5 1 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



FOOD AND FEEDING. 



By Sir HENRY THOMPSON. 



II. 



THE remainder of the second portion of my subject viz., the prep- 

 aration of food, which ought to have been concluded in the first 

 paper must appear, although in very brief terms, at the commence- 

 ment of this. After which I shall proceed to consider the chief object 

 of the present article, viz., the combination and service of dishes to 

 form a meal, especially in relation to dinners and their adjuncts. 



I think it may be said that soups, whether clear (that is, prepared 

 from the juices of meat and vegetables only), or thick (that is, purees 

 of animal or vegetable matters), are far too lightly esteemed by most 

 classes in England, while they are almost unknown to the working- 

 man. For the latter they might furnish an important, cheap, and sa- 

 vory dish; by the former they are too often regarded as the mere pre- 

 lude to a meal, to be swallowed hastily, or disregarded altogether as 

 mostly unworthy of attention. The great variety of vegetable picrees, 

 which can be easily made and blended with light animal broths, ad- 

 mits of daily change in the matter of soup to a remarkable extent, and 

 affords scope for taste in the selection and combination of flavors. The 

 use of fresh vegetables in abundance such as carrots, turnips, arti- 

 chokes, celery, cabbage, sorrel, leeks, and onions renders such soups 

 wholesome and appetizing. The supply of garden produce ought in 

 this country to be singularly plentiful; and, owing to the unrivaled 

 means of transport, all common vegetables ought to be obtained fresh 

 in every part of London. The contrary, however, is unhappily the 

 fact. It is a matter of extreme regret that vegetables, dried and com- 

 pressed after a modern method, should be so much used as they are 

 for soup, by hotel-keepers and other caterers for the public. Unques- 

 tionably useful as these dried products are on board ship and to trav- 

 elers camping out, to employ them at home when fresh can be had is 

 the result of sheer indolence or of gross ignorance. All the finest quali- 

 ties of scent and flavor, with some of the fresh juices, are lost in the 

 drying process; and the infusions of preserved vegetables no more re- 

 semble a freshly made odoriferous soup, than a cup of that thick, 

 brown, odorless, insipid mixture, consisting of some bottled " essence " 

 dissolved in hot water, and now supplied as coffee at most railway sta- 

 tions and hotels in this country, resembles the recently made infusion of 

 the freshly roasted berry. It says little for the taste of our country- 

 men that such imperfect imitations are so generally tolerated without 

 complaint. 



The value of the gridiron is, perhaps, nowhere better understood 

 than in England, especially in relation to chops, steak, and kidney. 



