Vol. V. Xo. 100. 



THE AGRICULTUEAL NEWS. 



.59 



VEGETABLE BUTTERS. 



The following note on vegetable butters by 

 Mr. P. Xeili Gelston appeared in the Plnirriiaceutical 

 Journal, for December 30, 190.5 : — 



A correspondent recently asked, througli the Pharma- 

 ceiitical Journal, who are the makers of deodorised cocoa-nut 

 oil, which is sold under various fancy trade names. As 

 I think chemists should make themselves acquainted with 

 this most useful 'white butter,' 'vegetable butter,' or deodo- 

 rised cocoa-nut oil, I give a few names of the leading makers 

 of this article, which is excellent for dietetic purpo.ses, and 

 fills a long-felt want for a pure fat free from animal matter. 

 One of the last to manufacture, and certainly one of the 

 best, is the firm of .Joseph Crosfield & Sons, \\'arrington, 

 well known to chemists as makers of the Erasmic and other 

 toilet soaps. They call their brand of vegetable butter 

 'Veberine,' [u-onounced by vegetarians throughout the 

 kingdom and abroad to be the purest fat ever introduced. 

 Messrs. Broomfield ife Co., Upper Thames Street, London, E.C., 

 were one of the first to prei)are this article, which they call 

 'Albeiie.' The vegetarians' butter, pure, colourless, odour- 

 less, tasteless vegetable fat, nutritious, and easily digested, never 

 goes rancid. ^fessrs. Loders i Nucoline, Silvertown, 

 London, are also large manufacturers, and call their brand 

 ' Nucoline.' 



The Orient Company, St. Mary-at-Hill, London, E.C., 

 make a brand called ' Cocolardo,' which can be obtained in 2-lb. 

 lever-lid tins, printed in colours. The vegetable butter may 

 also be obtained from the makers named, in bulk, at about 38.s. 

 per cwt., and in 28-lb., l-t-tt)., and T-lli. tins. From a lengthy 

 experience in the use of vegetable butters, I can most heartily 

 recommend chemists to make a practical trial of it in their 

 homes, and to put it up as a specialty they can recommend 

 with confidence to their customers, and be rewarded with 

 frequent repeat orders. Vegetable butter is incomparably 

 superior to animal lard, which is so indigestible to many, 

 and it advantageously replaces the latter in cooking and 

 frying. Cocoa-nut butter does not replace butter made from 

 cream for the popular bread and butter, but I may state here 

 there are other vegetable butters made from various nuts — 

 almond, walnut, cocoa-nut, pea-nut, Brazil nut, etc., or 

 a mixture of these, which do advantageously take the place 

 ■of butters made from the cream of milk. These also are 

 used to a considerable extent, and I will refer to them again. 

 As already stated, the deodorised cocoa-nut oil, or vegetable 

 butter, is 'colourless, tasteless, and odourless,' looking 

 exactly like the best Cochin cocoa-nut oil of the pharmacy, 

 the odourless portion of which is removed by pure spirit 

 of wine. I think this might form a useful ' side-line,' as 

 indeed it deserves to be such in every pharmacy, and sold 

 under any suitable name, such as 'white butter,' or ' vego 

 butter.' but, if sold as a 'butter,' I think it would find 

 a readier sale if lightly coloured with the addition of a little 

 butter-colouring, as used so much to give a richer tint to 

 ordinary butter, and if offered as ' vegetable lard ' it would 

 then need no such addition. Each chemist should adopt 

 a special name, and the uses of the butter should be freely 

 .set forth on the labels. The butter may be put up in 1-lb. 

 and "2-11). lever-lid tins, also sold loose in i-ft). and l-R., and 

 weighed as wanted on vegetable parchment paper, then 

 a label affi.xed, and sold at 7c/. or 8d. per lb. 



Now, I would suggest to chemists to melt very gently 

 ■some of the hard vegetable butters, sold as vegetable suet, or 

 ' Vejsu,' as Messrs. Loders & Nucoline name it. It is put 

 lip in 1-lb. paper packets, and in appearance resembles the 

 best beef suet after it has been melted, strained, and cooled. 



Then add sufficient of the deodorised cocoa-nut oil to the 

 melted vegetable suet to give a suitable mixture, and in the 

 colder months of the year, when the vegetable butter becomes 

 too stiff to rub into pastry, to melt the 'butter ' gently and 

 add sufficient nut oil of the best quality ; I mean the Oleum 

 Nucis used so largely in pharmacies, and so always to offer 

 it of a consistence a little firmer than lard, but lightly 

 coloured, when fluid, with butter-colouring to a butter-like 

 colour, as already suggested. This nut oil is also largely 

 used by vegetarians for frying purposes, and Js taken as 

 a substitute for cod liver oil. Vegetarians and many confec- 

 tioners and biscuit makers were quick to recognize and make 

 such use of the vegetable butter that it is now made in great 

 quantities every year, and, but for the drawback I have 

 pointed out of becoming too soft in summer and too hard in 

 winter, would have been used more extensively in households. 

 It now remains for chemists to renied}- and profit by this 

 defect from a user's point of view. I would aLso advise, as 

 another pi-ofitable ' side-line,' the vegetable suet mentioned 

 above. It can be sold in paper packets at about 8d. per ft)., 

 and it, too, is excellent for frying purposes, cake making, etc., 

 and is preferred by many to the soft vegetable butter. It i.s 

 always of the same consistency, but more easily shredded 

 than the Oleum Theobromatis or cacao butter of the Pharma- 

 copoeia. To u.se the vegetable suet, a little is cut or 

 shredded off with a knife, and, if for frying, heated in a pan. 

 The food to be fried is then added ; or for cakes, etc., soften 

 a little of the sliced-off ' suet ' in a bowl with a gentle 

 warmth, and the flour, etc., rubbed in it. For mince-meat, 

 plum pudding.s, etc., it is cut up fine like the ordinary suet. 

 These vegetable butters being quite free from moisture, it is 

 found in use that 6 oz. are usually equal to 7 oz. or 8 oz. of 

 butter or lard, and this fact should be stated on labels or 

 wrappers. 



(?'o hi; continued.) 



ARABIAN COFFEE IN GRENADA. 



In his monthly report for December last, Mr. G. F. 

 Branch, the Agricultural Instructor at Grenada, 

 furnishes the following information on Arabian coffee 

 in that colony : — 



On the Waltham estate, St. Marks, the property of the 

 Hon. C M. Browne, I came across a very interesting field of 

 Arabian coffee. The trees were wonderfully free of the 

 coffee miner, and although I am told that not much attention 

 is paid to it, the trees appear very healthy and surpass any 

 coffee seen by me in the virgin forest land in Dominica. 



We may add that excellent Ar.abian coffee is also 

 grown by the Hon. D. S. doFreitas at Dougalston in 

 the same island. A sample of this coffee, which had 

 been kept for three years, lately forwarded to this 

 Department, proved to be equal to any coffee produced 

 in the West Indies, with the possible exception of the 

 celebrated Blue Mountain coffee of Jamaica. 



Barbados Sugar in Trinidad. In a short note 



on the sugar industrj', the Purt-of-Spain Gazette, in its issue 

 of .January li last, writes as follows : 'It will be remembered 

 that last year, owing to the increased quantity of grey crystals 

 which were made locally for the American market, there 

 was a great scarcity of the usual light grade molasses 

 sugar, and to supply the wants of their retail customers, 

 dealers in this produce got down trial shipments of muscovado 

 from Barbados. We now learn from more than one of the 

 large purchasers that the business thus opened with the 

 sister colony will, in all likelihood, be continued this year.' 



