of the sanity of body and mind prolonged through four-score years,
his habit of chewing twenty times upon every morsel of meat taken
into his mouth. The family physician who attended one of our great
men—lately deceased—in his awfully brief final illness, said frankly
that certain sharp attacks that had afflicted the statesman for
several months before the cruel climax came, were caused by the
habit of eating hurriedly such luncheons as he could snatch in the
intervals of business. If the truth were told as bravely in thousands
of other “mysterious visitations,” business men would be startled and
enlightened—if not cured—of like practices.
Dinner—the evening dinner in particular—gives the driven man a chance
for his life. He sins against light and opportunity when he carries the
bolting habit to the third meal. It may be vulgar to talk of chewing.
Our very babies are taught to say “masticate,” instead. It is more
vulgar not to do the thing itself.
The cool indifference with which we admit the humiliating truth that
our national digestion is chronically out of order, is more culpable
even than the shiftless amiability with which we condone municipal and
corporation murders. The individual citizen may well draw back from
the task of fighting boards and millions. His digestive apparatus is
his own, subject to no lien or disability except such as sloth and
carelessness put upon it.
If there be a self-evident fact in everyday hygiene it is that food
swallowed without chewing, clogs and irritates the stomach. No other
health law is so shamelessly and constantly transgressed by the human
animal whose _habitat_ is the United States of America. The most stupid
lout of a hostler knows that a horse must have time for chewing his
oats, or he will go hungry; the scullion will tell you that, while
chickens bolt whole corn and gobble down worms, the gizzard stands
sentinel over the stomach, doing thoroughly the part of grinders and
incisors. The cow sets us the best example of all our sensible dumb
teachers. The wondrous-wise air with which she munches cud by the hour
is a proverb among sages. The so-called nobler part of creation is not
ashamed to seek in the pepsin, which is a memorial to her wisdom, a
remedy for the ills brought upon himself by obstinate disregard of the
duty her example enforces.
It is not a nice thing to talk or write of, as I have admitted. And
this is not because the act of mastication is unseemly. The measured
movement of the jaws in the decorous disposition of whatever is
committed to them is no more grotesque than the “winking as usual,”
enjoined by the photographer. This is emphatically true when food is
cut small before it is eaten.
The stomach is long-suffering and kind, but not omnipotent. The
salivary glands are her natural and most efficient allies. The “bolter”
cuts off supplies from this source. The chunks of solid matter, washed
down with scalding liquid or iced water, are more than the other
gastric juices can manage. The result is as sure as the addition of two
and two, followed by the subtraction of four.
A judicious mother who has made physiology a study for her children’s
sake, teaches her little ones to chew the well-cooked cereals that
form the staple of their breakfast. Furthermore, she teaches that it
is indecent to swallow anything except liquids without chewing it. The
rule is not arbitrary. Each child comprehends the office of the saliva,
that the motion of chewing excites it, and that to take crude lumps of
anything into the stomach is absolutely wrong.
In the chance that other mothers may imitate her example lies the only
hope of the American stomach. The adult bolter is joined to his evil
practice. He is feeding with egg-coal an engine that was built to be
run with pea coal, adding to the mischief done the delicate machinery
the outrage of chunking in and packing down the fuel.
SOUPS
It is a progressive age and the average American housewife is slowly
coming to some appreciation of the nutritive value of soups as an
article of daily food. As a rule of wide application, she does not yet
credit how easy it is to prepare them. Some one says that the motto
for the would-be soup-maker should be, “strong stock and no grease.”
What might be a good soup is unpalatable if globules of grease float on
the surface, and it takes a hungry man, without a fastidious taste, to
enjoy it under these circumstances. See to it then that all meat-stocks
are perfectly skimmed when very cold, that every vestige of fat may be
removed.
A good soup stock
Four pounds of beef marrow bones, well cracked; one pound of coarse
lean beef chopped as for beef-tea, and the same of lean veal; one large
onion, one carrot, one turnip, six refuse stalks of celery, a cabbage
leaf; seven quarts of cold water; prepare and salt to taste.
Put the meat and vegetables, the latter cut up small, into a large pot,
cover with the water and set at the side of the range where it will not
reach the scalding point under an hour. Keep closely covered and let it
simmer, always scalding hot, never boiling hard, for six hours. Remove
from the fire, season and set in a cool place until next day. Remove
the fat, strain out bones and vegetables, pressing hard to extract all
the nourishment and set away in the refrigerator until needed.
At least one dozen varieties of soups and broths can be founded upon
this stock.
White stock
Put over the fire two pounds of the cheaper part of veal, cut into
small pieces, or a well-cracked knuckle of veal, with three quarts of
cold water, a sliced onion, a bay-leaf and a couple of stalks of celery
cut into pieces. Let it come to a boil slowly, and simmer for five
or six hours. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to get cold.
Remove the fat, take out the bones and you will have a thick jelly.
This can be heated, skimmed and, if desired, strained before it is
used. It will be a strong and nutritious stock.
“Left-over” stock
Have a crock in your refrigerator expressly for this. Collect for
it the bones of cooked meats from which the meat has been carved;
the carcasses of poultry, bits of gristly roasts and steaks, cold
vegetables, even a baked apple now and then. Twice a week, put all,
cracking the bones well, into the stock-pot; cover deep with cold
water and cook slowly until the liquid is reduced to half the original
quantity. Season to taste, and strain, rubbing all through the colander
that will pass.
By addition of barley, rice, tomatoes or, in fact, almost any vegetable
or cereal, you may make excellent broths from this compound of
“unconsidered trifles.”
Mock turtle soup
Boil a calf’s head until the meat leaves the bones. Leave it in the
seasoned soup until next day, then take it out, scrape off the fat and
remove the bones. Put the jellied stock over the fire with the bones,
the ears, chopped, one grated carrot, one sliced onion, a bunch of
soup herbs, a teaspoonful of allspice, a saltspoonful of paprika and
salt to taste. Boil for one hour. Take from the fire, strain, thicken
with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in as much browned flour, add
two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, and, when the soup is thickened,
drop in the tongue and parts of the cheek cut into dice. Add a gill of
sherry and the juice of a lemon and pour upon forcemeat balls in a hot
tureen. Make the forcemeat balls by rubbing the brains to a paste with
the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a little browned flour and the yolk of
a raw egg. Roll them in brown flour and let them stand in a quick oven
until lightly crusted over.
Veal and tapioca soup
Crack a knuckle of veal into six pieces and put over the fire with a
cracked ham bone, if you have it. If not, use a half-pound of _lean_
salt pork, chopped, or the soaked rind of salt pork or corned ham. Add
a few stalks of celery, chopped. Cover with cold water, adding a quart
for every pound of meat and bones. Cover, and bring slowly to the boil.
Simmer then for five hours, or until the liquor is reduced to one-half
the original quantity. Season with pepper, salt and onion juice and set
away until next day, when remove the fat.
You have now a thick jelly. Set over the fire to melt. When you can
pour it easily, strain out the bones and scraps of meat. Put half a
cupful of tapioca to soak in a cupful of cold water for two hours.
Measure a quart of your veal stock and put over the fire to heat. When
the boil is reached, add the tapioca, a scant tablespoonful of kitchen
bouquet, with a tablespoonful of finely minced parsley and cook fifteen
minutes longer, boiling briskly.
Veal and sago broth
Make stock as directed in last recipe, adding, when it has been skimmed
and strained, half a cupful of pearl sago, previously soaked for three
hours in warm water. Simmer for half an hour. Have ready in a saucepan
a cupful of hot milk, into which a bit of soda has been dropped; stir
into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in half as much flour, and
when it has thickened, turn into the sago broth two minutes before
removing it from the fire.
Veal and rice broth
To a quart of your veal stock add half a cupful of washed and soaked
rice; cook for twenty minutes, _fast_, and mix with hot milk,
thickened as directed in last recipe. Cook three minutes and serve.
Ox-tail soup
Cut a cleaned ox-tail at each joint and fry five minutes in butter or
good dripping. Take out the meat and put into a warmed soup-kettle
while you fry a sliced onion in the dripping left in the frying-pan.
Turn this, with the fat, upon the pieces of ox-tail, rinse out the
frying-pan with hot water and add this to the soup-kettle. Now cover
with two quarts of cold water; slice a carrot thin, mince four stalks
of celery and add these to the water. Cover closely and simmer for
five hours. Season to taste and set aside until next day, remove the
fat and strain the liquor from meat and vegetables. Pick out the best
joints and return to the soup. Heat to a fast boil, skim, add kitchen
bouquet to taste, and serve. There should be two or three joints in
each portion. Some cooks slice two or three very small carrots, parboil
them and put into the strained liquor with the joints before giving the
last boil.
Clear brown soup
After making, cooling and skimming your stock as directed in the
beginning of this chapter, measure out a quart; put over the fire and
when lukewarm stir in the white of a raw egg. Bring quickly to a boil,
stirring all the time. As soon as it bubbles, take from the fire, pour
in a little very cold water and let it stand for three minutes. Then
pour slowly off the dregs through a flannel bag, or a double cloth. Let
it drip as you would jelly. When all has run through, return to the
fire with a little soaked tapioca, or a handful of “manestra”, such
as comes in shapes for soups; simmer five minutes, color with kitchen
bouquet, or with caramel, and serve.
Clear soup with poached eggs
Make as directed above, but without tapioca or other cereal. Have ready
as many neatly poached eggs as there will be people at table, and when
the hot soup is in the tureen slip these carefully into it.
Caramel for coloring soups
Put two tablespoonfuls of sugar into a small tin cup and let it melt,
then bubble over the fire. When you have a seething brown (not burnt)
mass, pour in two tablespoonfuls of boiling water and stir until the
sugar is dissolved.
Put in enough to color your clear soup, but not enough to make it sweet.
Clear soup á la royale
To cleared soup made according to directions given for making and
clearing stock, add minute squares of paste made thus:
Heat half a cupful of milk in a saucepan with a bit of soda. In a
frying-pan cook a tablespoonful of butter and stir into it two of
flour. Turn the milk gradually upon this, and, when well incorporated,
a scant half-cupful of soup stock. In a bowl have ready two whipped
eggs and pour upon them, stirring well, the hot mixture. Return to the
fire, stir to a thick paste and pour upon a buttered platter to cool.
Set on ice to harden for at least six hours before cutting into tiny
blocks. The soup must not boil after they go in.
Glasgow broth
One quart of strong mutton stock, from which every particle of fat has
been removed. The liquor in which a leg of mutton has been boiled will
do well for this purpose. Boil it down for an hour before making the
broth, as it should be strong.
One cupful of barley that has been soaked in tepid water for three
hours. One large carrot, one turnip, two onions, four stalks of celery,
half a cupful of green peas and the same of string-beans, parsley and
four or five leek tops.
Cut the vegetables up small and parboil them for ten minutes. Drain and
put over the fire in the stock. Simmer slowly for three hours. Have
ready a good white roux made by heating a heaping tablespoonful of
butter in a pan and stirring into it a tablespoonful of flour. Add a
few spoonfuls of the soup to thin it, and stir into the broth. Boil one
minute and serve.
This recipe, given to me in rhymes a century old by a distinguished
professor in the University of Glasgow, is the genuine Scotch broth
dear to the Scottish heart and stomach. It is nowhere as delicious as
in the Highlands, but it is good everywhere.
Mulligatawney soup
(An East Indian recipe.)
Joint a large fowl, as for fricassee, and cut into small pieces a pound
of lean veal. Slice two onions and fry them in butter; pare, quarter
and core two sour apples. Put all these into a saucepan with six quarts
of cold water. Add four cloves and four pepper corns, cover closely and
let it simmer until the fowl is tender. Remove it and cut the meat from
the bones into small pieces. Return the bones to the kettle and add one
level tablespoonful of curry powder, one level teaspoonful, each, of
salt and sugar mixed to a smooth paste with a little water.
Simmer another hour, or until reduced one-half, strain the soup, let it
stand all night and remove the fat. Put it on to boil again, add the
pieces of fowl and one cupful of boiled rice. This will make a large
quantity of soup. Send around with it bananas, chilled by burying them
in ice, for those who relish this accompaniment to curry dishes.
Chicken cream soup (No. 1)
Cut up a large fowl and beat with a mallet to crack the bones; pour
in five quarts of cold water, cover closely and simmer for four hours
more, until the chicken is perfectly tender. Take the meat off the
bones, take out the skin. Return the soup to the fire with a part of
the meat chopped fine, salt, pepper, a little boiled rice and butter
rolled in flour. Just before taking from the fire add a small teacupful
of cream heated with a pinch of soda; add a tablespoonful of chopped
parsley and boil for one minute.
You may further enrich this excellent soup by beating up two eggs and
stirring them into it just before taking from the fire. A still better
way is to pour a little of the soup upon the eggs to avoid curdling,
then add to the rest.
Chicken cream soup (No. 2)
(An English recipe)
One cupful of cold roast chicken, chopped as fine as powder; a pint
of strong chicken broth; a cupful of sweet cream; half a cupful of
bread or cracker-crumbs; three yolks of eggs; one teaspoonful of salt;
one-half teaspoonful of pepper.
Soak the crumbs in a little of the cream. Bring the broth to boiling
point and add the meat. Break the eggs, separating the yolks and
whites. Drop the yolks carefully into boiling water and boil hard; then
rub to a powder and add to the soup with the cream and the seasoning.
Simmer ten minutes and serve hot.
Beef bouillon
[Illustration]
Put together in an agate-lined saucepan two pounds of lean beef,
minced; one-half pound of lean veal, also minced, and two pounds,
each, of beef and veal bones, well cracked. Cover deep with cold water
and bring slowly to a boil, then simmer for four hours. Season with
salt, pepper and two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, then remove
from the fire. When very cold and like a jelly, skim all fat from the
surface of the soup and heat to enable you to strain out the bones and
meat. Return to the fire, drop in the white of an egg and a crushed
egg-shell, bring to a boil, drop in a bit of ice to check ebullition
and, five minutes later, pour carefully, not to disturb the dregs,
through a colander lined with white flannel. You may now heat it to
scalding, add a glass of sherry and eat it hot, or set on ice when cold
until you can have it as “iced-bouillon.” It is good in either way.
Bouillon á la russe
Make as just directed and serve in cups, laying a delicately poached
egg upon the surface of the steaming liquid.
Chicken bouillon (No. 1)
Cut a large fowl into pieces; put into a porcelain-lined kettle and
cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range and simmer for four
hours. Season with celery salt, pepper and onion juice, and set away
to cool. When cold skim off the fat and strain out the bones and meat.
Return to the fire, and when hot, add a quarter of a box of gelatine
that has soaked for an hour in a gill of water. When the gelatine is
dissolved, take the soup from the fire, strain through a cheese-cloth
bag, and serve it when you have reheated it, or set aside to cool,
afterward keeping it in ice, when you may enjoy delicious “iced and
jellied chicken bouillon.”
Chicken bouillon (No. 2)
Cut a four-pound fowl into pieces and put it over the fire with four
quarts of cold water. Bring very slowly to the boiling point, and
simmer gently for three hours, or until the meat is so tender that it
slips from the bones. Add half of a sliced onion and three stalks of
celery, and simmer for an hour longer. Turn into a bowl and set in a
cold place for some hours. When thoroughly chilled remove the fat from
the surface of the soup, strain out the bones and skim. If the liquor
is jellied after skimming it, set it on the fire long enough to melt
the jelly from the bones. Strain through coarse muslin, letting it
drip through, but not squeezing the bag. Put over the fire and, when
lukewarm, throw in the unbeaten white and broken shell of an egg; stir
to a quick boil and again strain through muslin after seasoning to
taste.
Gumbo (No. 1)
(A Creole recipe)
Cut a fowl at every joint and fry for five minutes in good dripping or
in butter. Remove the meat and put into a soup kettle. Cook two sliced
onions in the fat left in the frying-pan. Put into the kettle with the
chicken half a pound of lean salt pork, or corned ham, cut into small
bits, and the fried onions. Add two quarts of cold water, and bring
slowly to a boil, after which you should let it simmer two hours. Add,
now, two dozen young okra pods, half a pod of green pepper, chopped,
and half a can of tomatoes, or a pint of fresh, cut small, and simmer
till the chicken is tender. Remove the larger bones, add salt to taste,
and five minutes before serving add one pint of fine, sweet corn pulp,
scraped from the cob, or one small can of canned corn, or one pint of
oysters. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, boil a few
minutes and serve. If fresh okra can not be obtained, use the canned.
Gumbo (No. 2)
This delicious soup may be made with oysters, or shrimps, or chicken.
Brown one small onion in a heaping tablespoonful of butter. Add one
quart of sliced okra, and fry it well, stirring all the time to prevent
burning. Now add half a gallon of hot water and let it cook until
simmered down to one quart. Add three ripe tomatoes and the chicken,
or oysters, or shrimps. If the chicken is used it must have been
previously stewed tender, in which case use the broth instead of the
hot water. Season to taste with salt and cayenne, and serve with a
tablespoonful of rice for each soup-plate.
Julienne soup
Cut into thin strips, and these into inch lengths, two carrots,
one-half of a white turnip, two or three celery stalks, two small
onions, a leaf or two of young cabbage, and a good handful of string
beans. Put all together, with half a cupful of green peas, into cold
salted water, and leave for half an hour. Turn, then, into your soup
kettle with sufficient water to cover, and cook for fifteen minutes.
Drain off the water, cover the vegetables with a quart of good soup
stock or consommé, and cook gently for twenty-five minutes longer.
Season with salt and pepper, add chopped parsley and kitchen bouquet
to taste, and boil up once before serving. You may add tomatoes or not,
as you like.
The stock should be strong.
French onion soup
To a quart of good stock allow six small onions that have been
parboiled for ten minutes, and a cupful of fine, dry bread-crumbs. Let
them simmer together for half an hour; rub the soup through a colander,
pressing through as much of the onion and bread as possible. Put into a
saucepan, rub one tablespoonful of butter and two of flour to a cream,
and stir into the hot mixture until it thickens. Season with salt and
pepper, add one pint of milk heated with a tiny bit of soda, boil up,
and serve.
A homely, but a savory soup.
White barley soup
Soak a cupful of barley for several hours in enough water to cover it;
then boil in a quart of veal stock until tender and clear. Season with
a teaspoonful of onion juice, a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and
with celery salt and white pepper to taste. Thicken a pint of scalding
milk with a white roux, pour the hot soup slowly upon this and serve.
“Turkey rack” soup
(A Virginia recipe)
Break the carcass of a roast turkey served for yesterday’s dinner into
pieces, removing all the stuffing; cover with two quarts of cold water
and boil three hours, covered. Set aside until cold; skim and take out
all the bones; chop the meat; add to the soup and meat the stuffing
rubbed through a colander, a sliced onion and a stalk of celery, cut
very small. Simmer for an hour; put a cupful of milk over the fire, not
forgetting a pinch of soda; when hot, stir in a tablespoonful of butter
rubbed into one of flour; mix with the soup, and boil one minute.
A white fowl soup
Cut an elderly chicken up as for fricassee, severing every joint. Put
into the soup-kettle, allowing a quart of water for every pound. Add
a sliced onion and three celery stalks. Set at the side of the range;
bring slowly to the boil. Cook until the meat slips from the bones, if
it takes all day. Set away with the meat in it until cold. Take off
the fat. Warm sufficiently to allow you to strain it; take out the
bones; cut the white meat into cubes, and keep hot over boiling water.
Bring the soup to a boil, season with salt and white pepper, and throw
into it, while boiling hard, half a cupful of rice. Cook fast for
twenty-five minutes, or until the rice is very tender. Have ready in a
saucepan a cupful of hot milk into which you have put a bit of soda;
stir in a white roux made by cooking a tablespoonful of butter with one
of flour, and add to the soup with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley.
Now, put in the meat cubes, boil one minute and serve.
A brown fowl soup
Prepare and cook chicken as just directed, and, when you have skimmed
the soup and taken out the bones, cut all the meat into neat cubes; dry
it between two cloths; pepper and salt, then dredge well with flour.
Put into a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of the fat you have taken
from the soup and when it bubbles, add the pieces of chicken and toss
them about until well browned. Remove the chicken and keep it hot. Into
the fat left in the pan put one level tablespoonful of flour and stir
until well mixed and slightly browned. Add by degrees sufficient soup
to moisten to a smooth gravy, then strain it into the soup. Season to
taste, put in the chicken dice, simmer five minutes, and serve. You may
improve the color by adding a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet.
Beef juice for invalids
Chop two pounds of lean beef small. Put a layer of this meat in the
bottom of a glass jar and sprinkle over it a _little_ salt. Then add
another layer and a little more salt, and so on until the meat has been
used. Set in a kettle. The water in the kettle should be cold and be
heated gradually to the boiling point, after which it should be left
to simmer for three or four hours, or until the meat looks like bits
of white rags with the juice completely drawn out. Let all get cold
together, then skim, and strain out the meat, pressing it hard.
Beef tea
Chop three pounds of lean beef fine and leave in a quart of cold
water for two hours. Set water and beef over a slow fire in a covered
saucepan and simmer four hours. Set away all night with the meat in it.
In the morning remove every bit of grease, and strain through coarse
muslin, pressing hard. Season with pepper and salt.
BISQUES