Use of the Gelatin of Bones, 391 



gcribing produce ; and their patriotic feelings would be more 

 readily reconciled to exporting the provisions which they had 

 themselves raised, than to exporting specie for the purpose of 

 purchasing provisions elsewhere. I do not wish, however, by 

 any means that the committee should confine their supplies to 

 the articles I have mentioned. I would have them furnish 

 wheat, barley, and other grain, likewise in proportion to the 

 means which they have at their command, and more espe- 

 cially biscuit, which is a most essential article. My idea, I 

 repeat, is to substitute gelatin and cheese for a part only of the 

 provisions to be sent out, and not for the whole. 



The manner of making broths with dry gelatin is as follows : 

 — The quantity intended to be employed is first weighed and 

 then cut into small pieces, which are left to steep in water till 

 the acid is completely gone ; this will require ten or twelve 

 hours. Hot water is better for this purpose than cold. To a 

 third of an ounce of gelatin add three-quarters of a pint of 

 water, and a sufficient quantity of vegetables and spices to 

 give it a relish : put them on the fire to boil : add also a little 

 dripping to produce an oily appearance on the surface. The 

 relish will be further improved if the colour of meat broth be 

 given, which is easily done by burnt sugar, or burnt onion, or 

 baked carrot, or a bit of toast. 



The broth made in this way, though less savory than if made 

 of meat, is not less nourishing : when cool, it turns to jelly, 

 which meat broths do very rarely, and may be used as a sub- 

 stitute for isinglass. The jelly is quite pure and tasteless. It 

 forms a sauce with gravy, and with bitter almonds, blancmange. 



Mons. Michelot, in a memoir published in the Revue Ency- 

 clopedique, tom. xiii. p. 19, recommends that gelatin should be 

 put into vegetable broths, which afford little nourishment, and 

 are apt, when taken in quantity, to turn sour on the stomach. 

 He calculated that forty pounds of gelatin would be sufficient 

 for 2000 half-pint basins of broth. The bones of butcher's 

 meat consumed at Paris would furnish daily this quantity of 

 broth to 600,000 persons, and the bones of pork, game, and 

 poultry to 120,000 more. 



Mons. Darcet proposed to use gelatin broth in the Rum- 

 ford soups instead of water. The bones which pass through 



