488 Of Food. 



is very small, and will cost very little. One ounce of 

 butter would be sufficient for roasting eight ounces of 

 meal ; and, if half an ounce of roasted meal is sufficient 

 for making one portion of soup, the butter will not 

 amount to more than tV of an ounce, and, at eight- 

 pence the pound, will cost only 3V of a penny, or \ of 

 a farthing. The cost of the meal for a portion of this 

 soup is not much more considerable. If it be rye-meal 

 (which is said to be quite as good for roasting as the 

 finest wheat-flour), it will not cost in this country, even 

 now when grain is so dear, more than \\d. per pound: 

 \ an ounce, therefore, the quantity required for one 

 portion of the soup, would cost only ^2 of a farthing, 

 and the meal and butter together no more than (| + 3^ 

 = \%, or something less than ^ of a farthing. If to this 

 sum we add the cost of the ingredients used to season 

 the soup, — namely, for salt, pepper, and vinegar, allow- 

 ing for them as much as the amount of the cost of the 

 butter and the meal, or |- of a farthing, — this will give 

 f of a farthing for the cost of the ingredients used in 

 preparing one portion of this soup ; but, as the bread 

 which is eaten with it is an expensive article, this 

 food will not, upon the whole, be cheaper than the 

 soup just mentioned, and it is certainly neither so 

 nourishing nor so wholesome. 



Brown soup might, however, on certain occasions, 

 be found to be useful. As it is so soon cooked, and as 

 the ingredients for making it are so easily prepared, 

 preserved, and transported from place to place, it might 

 be useful to travellers and to soldiers on a march. And 

 though it can hardly be supposed to be of itself very 

 nourishing, yet it is possible it may render the bread 

 eaten with it not only more nutritive, but also more 



