Essays; Political, Economical, and Philosophical Part 14

This sum (1L. 7s. 6 2/3.) divided by 1200, the number of portions of soup, gives for each portion ONE FARTHING very nearly; or accurately, 1 1/40 farthing.

The quant.i.ty of each of the ingredients contained in one portion of soup is as follows:

In avoirdupois weight.

Ingredients. Soup, No I. Soup, No II.

Of pearl barley 1 1058/1200 0 1129/1200 Of peas ... ... 1 960/1200 0 1050/1200 Of potatoes ... ------ 3 84/1200 Of bread ... ... 0 1114/1200 0 1114/1200 ----------- -------------- Total solids 4 772/1200 5 977/1200 Of salt ... ... 0 316/1200 0 316/1200 Of weak vinegar 0 748/1200 0 748/1200 Of water ... ... 14 432/1200 13 127/1200 ----------- -------------- Total 19 968/1200 19 968/1200

The expence of preparing these soups will vary with the prices of the articles of which they are composed; but as the quant.i.ties of the ingredients, determined by weight, are here given, it will be easy to ascertain exactly what they will cost in any case whatever.

Suppose, for instance, it were required to determine how much 1200 portions of the Soup, No. I. would cost in London at this present moment, (the 12th of November 1795,) when all kinds of provisions are uncommonly dear. I see by a printed report of the Board of Agriculture, of the day before yesterday (November 10), that the prices of the articles necessary for preparing these soups were as follows:

Barley, per bushel weighing 46lb. at 5s. 6d. which gives for each pound about 1 1/2d; but prepared as pearl barley, it will cost at least two pence per pound[6].

Boiling peas per bushel, weighing 61 1/4lb. (at 10s.) which gives for each pound nearly 1 1/2d.

Potatoes, per bushel, weighing 58 1/2lb. at 2s. 6d. which gives nearly one halfpenny for each pound.

And I find that a quartern loaf of wheaten bread, weighing 4lb.

5oz. costs now in London 1s. 0 1/4d.;--this bread must therefore be reckoned at 11 25/69 farthings per pound.

Salt costs 1 1/2. per pound; and vinegar (which is probably six times as strong as that stuff called vinegar which is used in the kitchen of the House of Industry at Munich) costs 1s. 8d. per gallon.

This being premised, the computations may be made as follows:

Expence of preparing in London, in the month of November 1795, 1200 portions of the Soup, No I.

lb oz s d L. s. d.

141 2 pearl barley, at 0 2 per lb. 1 12 6 131 4 peas, at 0 1 1/2 ------ 0 16 4 69 10 wheaten bread, at 0 11 25/99 ------ 0 16 6 19 13 salt, at 0 1 1/2 ------ 0 2 5 1/2 Vinegar, one gallon, at 1 8 ------ 0 1 8 Expences for fuel, servants, kitchen furniture, etc. reckoning three times as much as those articles of expence amount to daily at Munich ... ... ... ... ... 0 10 4 1/4 ------------- Total 3 9 9 1/4

Which sum (3L. 9s. 9 1/4d.) divided by 1200, the number of portions of soup, gives 2 951/1200 farthings, or nearly 2 3/4 farthings for each portion.

For the Soup, No II. it will be, lb. oz. s. d. L. s. d.

70 9 pearl barley, at 0 2 ------ 0 11 9 65 10 peas, at 0 1 1/2 ------ 0 8 2 230 4 potatoes, at 0 0 1/2 ------ 0 13 9 69 10 bread, at 0 11 25/65 ------ 0 16 6 19 13 salt, at 0 1 1/2 ------ 0 2 5 1/2 Vinegar, one gallon ------ 0 1 8 Expenses for fuel, servants, etc. ------ 0 10 4 1/4 ------------- Total 3 4 7 3/4

This sum (3L. 4s. 7 3/4d.) divided by 1200, the number of portions, gives for each 2 1/2 farthings very nearly.

This soup comes much higher here in London, than it would do in most other parts of Great Britain, on account of the very high price of potatoes in this city; but in most parts of the kingdom, and certainly in every part of Ireland, it may be furnished, even at this present moment, notwithstanding the uncommonly high prices of provisions, at less than ONE HALFPENNY the portion of 20 ounces.

Though the object most attended to in composing these soups was to render them wholesome and nourishing, yet they are very far from being unpalatable.--The basis of the soups, which is water prepared and thickened by barley, is well calculated to receive, and to convey to the palate in an agreeable manner, every thing that is savoury in the other ingredients; and the dry bread rendering mastication necessary, prolongs the action of the Food upon the organs of taste, and by that means increases and PROLONGS the enjoyment of eating.

But though these soups are very good and nourishing, yet they certainly are capable of a variety of improvements.--The most obvious means of improving them is to mix with them a small quant.i.ty of salted meat, boiled, and cut into very small pieces, (the smaller the better,) and to fry the bread that is put into them in b.u.t.ter, or in the fat of salted pork or bacon.

The bread, by being fried, is not only rendered much harder, but being impregnated with a fat or oily substance it remains hard after it is put into the soup, the water not being able to penetrate it and soften it.

All good cooks put fried bread, cut into small square pieces, in peas-soup; but I much doubt whether they are aware of the very great importance of that practice, or that they have any just idea of the MANNER in which the bread improves the soup.

The best kind of meat for mixing with these soups is salted pork, or bacon, or smoked beef.

Whatever meat is used, it ought to be boiled either in clear water or in the soup; and after it is boiled, it ought to be cut into very small pieces, as small perhaps, as barley-corns.--The bread may be cut in pieces of the size of large peas, or in thin slices; and after it is fried, it may be mixed with the meat and put into the soup-dishes, and the soup poured on them when it is served out.

Another method of improving this soup is to mix it with small dumplins, or meat-b.a.l.l.s, made of bread, flour, and smoked beef, ham, or any other kind of salted meat, or of liver cut into small pieces, or rather MINCED, as it is called.--These dumplins may be boiled either in the soup or in clear water, and put into the soup when it is served out.

As the meat in these compositions is designed rather to please the palate than for any thing else, the soup being sufficiently nourishing without it, it is or much importance that it be reduced to very small pieces, in order that it be brought into contract with the organs of taste by a large surface; and that it be mixed with some hard substance, (fried bread, for instance, crumbs, or hard dumplins,) which will necessarily prolong the time employed in mastication.

When this is done, and where the meat employed has much flavour, a very small quant.i.ty of it will be found sufficient to answer the purpose required.

ONE OUNCE of bacon, or of smoked beef, and ONE OUNCE of fried bread, added to EIGHTEEN OUNCES of the Soup No. I. would afford an excellent meal, in which the taste of animal food would decidedly predominate.

Dried salt fish, or smoked fish, boiled and then minced, and made into dumplins with mashed potatoes, bread, and flour, and boiled again, would be very good, eaten with either of the Soup No. I.

or No. II.

These soups may likewise be improved, by mixing with them various kinds of cheap roots and green vegetables, as turnips, carrots, parsnips, celery, cabbages, sour-crout, etc. as also by seasoning them with fine herbs and black pepper.--Onions and leeks may likewise be used with great advantage, as they not only serve to render the Food in which they enter as ingredients peculiarly savoury, but are really very wholesome.

With regard to the barley made use of in preparing these soups, though I always have used pearl barley, or rolled barley(as it is called in Germany), yet I have no doubt but common barley-meal would answer nearly as well; particularly if care were taken to boil it gently for a sufficient length of time over a slow fire before the peas are added[7].

Till the last year, we used to cook the barley-soup and the peas-soup separate, and not to mix them till the moment when they were poured into the tubs upon the cut bread, in order to be carried into the dining-hall; but I do not know that any advantages were derived from that practice; the soup being, to all appearances, quite as good since the barley and the peas have been cooked together as before.

As soon as the soup is done, and the boilers are emptied, they are immediately refilled with water, and the barley for the soup for the next day is put into it, and left to steep over night; and at six o'clock the next morning the fires are lighted under the boilers[8].

The peas, however, are never suffered to remain in the water over-night, as we have found, by repeated trials, that they never boil soft if the water in which they are boiled is not boiling hot when they are put into it.--Whether this is peculiar to the peas which grow in Bavaria, I know not.

When I began to feed the Poor of Munich, there was also a quant.i.ty of meat boiled in their soup; but as the quant.i.ty was small, and the quality of it but very indifferent, I never thought it contributed much to rendering the victuals more nourishing: but as soon as means were found for rendering the soup palatable without meat, the quant.i.ty of it used was gradually diminished, and it was at length entirely omitted.

I never heard that the Poor complained of the want of it; and much doubt whether they took notice of it.

The management of the fire in cooking is, in all cases, a matter of great importance; but in no case is it so necessary to be attended to as in preparing the cheap and nutritive soups here recommended.--Not only the palatableness, but even the strength or richness of the soup, seems to depend very much upon the management of the heat employed in cooking it.

From the beginning of the process to the end of it, the boiling should be as gentle as possible;--and if it were possible to keep the soup always JUST BOILING HOT, without actually boiling, it would be so much the better.

Causing any thing to boil violently in any culinary process is very ill judged; for it not only does not expedite, even in the smallest degree, the process of cooking, but it occasions a most enormous waste of fuel; and by driving away with the steam many of the more volatile and more savoury particles of the ingredients, renders the victuals less good and less palatable. --To those who are acquainted with the experimental philosophy of heat, and who know that water once brought to be BOILING HOT, however gently it may boil in fact, CANNOT BE MADE ANY HOTTER, however large and intense the fire under it may be made, and who know that it is by the HEAT--that is to say, THE DEGREE or intensify of it, and the TIME of its being continued, and not by the bubbling up or BOILING, (as it is called) of the water that culinary operations are performed--this will be evident, and those who know that more than FIVE TIMES as much heat is required to SEND OFF IN STEAM any given quant.i.ty of water ALREADY BOILING HOT as would be necessary to heat the same quant.i.ty of ICE-COLD water TO THE BOILING POINT --will see the enormous waste of heat, and consequently of fuel, which, in all cases must result from violent boiling in culinary processes.

To prevent the soup from burning to the boiler, the bottom of the boiler should be made DOUBLE; the false bottom, (which may be very thin) being fixed on the inside of the boiler, the two sheets of copper being every where in contact with each other; but they ought not to be attached to each other with solder, except only at the edge of the false bottom where it is joined to the sides of the boiler.--The false bottom should have a rim about an inch and a half wide, projecting upwards, by which it should be riveted to the sides of the boiler; but only few rivets, or nails, should be used for fixing the two bottoms together below, and those used should be very small; otherwise where large nails are employed at the bottom of the boiler, where the fire is most intense, the soup will be apt to BURN TO; at least on the heads of those large nails.

The two sheets of metal may be made to touch each other every where, by hammering them together after the false bottom is fixed in its place; and they may be tacked together by a few small rivets placed here and there, at considerable distances from each other; and after this is done, the boiler may be tinned.

In tinning the boiler, if proper care be taken, the edge of the false bottom may be soldered by the tin to the sides of the boiler, and this will prevent the water, or other liquids put into the boiler, from getting between the two bottoms.

In this manner double bottoms may be made to sauce-pans and kettles of all kinds used in cooking; and this contrivance will, in all cases, most effectually prevent what is called by the cooks burning to[9].

The heat is so much obstructed in its pa.s.sage through the thin sheet of air, which, notwithstanding all the care that is taken to bring the two bottoms into actual contact, will still remain between them, the second has time to give its heat as fast as it receives it, to the fluid in the boiler; and consequently never acquires a degree of heat sufficient for burning any thing that may be upon it.

Perhaps it would be best to double copper sauce-pans and small kettles throughout; and as this may and ought to be done with a very thin sheet of metal, it could not cost much, even if this lining were to be made of silver.

But I must not enlarge here upon a subject I shall have occasion to treat more fully in another place.--To return, therefore, to the subject more immediately under consideration, Food.

CHAPTER. IV.