter. In this part, itis said that cooking lasted 7–8 h, in boiling water.Again, the same correspondence appears between den-sity and dry matter content, which makes Lavoisierconcludes that a physician “who wants to know howmuch nutritious matter he gives to some customer canmeasure the density of stock.”What can we keep today from such studies? Werepeated Lavoisier’s experiment in much more con-o density, as determined by Lavoisier.H. This et al. / C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–15151512trolled conditions, compared them with results from dif-ferent methods.2. Materials and methodsIn our experiments, we used the same ‘culinary’method as Lavoisier, but we followed a much stricterprotocol. In particular, meat was heated in distilledwater, in vessels equipped with reflux column, so thatno ‘matter’ could escape and a better appreciation ofwhat was lost from the meat could be measured. AsLavoisier gave no indication on the quantity of sodiumchloride he used, we used no such salt.Meat and stock were weighed at various times dur-ing cooking with a Mettler PJ300 balance of precision0.001 g and a Mettler H15 balance of precision0.0001 g.Beef meat was purchased from the local butcher(Boucherie de la Montagne, Paris). In all experiments,one single piece was divided into two parts, so thatabout the same quantity of fat and collagen tissue waspresent in both pieces (these quantities were notassessed). One piece was processed at T = 100 °Cwith a large quantity of water (details given below),and the other with a smaller quantity of water (sametemperature). In order to see potential differences, weincreased the difference of water content in both cases.2.1. Series of experiments No. 1(a) Meat pieces of two origins were used: (I and II)Supraspinatus; origin France; producer SARL Chardon,42310 Chagny; female having bred, No. 206675 Char-olais Terroir; slaughtering No. 68922); (III and IV)Semimembranosus; origin France, Limousine, no otherindication). For these pieces, slices (thickness about1 cm) were cut perpendicularly to the fibers and cookedeither with a small or a large quantity of water, until themeat disrupted (885 min for I and II, 1268 min for IIIand IV).(b) Semimembranosus (origin France; producerLouis Cannet, 71140 Chateauneuf; female that did notbred; animal number 112; weight 245.900 kg; number68729; birth date 27/03/1999; slaughtering No. EEC:01.187.01) was divided into four parts:● (I) 48.39 g;● (II) 70.38 g;● (III) 80.67 g;● (IV) 73.33 g.Meat pieces I and II were put in 215 ml water,whereas pieces III and IV were cooked with 3200 mlwater. At various times, the pieces were taken out of theheating vessel, dried using a cloth and weighed.2.2. Series of experiments No. 2Here Biceps femoris (same origin than in experiment1b) was used to determine the dry matter content ofstock prepared either with a large or a small quantityof water. Samples of stock were taken up using a pre-cision syringe (the quantity was weighted using the bal-ance), and dried under vacuum for 2 days.In order to keep the water volume constant, a quan-tity of water equal to the quantity of stock taken up wasadded.In order to test the importance of gelatine present inthe solution, we compared meat (Biceps femoris, sameorigin than in experiment 1b) pieces of precisely knowmass (about 200 g) cooked in the same quantity ofwater (500 g), but with a different quantity (preciselyweighted, respectively, about 10 and 40 g) of dissolvedgelatine (gelatine sheets for food uses, quality brandNo. 1, Elodie, Bressols Inc.).3. Results and discussion3.1. Series of experiments No. 1: total lossesIn order to make a balance between what goes outfrom the meat, and what comes into the stock, webegan our experiments by measuring the total lossesfrom meat (a). It was measured that water content inthe vessel increased during cooking, because of meatcontraction (this contraction is due to collagen dena-turation). However, the method used is not preciseenough to observe the effect described by Lavoisier,in particular because there are large differences accord-ing to the different pieces of meat (Lavoisier gave noinformation on how to take this phenomenon intoaccount and even if he considered it). Accordingly,we changed the method and made a kinetic study (b).Here again, no significant difference could be measuredusing this protocol, because of the large uncertaintieson meat masses (Fig. 2).3.2. Series of experiments No. 2: kinetic of dry matterlossesIn order to improve the results, we moved to mea-surements of the dry matter content of stock, as Lavoi-Fig. 2. Measurement of dry matter in meat stock, series no. 1.Table 2Total losses in experiment No. 2I IIInitial mass (g) 147.930 156.050Water mass (g) 250.000 1000.000Total mass in the vessels 397.93 1156.05Final meat mass (g) 62.429 64.193Mass lost by the meat (g) 85.501 91.857Relative loss 0.58 0.59Final mass of water (g) 335.501 1091.857Fig. 3. Mass of meat cooked in function of time.H. This et al. / C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–1515 1513sier did. Results are given in Table 2. In order to calcu-late the dry matter quantity recovered from meat,assumptions were based on other experiments [12]that showed that, in the same conditions as in theexperiments done for this study, the mass of the meatis decreasing for about 2 h, after which the decrease isvery slow, as shown in Fig. 3. As the first sample ofexperiment No. 2 is obtained after more than 2 h, thedry matter content is calculated on the basis of the finalvolume (335.501 g for I and 1091.857 g for II). Thisdry matter content is given in Fig. 4.Fig. 4. Dry matter in meat stock in function oStrictly speaking, our results cannot be compared toLavoisier’s, because he did not indicate how long hewas cooking the meat, but we find the same overalltendency: meat stocks obtained from a certain quantityof meat have more dry matter content when the volumeof the solution is larger. Why? This is not obvious, andf time for two meat/water proportions.H. This et al. / C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–15151514should be explained using a first-order model of meat[13]. Muscles are two-part compartments system. Mus-cular fibers, on the one hand, are limited by membranesmade of phospholipids (with protein channels that cantransport specific ions). These cells are covered by col-lagen tissue that makes bundles, and bundles of bun-dles, etc. Accordingly, exchange with the solutionshould be limited. Indeed previous experiments showedthat the mass of meat cooked in water is not changingmuch with time, after about 2 h of process, when thetemperature inside meat is equal to the temperature instock; during a first step, before this time, collagenshrinking is probably controlling water losses from themeat toward the stock [14]. Later, dry matter increasesbecause of collagen gelatinization, collagen diffusionand collagen hydrolysis. This can explain why dry mat-ter increases with time. During this second step, diffu-sion from the inside of muscular fibers, or within thegelatinized collagenic tissue, is dependent on somedriving force, which is the concentration differencebetween the gelatinized tissue and the solution. Inorder to test this assumption, we cooked two pieces ofmeat in the same conditions, except that the cookingmedium of one piece was added with pure gelatine:the significantly different losses (respectively, 47 and51%) could explain the differences in dry matter con-tent in stocks made using little or much water.3.3. Series of experiment no. 3: density measurementsEven if Lavoisier was right in assessing the dry mat-ter content of stock, the R2 = 1.0 regression coefficientthat can be calculated from his data is surprising. More-over, the six digits on density values are notoriouslydifficult to measure. This is why we repeated his pro-tocol in order to check his results.Lavoisier described carefully the densitometer heused: “Le pèse liqueur dont je me sers est un cylindrecreux formé d’une feuille d’argent mince, assez fortecependant pour ne pas se plier et se déformer quandon essuie l’instrument. Ce cylindre est lesté par le basavec de l’étain fin, et il est surmonté, à son extrémitésupérieure, par une tige de fil d’argent de 3/4 de ligneenviron de diamètre, à laquelle est adapté un petitgodet destiné à recevoir des poids ; j’ai fait une marquesur la tige à l’endroit jusques auquel le pèse-liqueurdoit être enfoncé. Lorsque cet instrument est construitet qu’il est lesté de manière à être un peu plus léger quele volume d’eau qu’il déplace, on le pèse à une balancetrès exacte, on le plonge dans de l’eau distillée, puis onajoute, sur le petit bassin supérieur, le nombre degrains et de fractions de grain nécessaire pour lefaire enfoncer jusqu’à la marque pratiquée sur latige ; on fait la même opération avec la liqueur donton veut déterminer la pesanteur spécifique, et par lerapport du poids total, tant du pèse-liqueur que desgrains qui y ont été ajoutés, on conclut la pesanteurspécifique en millionièmes. Le pèse-liqueur quej’emploie déplace un peu plus de 9 onces d’eaudistillée. Je suis entré dans quelques détails sur cetinstrument, parce qu’il peut être d’un usage commodedans un grand nombre d’opérations de pharmacie, etque, d’ailleurs, quoique je m’en serve habituellement,je n’en ai donné la description dans aucun autremémoire.” [Personal translation: “The densitometerthat I used is a hollow cylinder made from a silversheet, thick enough to avoid bending and deformingwhile the tool is whipped. This cylinder is added withweights at the lower tip with tin, and its upper part isadjusted with a silver thread about 3/4 of line, the uppertip being fitted with a small bowl that can acceptweights; I made a mark on this rod at the level towhich the densitometer had to reach. When this toolis constructed and when the weights are fitted so thatit is slightly lighter than the water volume it displaces, itis weighted with a very precise balance, it is put indistilled water, then in the upper bowl small weightsare added so that the mark on the rod is reached; thenthe same operation is done with the liquid whose den-sity is to be measured, and the density in millionth iscalculated. The densitometer that I used dislodgesslightly more than 9 onces of distilled water. I gavesome details on this tool because it can be used inmany experiments of drug confectionary, and, as I useit in other memoirs, I did not give indications to make itelsewhere].Repeating Lavoisier’s experiment showed how care-ful an experimentalist he was. In particular, the idea ofhaving a very thin tube at the upper part is clever,because it is easily calculated that between two rodsof radius R1 and R2, the ratio of sinking is (R2/R1)2.In our experiments, we replaced Lavoisier’s silvercylinder with a capillary tube (Hirschmann Laborgeräte5 μl, 7.642 cm long, external diameter 1.3 mm,R ≤ 0.3%; or Corning capillary tube 20 μl). This tubewas glued on top of a fishing float with lead beads atthe bottom, so that its sinking could be preciselyadjusted, as Lavoisier did. As in Lavoisier’s experi-ments, a bowl was glued at the top of the capillarytube, and small pieces of paper were added so that therod sank to a certain level written on the rod. Distilledwater was compared to a solution made by dissolving a[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10[11[12[13[14H. This et al. / C. R. Chimie 9 (2006) 1510–1515 1515precisely weighted quantity of previously dried gela-tine; all our experiments were done at a carefully con-trolled temperature (± 0.1 °C), in order to avoid densityvariations with temperature (Lavoisier did not give anyindication that he checked temperatures).Calculating the density d of the solution of gelatineis obtained by solving a two-equation system whosesolution is: d = 1 + (m/M), where m is the mass addedin the upper bowl and M the mass of the densitometer(the calculation shows how smart it was to keep thedensitometer at the same level, in terms of uncertain-ties). With the values we used, the density was foundequal to 1.0018. Unless Lavoisier did use some devicethat was not described in his article, it is doubtful thathe could obtain a precision better than ours (0.0001).But it is also clear, from our experiments, that he wasable to see the differences in stocks. The question of theR2 = 1 remains.References[1] Apicius, L’art culinaire (De Re Coquinaria), Les belles lettres,Paris, 1987.P.F. La Varenne, Le cuisinier François, Pierre David, Paris,1651.Menon, La cuisinière bourgeoise à l’usage de tout ceux qui semêlent de dépenses de maisons, Guillyn, Paris, 1756.A. Carême, M. Plumerey, L’art de la cuisine française auXIXe siècle, Carême, Paris, 1981.A.A. Cadet de Vaux, De la gélatine et de son bouillon, L. Colasfils, Paris, 1818.J.J.P. Darcet, La gélatine extraite des os et les diverses applica-tions qu’on peut en faire à l’économie domestique, M. Moleon,Paris, 1830 (p. 16).N. Lemery, Traité des aliments, Pierre Writte, Paris, 1705(p. 225).M. Geoffroy le Cadet, mémoires de l’Académie royale, histoirede l’Académie royale des sciences, année MDCCXXX, PierreMortier, Amsterdam, MDCCXXXIII, p. 312.J. Liebig, Nouvelles lettres sur la chimie, Charpentier, Paris,1852, p. 193.] A.-L. de Lavoisier, Œuvres complètes, Imprimerie nationale,Paris, t. III, 1862–1893. pp. 563–578.] J.-P. Poirier, Lavoisier, Pygmalion/Gérard Watelet, Paris, 1993.] H. This, G. Bram, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. IIc (1998) 675.] J.-P. Girard (Ed.), Technologie de la viande et des produitscarnés, Tec et Doc, Paris, 1998.] T.W. Powell, M.C. Hunt, M.E. Dikeman, Meat Sci. 54 (2000)307.

Lavoisier and meat stock

https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/chimie/item/10.1016/j.crci.2006.07.002.pdf

Lavoisier and meat stock

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Comptes Rendus Chimie