Before the discovery of meat-extract by Proust, practical
cooks were by no means aware that savour resided in meat
only, but shared the common error that gelatine in broth
was a valuable ingredient, and that the setting of the broth
into jelly on cooling indicated great strength. They there-
fore so managed their stock-pot as to obtain a highly gela-
tinized stock ; the pot became a museum of bones and
vegetable residues, and when its contents were not worked
up in actual cookery, they were evaporated down to a
mostly dark-coloured extract called glace. This set, on
cooling, into a solid mass, nearly as hard as cold meat, and
was, and is in our days, kept ready, in various qualities, for
the improvement, characterization, or specialization of soups,
sauces, entrees, etc. Our most celebrated cooks have seen
a change in the taste of their masters, and effected a
parallel one in their practice. In the first half of the
century the soups called ‘ clear ’ were required to be of a
glutinous, substantial character, or, in other words, they had
to contain much gelatine duly flavoured by herbs; this
result the cooks managed to obtain by the addition of glace.
But now the clear soups must be liquid, pronounced but
not too concentrated as regards broth and flavour; the
glutinous consistency is no longer preferred, but is relegated
to the thick soups. We have even heard it asserted by one
of our greatest chefs that this excessive consumption of glace
in soups and entries was discountenanced because it had
a perceptibly injurious influence upon gouty persons, and
seemed to produce the arthritic diathesis in others.
BOUILLON, OR MEAT-BROTH
121
Difference between Broth and Gravy.
The flavour of broth, as perceived by the nose, is very
slight and delicate ; the gustatory impression is stronger.
To become fully developed, gravy requires the effect of heat,
when it is in the form of concentrated extract, so that it
becomes slightly browned. Even highly-concentrated broth
has never the stirring effect of light-brown gravy. Broth,
on the other hand, requires the addition of flavouring
vegetables and spices. For soups only the pale broth is
requisite, but brown gravy imparts vivacity to the taste.
For savoury sauces both the pale and the brown gravy are
necessary. The hroion gravy is prepared by frying veal,
ham, beef, fowl, game, etc., in butter until brown, and sim-
mering the fry with stock ; ragouts are founded in a similar
manner.
The changes which the extractive matters of meat undergo
when they turn from the bland and colourless form to that
of reddish-brown gravy are very interesting subjects of
study, particularly as gravy such as flows from roast beef
cannot yet be produced at will from pale broth. The
alkaloids and peptonoids of broth no doubt suffer a change
similar to that which starch and sugar undergo when they
are heated to high degrees of temperature ; they lose water,
become more complicated, doubled and trebled in chemical
structure, and assume different, new properties, amongst
^ them a brown colour ; the new products, when resulting
from carbo-hydrates, are termed caramels. To the brown
products of the broth peptonoids the term ‘ caramel ’ was
actually applied by ancient great cooks, e.g.. La Chapelle ;
in our time the term osmazome, which was formerly applied
to the whole aggregate of meat-extract, might be reappro-
priated.
Page 86
Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Before the discovery of meat-extract by Proust, practical cooks were by no means aware that savour resided in meat only, but shared the common error that gelatine in broth was a valuable ingredient, and that the setting of the broth into jelly on cooling indicated great strength. They therefore so managed their stock-pot as to obtain a highly gelatinized stock ; the pot became a museum of bones and vegetable residues, and when its contents were not worked up in actual cookery, they were evaporated down to a mostly dark-coloured extract called glace. This set, on cooling, into a solid mass, nearly as hard as cold meat, and was, and is in our days, kept ready, in various qualities, for the improvement, characterization, or specialization of soups, sauces, entrees, etc. Our most celebrated cooks have seen a change in the taste of their masters, and effected a parallel one in their practice. In the first half of the century the soups called ‘ clear ’ were required to be of a glutinous, substantial character, or, in other words, they had to contain much gelatine duly flavoured by herbs; this result the cooks managed to obtain by the addition of glace. But now the clear soups must be liquid, pronounced but not too concentrated as regards broth and flavour; the glutinous consistency is no longer preferred, but is relegated to the thick soups. We have even heard it asserted by one of our greatest chefs that this excessive consumption of glace in soups and entries was discountenanced because it had a perceptibly injurious influence upon gouty persons, and seemed to produce the arthritic diathesis in others.
Difference between Broth and Gravy.
The flavour of broth, as perceived by the nose, is very slight and delicate ; the gustatory impression is stronger. To become fully developed, gravy requires the effect of heat, when it is in the form of concentrated extract, so that it becomes slightly browned. Even highly-concentrated broth has never the stirring effect of light-brown gravy. Broth, on the other hand, requires the addition of flavouring vegetables and spices. For soups only the pale broth is requisite, but brown gravy imparts vivacity to the taste. For savoury sauces both the pale and the brown gravy are necessary. The brown gravy is prepared by frying veal, ham, beef, fowl, game, etc., in butter until brown, and simmering the fry with stock ; ragouts are founded in a similar manner.
The changes which the extractive matters of meat undergo when they turn from the bland and colourless form to that of reddish-brown gravy are very interesting subjects of study, particularly as gravy such as flows from roast beef cannot yet be produced at will from pale broth. The alkaloids and peptonoids of broth no doubt suffer a change similar to that which starch and sugar undergo when they are heated to high degrees of temperature ; they lose water, become more complicated, doubled and trebled in chemical structure, and assume different, new properties, amongst ^ them a brown colour ; the new products, when resulting from carbo-hydrates, are termed caramels. To the brown products of the broth peptonoids the term ‘ caramel ’ was actually applied by ancient great cooks, e.g.. La Chapelle ; in our time the term osmazome, which was formerly applied to the whole aggregate of meat-extract, might be reappropriated.