THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 381 



The inferences drawn by M. Edwards from the whole of his experi- 

 ments are the following : " 1. That gelatine alone is insufficient for 

 alimentation. 2. That, although insufficient, it is not unwholesome. 

 C. That gelatine contributes to alimentation, and is sufficient to sustain 

 it when it is mixed with a due proportion of other products which 

 would themselves prove insufficient if given alone. 4. That gelatine 

 extracted from bones, being identical with that extracted from other 

 parts and bones being richer in gelatine than other tissues, and able 

 to afford two thirds of their weight of it there is an incontestable 

 advantage in making them serve for nutrition in the form of soup, 

 jellies, paste, etc., always, however, taking care to provide a proper 

 admixture of the other principles in which the gelatine-soup is defect- 

 ive. 5. That to render gelatine-soup equal in nutritive and digesti- 

 ble qualities to that prepared from meat alone, it is sufficient to mix 

 one fourth of meat-soup with three fourths of gelatine-soup ; and that, 

 in fact, no difference is perceptible between soup thus prepared and 

 that made solely from meat. 6. That in preparing soup in this way, 

 the great advantage remains that, while the soup itself is equally 

 nourishing with meat-soup, three fourths of the meat which would be 

 requisite for the latter by the common process of making soup are 

 saved and made useful in another way as by roasting, etc. 7. That 

 jellies ought always to be associated with some other principles to 

 render them both nutritive and digestible." * 



The reader may make a very simple experiment on himself by pre- 

 paring first a pure gelatine-soup from isinglass, or the prepared gelatine 

 commonly sold, and trying to make a meal of this with bread alone. 

 Its insipidity will be evident with the first spoonful. If he perseveres, 

 it will become not merely insipid, but positively repulsive ; and, should 

 he struggle through one meal and then another, without any other 

 food between, he will find it, in the course of time (varying with con- 

 stitution and previous alimentation), positively nauseous. 



Let him now add to it some of Liebig's " Extract of Meat," and he 

 will at once perceive the difference. Here the natural appetite fore- 

 shadows the result of continuing the experiment, and points the way 

 to correcting the errors of the Academicians and Baron Liebig. The 

 jellies that we take at evening parties, or the jujubes used as sweet- 

 meats, are flavored with something positive. I have tasted "Blue- 

 Ribbon" jellies that were wretchedly insipid. This was not merely 

 owing to the absence of alcohol, of which vei*y little can remain in 

 such preparations, but rather to the absence of the flavoring ingredients 

 of the sherry. The Rahat Zakoum, or " lumps of delight," sold in the 

 streets of Constantinople, is gelatine flavored with the unfermented 

 juices of fruit. A privileged visit which I once made to the monster 

 kitchen of the Old Seraglio of his Majesty the Sultan (at Stamboul) 

 lives perpetually in my memory, so sweetly, so vividly, and so grate- 

 * London, "Nouveaux Elemens d'Hygi&ne," second edition, vol. ii, p. 73. 



