420 Of Food. 



One ounce of bacon or of smoked beef, and one ounce 

 of fried bread, added to eighteen ounces of the soup 

 No. I., would afford an excellent meal, in which the 

 taste of animal food would decidedly predominate. 



Dried salt fish or smoked fish, boiled and then 

 minced and made into dumplings with mashed potatoes, 

 bread, and flour, and boiled again, would be very good, 

 eaten with either of the soups No. I. or No. II. 



These soups may likewise be improved by mixing 

 with them various kinds of cheap roots and green 

 vegetables, as turnips, carrots, parsnips, celery, cab- 

 bages, sour-crout, etc., as also by seasoning them with 

 fine herbs and black pepper. Onions and leeks may 

 likewise be used with great advantage, as they not 

 only serve to render the food in which the}'- enter as 

 ingredients peculiarly savoury, but are really very 

 wholesome. 



With regard to the barley made use of in preparing 

 these soups, though I always have used pearl barley, 

 or rolled barley (as it is called in Germany), yet I have 

 no doubt but common barley-meal would answer 

 Jiearly as well, particularly if care were taken to boil 

 it gently for a sufficient length of time over a slow fire 

 before the peas are added.* 



Till the last year we used to cook the barley-soup 



* Since the first edition of this Essay was published, the experiment with 

 barley-meal has been tried, and the meal has been found to answer quite as 

 well as pearl barley, if not better, for making these soups. Among others, 

 Thomas Bernard, Esq., treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, a gentleman of 

 most respectable character, and well known for his philanthropy and active zeal 

 in relieving the distresses of the poor, has given it a very complete and fair trial ; 

 and he found — what is very remarkable, though not difficult to be accounted for 

 — that the barley-meal, with all the bran in it, answered better (that is to say, 

 made the soup richer and thicker) than when the fine flour of barley, without 

 the bran, was used. 



