On analysis, one hundred parts of these yielded to alcohol only five parts (instead of fifty, as true meat-extract would have yielded) ; allowing five further parts as matter in- soluble in alcohol belonging to true meat-extract, the tablets contained ninety parts in one hundred of mere gelatine. The part soluble in alcohol had only an undecided and feeble taste of meat. On inquiry this was fully explained by the manner in which the tablets were made, for they were produced from offal, feet, cartilages, bone-ivory and (stag) horn shavings. Thus the savory principle was replaced by glue ; the tablets, even with the addition of vegetable-extract, salt and spice, would never yield a tasty * Wiegleb was born at Langansalza in 1732, and was therefore ten years of age when La Chapelle wrote ; he died in 1800. Martins’s ‘ Instruction in Natural Magic’ was first published in 1751, completely rewritten by Wiegleb, and published at Berlin in 1779, 8vo. ; a supplement, by G. Fr. Cr. Rosenthal, appeared in 1789, sq. xx., 8vo. (ex Graesse, loc. cit., vii. 1302 and 1305). BOUILLON, OR MEAT-BROTH III soup, and became discredited. ‘ Glue does not make bouillon.’ These tablets were counterfeits of the true tablets of portable bouillon, and were instrumental in de- stroying their reputation. To restore their reputation and establish a manufacture of a saleable standard article, a company was founded by two Dutch merchants of the name of Bouwens and Van Copenael, both domiciled at Paris. Their product was sold and known as Bo^lillon cle la Compagnie Hollandaise, and seems to have been a fair article of trade, containing certainly much extract of meat ; for the French chemist Chevreul, who examined this product as member of a commission appointed by the Academy of Sciences in 1831, discovered in it the crys- tallized substance creatine in 1835, a discovery which marks the beginning of the chemical knowledge of flesh and its preparation. Proust examined the relative cost of his absolutely pure extract and of the extracts containing gelatine ; he dis- covered a further source of difficulty in the appreciation of some varieties of bouillon tablets in this, that they con- tained salt — i.e., sodium chloride — caramel or burnt sugar, and extracts of parts of vegetables ; these additions made the tablets not only still less valuable by dilution, but rendered them deliquescent. The tablets were, in fact, an imitation, and a bad one too, of an old-established pre- paration current in all higher-class kitchens, namely, glace (or glaze, or glaize), the evaporated extract of the stock-pot, in fact a weak, and in its weakness varying, extract of meat mixed with as much gelatine as could practically be added to it. The Germans called this product pocket-bouillon, the French bouillon sec. Both stock-pot and glace will be considered lower down ; here we continue the historical account of the subject, by premising that neither Proust nor Chevreul, and a fortiori none of the members of the commission of the Academy, seems to have been acquainted II2 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY with the true mode of producing portable dry bouillon as taught in the recipe recorded by La Chapelle. Discovery of the Extract of Meat by Louis Proust.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

On analysis, one hundred parts of these yielded to alcohol only five parts (instead of fifty, as true meat-extract would have yielded) ; allowing five further parts as matter insoluble in alcohol belonging to true meat-extract, the tablets contained ninety parts in one hundred of mere gelatine. The part soluble in alcohol had only an undecided and feeble taste of meat. On inquiry this was fully explained by the manner in which the tablets were made, for they were produced from offal, feet, cartilages, bone-ivory and (stag) horn shavings. Thus the savory principle was replaced by glue ; the tablets, even with the addition of vegetable-extract, salt and spice, would never yield a tasty * Wiegleb was born at Langansalza in 1732, and was therefore ten years of age when La Chapelle wrote ; he died in 1800. Martins’s ‘ Instruction in Natural Magic’ was first published in 1751, completely rewritten by Wiegleb, and published at Berlin in 1779, 8vo. ; a supplement, by G. Fr. Cr. Rosenthal, appeared in 1789, sq. xx., 8vo. (ex Graesse, loc. cit., vii. 1302 and 1305). soup, and became discredited. ‘ Glue does not make bouillon.’ These tablets were counterfeits of the true tablets of portable bouillon, and were instrumental in destroying their reputation. To restore their reputation and establish a manufacture of a saleable standard article, a company was founded by two Dutch merchants of the name of Bouwens and Van Copenael, both domiciled at Paris. Their product was sold and known as Bouillon de la Compagnie Hollandaise, and seems to have been a fair article of trade, containing certainly much extract of meat ; for the French chemist Chevreul, who examined this product as member of a commission appointed by the Academy of Sciences in 1831, discovered in it the crystallized substance creatine in 1835, a discovery which marks the beginning of the chemical knowledge of flesh and its preparation. Proust examined the relative cost of his absolutely pure extract and of the extracts containing gelatine ; he discovered a further source of difficulty in the appreciation of some varieties of bouillon tablets in this, that they contained salt — i.e., sodium chloride — caramel or burnt sugar, and extracts of parts of vegetables ; these additions made the tablets not only still less valuable by dilution, but rendered them deliquescent. The tablets were, in fact, an imitation, and a bad one too, of an old-established preparation current in all higher-class kitchens, namely, glace (or glaze, or glaize), the evaporated extract of the stock-pot, in fact a weak, and in its weakness varying, extract of meat mixed with as much gelatine as could practically be added to it. The Germans called this product pocket-bouillon, the French bouillon sec. Both stock-pot and glace will be considered lower down ; here we continue the historical account of the subject, by premising that neither Proust nor Chevreul, and a fortiori none of the members of the commission of the Academy, seems to have been acquainted with the true mode of producing portable dry bouillon as taught in the recipe recorded by La Chapelle. Discovery of the Extract of Meat by Louis Proust.

The spirit of cookery