219. _SALEP is the powder of the dried roots of several well-known
field-plants of the orchis tribe_ (Orchis morio, O. mascula, &c.)
As an article of diet, salep is supposed to contain the largest portion of
nutriment, in an equal compass, of any known vegetable production: even
arrow root (17) is, in this respect, inferior to it. The orchises from
which it is manufactured flourish in great abundance in meadows and
pastures of several parts of England, flowering about the months of May and
June. As soon as the flower-stalks begin to decay, the roots should be dug
up, and the newly-formed bulbs, which have then attained their perfect
state, should be separated. When several roots are collected, they should
be washed in water, and have their external skin removed by a small brush,
or by dipping them in hot water, and rubbing them with a coarse linen
cloth. The next process is to place them on a tin plate, and put them into
an oven for about ten minutes, by which time they will have lost the milky
whiteness which they before possessed, and will have acquired a
transparency like horn. They are then to be spread in a room, where, in a
few days, they will become dry and hard.
Although salep might be procured in great abundance in our own country, we
import nearly the whole of what we use from the Levant, and generally in
oval pieces of yellowish white colour, somewhat clear and pellucid, and of
almost horny substance. When these, or the powder prepared from them, are
put into boiling water, they dissolve into a thick mucilage.
With the Turks, salep has great celebrity, on account of the restorative
qualities which it is supposed to possess. It is much recommended as
nutritive food for persons recovering from illness; and, in particular, as
a part of the stores of every ship about to sail into distant climates. It
not only possesses the property of yielding an invaluable nutriment, and,
in a great measure, of concealing the saline taste of sea-water, but is
likewise of essential service against the sea-scurvy. When it is stated
that one ounce of this powder and an ounce of portable soup, dissolved in
two quarts of boiling water, will form a jelly capable of affording
sustenance to one man for a day, the utility of salep will be further seen
as a means of preventing famine at sea for an infinitely longer time than
any other food of equal bulk.
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