CHAPTER XIV.
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.