VOL. LKVIII.] VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 399 



tliem in the oven. This makes a very useful and wholesome article of food, 

 always ready to qualify the seamen's salt provisions, which they commonly eat in 

 the form of broth in the Russian navy, with the addition of this bread, which 

 is put in as we do the white bread in our soups of that name, or they take off 

 the saltness of their sea beef by making it into soup with their prepared vege- 

 tables ; but never suffer their sailors to eat it dry as they call it, being of opinion 

 that it promotes the scurvy in the fleet. This rusk also not only answers the 

 common purpose of bread, but when thrown into warm water produces their 

 favourite liquor quass, with or without the addition of ground malt : and they 

 likewise put this last article into the sour dough, with which they make a sort of 

 rusk for the purpose of quass alone. There are prepared cucumbers which are 

 eaten with meat in this country, and the people are remarkably fond of them. 

 They are called salted cucumbers, as salt is the principal ingredient used in the 

 preparation ; but they have the same sourish taste so often mentioned, and seem 

 to have their share also in the merit ascribed to the regimen at large. 



To prepare the Russian salted cucumbers, they put any quantity of cucumbers 

 into a cask, and as much cold water as covers them, with 4 or 5 handfuls of 

 salt, some oak and black currant leaves, some dill and garlic. They then set 

 the cask into a cool place for about 48 hours, till the liquor tastes sourish, when 

 they pour it ofl^ from the cucumbers into a pan, and add to it 4 or 5 handfuls of 

 salt, then boil it for about 15 minutes, and when cold return it into the cask to 

 cover the cucumber, which they now bung up for use, and place in the cellar, 

 where they become crisp and fit to be eaten in 3 or 4 days, and are counted a 

 luxury by their admirers. 



There are still a few other dishes to be mentioned, that seem to have the 

 satne tendency as those already described : viz. what is called sooins in Scotland, 

 and much used by the common people there. It is an infusion of oat-meal bran 

 in warm water, left to ferment till it acquire the sourish taste, and then strained 

 and boiled to a consistence. Another of their dishes is composed of rye-meal, 

 ground malt, and water, as thick as cream, which is placed all night in the oven, 

 previously heated to a moderate degree, and in the morning a piece of sour rye 

 bread is added to effect their favourite end, and the mess eaten when cold. 

 Horse-radish they dry in the oven and keep all winter, which they powder, 

 when wanted, and mix with vinegar to eat with salt fish. Turnips they preserve 

 during the winter in dry sand (as they likewise do the large white radish ;) these 

 they put into an earthen pot with a close cover, and stew them in the oven, with 

 their own juice alone, till perfectly soft, and then eat them with quass. When 

 sugar IS added instead of quass, they make an elegant dish, and proper in 



* This is the very same process as is used in the north of England,, for the like purpose, and pro- 

 bably in all other countries where rye-bread is used. 



