COUNT RUMFORD’S COOKERY AND CHEAP DINNERS.
I MUST not leave the subject of vegetable cookery without describing
Count Rumford’s achievements in feeding the paupers, rogues, and
vagabonds of Munich. An account of this is the more desirable, from the
fact that the ‘soup’ which formed the basis of his dietary is still
misunderstood in this country, for reasons that I shall presently state.
After reorganising the Bavarian army, not only as regards military
discipline, but in the feeding, clothing, education, and useful
employment of the men, in order to make them good citizens as well
as good soldiers, he attacked a still more difficult problem—that of
removing from Bavaria the scandal and burden of the hordes of beggars
and thieves which had become intolerable. He tells us that ‘the number
of itinerant beggars of both sexes, and all ages, as well foreigners
as natives, who strolled about the country in all directions, levying
contributions from the industrious inhabitants, stealing and robbing,
and leading a life of indolence and most shameless debauchery, was
quite incredible;’ and, further, that ‘these detestable vermin swarmed
everywhere, and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were
without any bounds, but they had recourse to the most diabolical acts
and most horrid crimes in the prosecution of their infamous trade.
Young children were stolen from their parents by these wretches,
and their eyes put out, or their tender limbs broken and distorted,
in order, by exposing them thus maimed, to excite the pity and
commiseration of the public.’ He gives further particulars of their
trading upon the misery of their own children, and their organisation
to obtain alms by systematic intimidation. Previous attempts to cure
the evil had failed, the public had lost all faith in further projects,
and therefore no support was to be expected for Rumford’s scheme.
‘Aware of this,’ he says, ‘I took my measures accordingly. To convince
the public that the scheme was feasible, I determined first, by a great
exertion, to carry it into complete execution, and _then_ to ask them
to support it.’
He describes the military organisation by which he distributed the
army throughout the country districts to capture all the strolling
provincial beggars, and how, on Jan. 1, 1790, he bagged all the beggars
of Munich in less than an hour by means of a well-organised civil and
military _battue_, New Year’s Day being the great festival when all
the beggars went abroad to enforce their customary black-mail upon
the industrious section of the population. Though very interesting, I
must not enter upon these details, but cannot help stepping a little
aside from my proper subject to quote his weighty words on the ethical
principles upon which he proceeded. He says that ‘with persons of this
description, it is easy to be conceived that precepts, admonitions, and
punishments would be of little avail. But where precepts fail, _habits_
may sometimes be successful. To make vicious and abandoned people
happy, it has generally been supposed necessary, _first_, to make them
virtuous. But why not reverse this order? Why not make them first
_happy_ and then virtuous? If happiness and virtue be _inseparable_,
the end will as certainly be attained by one method as by the other;
and it is most undoubtedly much easier to contribute to the happiness
and comfort of persons in a state of poverty and misery than, by
admonitions and punishments, to improve their morals.’
He applied these principles to his miserable material with complete
success, and, referring to the result, exclaims, ‘Would to God that
my success might encourage others to follow my example!’ Further
examination of his proceedings shows that, in order to follow such
example, a knowledge of first principles and a determination to carry
them out in bold defiance of vulgar ignorance, general prejudice, and,
vilest of all, polite sneering, is necessary.
Having captured the beggars thus cleverly, he proceeded to carry out
the above-stated principle by taking them to a large building already
prepared, where ‘everything was done that could be devised to make
them _really comfortable_.’ The first condition of such comfort, he
maintains, is cleanliness, and his dissertation on this, though written
so long ago, might be quoted in letters of gold by our sanitarians of
to-day.
Describing how he carried out his principles, he says of the prisoners
thus captured: ‘Most of them had been used to living in the most
miserable hovels, in the midst of vermin and every kind of filthiness,
or to sleep in the streets and under the hedges, half naked and
exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. A large and commodious
building, fitted up in the neatest and most comfortable manner, was
now provided for their reception. In this agreeable retreat they found
spacious and elegant apartments kept with the most scrupulous neatness;
well warmed in winter and well lighted; a good warm dinner every day,
_gratis_, cooked and served up with all possible attention to order and
cleanliness; materials and utensils for those that were able to work;
masters _gratis_ for those who required instruction; the most generous
pay, _in money_, for all the labour performed; and the kindest usage
from every person, from the highest to the lowest, belonging to the
establishment. Here in this asylum for the indigent and unfortunate,
no ill-usage, no harsh language is permitted. During five years that
the establishment has existed, not a blow has been given to anyone, not
even to a child by his instructor.’
This appears like the very expensive scheme of a benevolent utopian;
but, to set my readers at rest on this point, I will anticipate a
little by stating that, although at first some expense was incurred,
all this was finally repaid, and, at the end of six years, there
remained a net profit of 100,000 florins, ‘after expenses of every
kind, salaries, wages, repairs, &c., had been deducted.’
When will _our_ workhouses be administered with similar results?
I must not dwell upon his devices for gradually inveigling the lazy
creatures into habits of industry, for he understood human nature too
well to adopt the gaoler’s theory, which assumes that every able-bodied
man can do a day’s work daily, in spite of previous habits. Rumford’s
patients became industrious ultimately, but were not made so at once.
This development of industry was one of the elements of financial
and moral success, and the next in importance was the economy of the
commissariat, which depended on Rumford’s skilful cookery of the
cheapest viands, rendering them digestible, nutritious, and palatable.
Had he adopted the dietary of an English workhouse or an English
prison, his financial success would have been impossible, and his
patients would have been no better fed, nor better able to work.
The staple food was what he calls a ‘soup,’ but I find, on following
out his instructions for making it, that I obtain a porridge rather
than a soup. He made many experiments, and says: ‘I constantly found
that the richness or quality of a soup depended more upon a proper
choice of the ingredients, and a proper management of the fire in the
combination of these ingredients, than upon the quantity of solid
nutritious matter employed;—much more upon the art and skill of the
cook than upon the sum laid out in the market.’
Our vegetarian friends will be interested in learning that at first he
used meat in the soup provided for the beggars, but gradually omitted
it, and the change was unnoticed by those who ate, and no difference
was observable as regards its nutritive value.
In 1790, little, or rather nothing, was known of the chemistry of food.
Oxygen had been discovered only sixteen years before, and chemical
analysis, as now understood, was an unknown art. In spite of this
Rumford selected as the basis of his soup just that proximate element
which we now know to be one of the most nutritious that he could have
obtained from either the animal or vegetable kingdom—viz. _casein_.
He not only selected this, but he combined it with those other
constituents of food which our highest refinements of modern practical
chemistry and physiology have proved to be exactly what are required to
supplement the casein and constitute a complete dietary. By selecting
the cheapest form of casein and the cheapest sources of the other
constituents, he succeeded in supplying the beggars with good hot
dinners daily at the cost of less than one halfpenny each. The cost of
the mess for the Bavarian soldiers under his command was rather more,
viz. twopence daily, three farthings of this being devoted to pure
luxuries, such as beer, &c.
Some of his chemical speculations, however, have not been confirmed.
The composition of water had just been discovered, and he found by
experience that a given quantity of solid food was more satisfying to
the appetite and more effective in nutrition when made into soup by
long boiling with water. This led him to suppose that the water itself
was decomposed by cookery, and its elements recombined or united with
other elements, and thus became nutritious by being converted into the
tissues of plants and animals.
Thus, speaking of the barley which formed an important constituent of
his soup, he says: ‘It requires, it is true, a great deal of boiling;
but when it is properly managed, it thickens a vast quantity of water,
and, as I suppose, _prepares it for decomposition_’ (the italics are
his own).
We now know that this idea of decomposing water by such means is a
mistake; but, in my own opinion, there is something behind it which
still remains to be learned by modern chemists. In my endeavours to
fathom the _rationale_ of the changes which occur in cookery, I have
been (as my readers will remember) continually driven into hypotheses
of hydration, _i.e._ of supposing that some of the water used in
cookery unites to form true chemical compounds with certain of the
constituents of the food. As already stated, when I commenced this
subject I had no idea of its suggestiveness, of the wide field of
research which it has opened out. One of these lines of research is
the determination of the nature of this hydration of cooked gelatin,
fibrin, cellulose, casein, starch, legumin, &c. That water is _with_
them when they are cooked is evident enough, but whether that water is
brought into actual chemical combination with them in such wise as to
form new compounds of additional nutritive value proportionate to the
chemical addition of water, demands so much investigation that I have
been driven to merely theorise where I ought to have demonstrated.
The fact that the living body which our food is building up and
renewing contains about 80 per cent. of water, some of it combined, and
some of it uncombined, has a notable bearing on the question. We may
yet learn that hydration and dehydration have more to do with the vital
functions than has hitherto been supposed.
The following are the ingredients used by Rumford in ‘Soup No. 1’:
Weight
Avoirdupois. Cost.
lbs. oz. £ s. d.
4 _viertels_ of pearl barley, equal to about 20⅓
gallons 141 2 0 11 7½
4 _viertels_ of peas 131 4 0 7 3¼
Cuttings of fine wheaten bread 69 10 0 10 2¼
Salt 19 13 0 1 2½
24 _maass_, very weak beer, vinegar, or rather
small beer turned sour, about 24 quarts 46 13 0 1 5½
Water, about 560 quarts 1,077 0 --
--------- ---------
1,485 10 1 11 9
Fuel, 88 lbs. dry pine wood 0 0 2¼
Wages of three cook maids, at 20 florins a year each 0 0 3⅔
Daily expense of feeding the three cook maids, at 10 creutzers
(3⅔ pence sterling) each, according to agreement 0 0 11
Daily wages of two men servants 0 1 7¼
Repairs of kitchen furniture (90 florins per ann.) daily 0 0 5½
---------
Total daily expenses when dinner is provided for
1,200 persons 1 15 2⅔
This amounts to 422/1200, or a trifle more than ⅓ of a penny for each
dinner of this No. 1 soup. The cost was still further reduced by the
use of the potato, then a novelty, concerning which Rumford makes the
following remarks, now very curious. ‘So strong was the aversion of the
public, particularly the poor, against them at the time when we began
to make use of them in the public kitchen of the House of Industry in
Munich, that we were absolutely obliged, at first, to introduce them by
stealth. A private room in a retired corner was fitted up as a kitchen
for cooking them; and it was necessary to disguise them, by boiling
them down entirely, and destroying their form and texture, to prevent
their being detected.’ The following are the ingredients of ‘Soup No.
2,’ with potatoes:
Weight
Avoirdupois. Cost.
lbs. oz. £ s. d.
2 _viertels_ of pearl barley 70 9 0 5 9-13/22
2 _viertels_ of peas 65 10 0 3 7⅝
8 _viertels_ of potatoes 230 4 0 1 9-9/11
Cuttings of bread 69 10 0 10 2-4/11
Salt 19 13 0 1 2½
Vinegar 46 13 0 1 5½
Water 982 15 --
Fuel, servants, repairs, &c., as before 0 3 5-5/12
-----------
Total daily cost of 1,200 dinners 1 7 6⅔
This reduces the cost to a little above one farthing per dinner.
In the essay from which the above is quoted, there is another account,
reducing all the items to what they would cost in London in November
1795, which raises the amount to 2¾ farthings per portion for No. 1,
and 2½ farthings for No. 2. In this estimate the expenses for fuel,
servants, kitchen furniture, &c. are stated at three times as much as
the cost at Munich, and the other items at the prices stated in the
printed report of the Board of Agriculture of November 10, 1795.
But since 1795 we have made great progress in the right direction.
Bread then cost one shilling per loaf, barley and peas about 50 per
cent. more than at present, salt is set down by Rumford at 1¼_d._
per lb. (now about one farthing). Fuel was also dearer. But wages
have risen greatly. As stated in money, they are about doubled (in
purchasing power—_i.e._ real wages—they are threefold). Making all
these allowances, charging wages at six times those paid by him, I
find that the present cost of Rumford’s No. 1 soup would be a little
over one halfpenny per portion, and No. 2 just about one halfpenny. I
here assume that Rumford’s directions for the construction of kitchen
fireplaces and economy of fuel are carried out. We are in these matters
still a century behind his arrangements of 1790, and nothing short of a
coal-famine will punish and cure our criminal extravagance.
The cookery of the above-named ingredients is conducted as follows:
‘The water and pearl barley first put together in the boiler and made
to boil, the peas are then added, and the boiling is continued over a
gentle fire about two hours; the potatoes are then added (peeled), and
the boiling is continued for about one hour more, during which time the
contents of the boiler are frequently stirred about with a large wooden
spoon or ladle, in order to destroy the texture of the potatoes, and to
reduce the soup to one uniform mass. When this is done, the vinegar and
salt are added; and, last of all, at the moment that it is to be served
up, the cuttings of bread.’ No. 1 is to be cooked for three hours
without the potatoes.
As already stated, I have found, in carrying out these instructions,
that I obtain a _purée_ or porridge rather than a soup. I found
the No. 1 to be excellent, No. 2 inferior. It was better when very
small potatoes were used; they became more jellied, and the _purée_
altogether had less of the granular texture of mashed potatoes. I
found it necessary to conduct the whole of the cooking myself; the
inveterate kitchen superstition concerning simmering and boiling, the
belief that anything rapidly boiling is hotter than when it simmers,
and is therefore cooking more quickly, compels the non-scientific cook
to shorten the tedious three-hour process by boiling. This boiling
drives the water from below, bakes the lower stratum of the porridge,
and spoils the whole. The ordinary cook, were she ‘at the strappado,
or all the racks in the world,’ would not keep anything barely boiling
for three hours with no visible result. According to her positive and
superlative experience, the mess is cooked sufficiently in one-third of
the time, as soon as the peas are softened. She don’t, and she won’t,
and she can’t, and she shan’t understand anything about hydration.
‘When it’s done, it’s done, and there’s an end to it, and what more do
you want?’ Hence the failures of the attempts to introduce Rumford’s
porridge in our English workhouses, prisons, and soup kitchens. I find,
when I make it myself, that it is incomparably superior and far cheaper
than the ‘skilly’ at present provided, though the sample of skilly that
I tasted was superior to the ordinary slop.
The weight of each portion, as served to the beggars, &c., was 19·9 oz.
(1 Bavarian pound); the solid matter contained was 6 oz. of No. 2, or
4¾ oz. of No. 1, and Rumford states that this ‘is quite sufficient to
make a good meal for a strong, healthy person,’ as ‘abundantly proved
by long experience.’ He insists, again and again, upon the necessity of
the three-hours’ cooking, and I am equally convinced of its necessity,
though, as above explained, not on the same theoretical grounds. No
repetition of his experience is fair unless this be attended to. I have
no hesitation in affirming that the 4¾ oz. of No. 1, when thus boiled
for 3 hours, will supply more nutriment than 6 oz. boiled only 1½ hour.
The bread should _not_ be cooked, but added just before serving the
soup. In reference to this he has published a very curious essay,
entitled ‘Of the Pleasure of Eating, and of the Means that may be
Employed for Increasing it.’
Rumford used wood as fuel, and his kitchen-ranges were constructed of
brickwork with a separate fire for each pot, the pot being set in in
the brickwork immediately above the fireplace in such manner that the
flame and heated products of combustion surrounded the pot on their way
to the exit flue. The quantity of fuel was adjusted to each operation,
and with wood embers a long sustained moderate heat was easily obtained.
With coal-fires such separate firing would be troublesome, as
coal cannot be so easily kindled on requirement as wood. With our
roaring, wasteful kitchen furnaces and still more wasteful cooks, the
long-sustained moderate heat is not practicable without some further
device. I found that, by using a ‘milk scalder,’ which is a water-bath
similar to a glue-pot, but on a large scale, I could obtain Rumford’s
results over a common kitchen-range with very little trouble, and no
risk of baking the bottom part of the porridge.
I further found that even a longer period of stewing than he prescribes
is desirable.
I made a hearty meal on No. 1 soup, and found it as satisfactory as
any dinner of meat, potatoes, &c., of any number of courses; and,
as a chemist, I assert without any hesitation, that such a meal is
demonstrably of equal or superior nutritive value to an ordinary
Englishman’s slice of beef diluted with potatoes. The No. 2 soup is
not so satisfactory. Rumford was wrong in his estimate of the value of
potatoes.
In the formula for Rumford’s soup it is stated that the bread
should not be cooked, but added just before serving the soup. Like
everything else in his practical programmes, this was prescribed with
a philosophical reason. His reasons may have been fanciful sometimes,
but he never acted stupidly, as the vulgar majority of mankind usually
do when they blindly follow an established custom without knowing any
reason for so doing, or even attempting to discover a reason.
In his essay on ‘The Pleasure of Eating, and of the Means that may be
Employed for Increasing it,’ he says: ‘The pleasure enjoyed in eating
depends, first, on the agreeableness of the taste of the food; and,
secondly, upon its power to affect the palate. Now, there are many
substances extremely cheap, by which very agreeable tastes may be given
to food, particularly when the basis or nutritive substance of the food
is tasteless; and the effect of any kind of palatable solid food (of
meat, for instance) upon the organs of taste may be increased, almost
indefinitely, by reducing the size of the particles of such food, and
causing it to act upon the palate by a larger surface. And if means be
used to prevent its being swallowed too soon, which may easily be done
by mixing it with some hard and tasteless substance, such as crumbs
of bread rendered hard by toasting, or anything else of that kind, by
which a long mastication is rendered necessary, the enjoyment of eating
may be greatly increased and prolonged.’ He adds that ‘the idea of
occupying a person a great while, and affording him much pleasure at
the same time in eating a small quantity of food, may perhaps appear
ridiculous to some; but those who consider the matter attentively
will perceive that it is very important. It is perhaps as much so as
anything that can employ the attention of the philosopher.’
Further on he adds: ‘If a glutton can be made to gormandise two hours
upon two ounces of meat, it is certainly much better for him than to
give himself an indigestion by eating two pounds in the same time.’
This is amusing as well as instructive; so also are his researches
into what I may venture to describe as the _specific sapidity_ of
different kinds of food, which he determined by diluting or intermixing
them with insipid materials, and thereby ascertaining the amount of
surface over which they might be spread before their particular flavour
disappeared. He concluded that a red herring has the highest specific
sapidity—_i.e._ the greatest amount of flavour in a given weight of any
kind of food he had tested, and that, comparing it on the basis of cost
for cost, its superiority is still greater.
He tells us that ‘the pleasure of eating depends very much indeed upon
the _manner_ in which the food is applied to the organs of taste,’ and
that he considers ‘it necessary to mention, and even to illustrate in
the clearest manner, every circumstance which appears to have influence
in producing these important effects.’ As an example of this, I may
quote his instructions for eating hasty pudding: ‘The pudding is then
eaten with a spoon, each spoonful of it being dipped into the sauce
before it is carried to the mouth, care being had in taking it up to
begin on the outside, or near the brim of the plate, and to approach
the centre by regular advances, in order not to demolish too soon
the excavation which forms the reservoir for the sauce.’ His solid
Indian-corn pudding is, in like manner, ‘to be eaten with a knife and
fork, beginning at the circumference of the slice, and approaching
regularly towards the centre, each piece of pudding being taken up with
the fork and dipped into the butter, or dipped into it _in part only_,
before it is carried to the mouth.’
As a supplement to the cheap soup recipes I will quote one which
Rumford gives as the cheapest food which in his opinion can be provided
in England: Take of water 8 gallons, mix it with 5 lbs. of barley-meal,
boil it to the consistency of a thick jelly. Season with salt, vinegar,
pepper, sweet herbs, and four red herrings pounded in a mortar. Instead
of bread, add 5 lbs. of Indian corn made into a _samp_, and stir it
together with a ladle. Serve immediately in portions of 20 oz.
_Samp_ is ‘said to have been invented by the savages of North America,
who have no corn-mills.’ It is Indian corn deprived of its external
coat by soaking it ten or twelve hours in a lixivium of water and wood
ashes.[17] This coat or husk, being separated from the kernel, rises
to the surface of the water, while the grain remains at the bottom.
The separated kernel is stewed for about two days in a kettle of water
placed near the fire. ‘When sufficiently cooked, the kernels will be
found to be swelled to a great size and burst open, and this food,
which is uncommonly sweet and nourishing, may be used in a great
variety of ways; but the best way of using it is to mix it with milk,
and with soups and broths as a substitute for bread.’ He prefers it to
bread because ‘it requires more mastication, and consequently tends
more to prolong the pleasure of eating.’
The cost of this soup he estimates as follows:
s. d.
5 lbs. barley meal, at 1½_d._ per. lb., or 5_s._ 6_d._
per bushel 0 7½
5 lbs. Indian corn, at 1¼_d._ per lb. 0 6¼
4 red herrings 0 3
Vinegar 0 1
Salt 0 1
Pepper and sweet herbs 0 2
-----
1 8¾
This makes 64 portions, which thus cost rather less than one-third of
a penny each. As prices were higher then than now, it comes down to
little more than one farthing, or one-third of a penny, as stated, when
cost of preparation in making on a large scale is included. I have not
been successful in making this soup; failed in the ‘samp,’ as explained
in the foot-note. By substituting ‘raspings’ (the coarse powder rasped
off the surface of rolls or over-baked loaves) or bread-crumbs browned
in an oven, I obtain a fair result for those who have no objection to a
diffused flavour of red herring.
By using grated cheese instead of the herring, as well as substituting
bread-crumbs or raspings for the Indian corn, I have completely
succeeded; but for economy and quality combined, the No. 1 soup, as
supplied at Munich, is preferable.
The feeding of the Bavarian soldiers is stated in detail in vol. i.
of Rumford’s ‘Essays.’ I take one characteristic example. It is from
an official report on experiments made ‘in obedience to the orders of
Lieut.-General Count Rumford, by Sergeant Wickelhof’s mess, in the
first company of the first (or Elector’s Own) regiment of Grenadiers at
Munich.’
JUNE 10, 1795.—BILL OF FARE. Boiled beef, with soup and bread dumplings.
DETAILS OF THE EXPENSE. First, for the boiled beef and the soup.
lb. loths. Creutzers.
2 0 beef 16
0 1 sweet herbs 1
0 0¼ pepper 0½
0 6 salt 0½
1 14½ ammunition bread cut fine 2⅞
9 20 water 0
------------ ----
Total 13 9¾ Cost 20⅞
The Bavarian pound is a little less than 1¼ lb. avoirdupois, and is
divided into 32 loths.
All these were put into an earthenware pot and boiled for two hours and
a quarter; then divided into twelve portions of 26-7/12 loths each,
costing 1¾ creutzer.
Second, for the bread dumpling.
lb. loths. Creutzers.
10 13 f fine semel bread 10
1 0 of fine flour 4½
0 6 salt 0½
3 0 water 0
----- ---
Total 5 19 Cost 15
This mass was made into dumplings, which were boiled half an hour in
clear water. Upon taking them out of the water they were found to weigh
5 lbs. 24 loths, giving 15⅓ loths to each portion, costing 1¼ creutzer.
The meat, soup, and dumplings were served all at once, in the same
dish, and were all eaten together at dinner. Each member of the mess
was also supplied with 10 loths of rye bread, which cost 5/16 of a
creutzer. Also with 10 loths of the same for breakfast, another piece
of same weight in the afternoon, and another for his supper.
A detailed analysis of this is given, the sum total of which shows that
each man received in avoirdupois weight daily:
lb. oz.
2 2-34/100 of solids
1 2-84/100 of ‘prepared water’
-------------
3 5-18/100 total solids and fluids.
which cost 5-17/48 creutzers, or twopence sterling, very nearly. Other
bills of fare of other messes, officially reported, give about the
same. This is exclusive of the cost of fuel, &c., for cooking.
All who are concerned in soup-kitchens or other economic dietaries
should carefully study the details supplied in these ‘Essays’ of Count
Rumford; they are thoroughly practical, and, although nearly a century
old, are highly instructive at the present day. With their aid large
basins of good, nutritious soup might be supplied at one penny per
basin, leaving a profit for establishment expenses; and if such were
obtainable at Billingsgate, Smithfield, Leadenhall, Covent Garden, and
other markets in London and the provinces, where poor men are working
at early hours on cold mornings, the dram-drinking which prevails so
fatally in such places would be more effectually superseded than by any
temperance missions, which are limited to mere talking. Such soup is
incomparably better than tea or coffee. It should be included in the
bill of fare of all the coffee-palaces and such-like establishments.
Since the above appeared in ‘Knowledge,’ I have had much correspondence
with ladies and gentlemen who are benevolently exerting themselves
in the good work of providing cheap dinners for poor school-children
and poor people generally. I may mention particularly the Rev. W.
Moore Ede, Rector of Gateshead-on-Tyne, a pioneer in the ‘Penny
Dinner’ movement, and who has published a valuable penny tract on the
subject, ‘Cheap Food and Cheap Cookery,’ which I recommend to all his
fellow-workers. (He supplies distribution copies at 6_d._ per 100.) His
‘Penny Dinner Cooker,’ now commercially supplied by Messrs. Walker and
Emley, Newcastle, overcomes the difficulties I have described in the
slow cookery of Rumford’s soup. It is a double vessel on the glue-pot
principle, heated by gas.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] Such lixivium is essentially a dilute solution of carbonate of
potash in very crude form, not conveniently obtained by burners of pit
coal. I tried the experiment of soaking some ordinary Indian corn in
a solution of carbonate of potash, exceeding the ten or twelve hours
specified by Count Rumford. The external coat was not removed even
after two days’ soaking, but the corns were much swollen and softened.
I suspect that this difference is due to the condition of the corn
which is imported here. It is fully ripened, dried, and hardened, while
that used by the Indians was probably fresh gathered, barely ripe, and
much softer.