Strain your soups twice if necessary, and avoid as
much as possible the use of ground pepper. Salt,
when meat is being cooked, is best added towards the
end, as its tendency is to harden the meat. Consider
whether the things you propose to cook are in season,
and readily obtained ; so arrange your work that you
have everything ready when it is wanted. Let every-
thing be done at its proper time, and nothing wasted;
keep everything dry, clean, and in its place ; use
everything properly. A convenient time should be
selected for trying new recipes. Never use soda for
cooking purposes. Let us begin with the Pot au Feu,
and let me beg of you to spare no time or trouble in
preparing this dish. Do it over and over again until
you are able to do it from memory as perfectly as pos-
sible. It is both an economical and wholesome dish,
Pot an Feu and Bouilli.
25
and well suited either to a large or small family. Beef
broth✪ Pot au Feu is the best of broth for all cooking purposes.
We commenced in the cookery school with the pot au
feu ; it is the standard dish of all classes in France ;
and is the origin of beef stock. As a rule, you cannot
prepare a more wholesome or hearty kind of food
than soups and stews ; it is the only kind of cook-
ing by which you obtain the full value of all your
materials, and it is not only the most wholesome, but
it is the cheapest and most profitable form by which
food can be prepared for working people. What a
blessing if the wife of a labouring man knew how to
turn little scraps of meat and bones, fish and
vegetables into good food by making soups and
stews. Persons who cook their food in water do it
more economically, and derive from it a greater
amount of nourishment than those who employ the
direct action of heat, as in baking and roasting.
Stewing, which must not be confounded with boiling,
affords a greater facility for using up different kinds of
animal and vegetable food.
Bread is generally the cheapest food. At 1 \d. per lb. it yields
1 995 grains of carbon, and 90 grains of nitrogen.
Bread made of the whole meal is much richer in phosphates,
which are necessary in the formation and repair of the bones.
It has been said by a distinguished medical authority, that the
early decay of teeth among children often proceeds from eating
nothing but white bread.
Brown meal is as expensive as fine flour, because brown bread
is now a mark of luxury. It is frequently seen in the houses of
the rich, but never in the cottages of the poor.
Brown bread should be made from the whole meal, and not
from hap-hazard mixtures of pollards, sharps, and bran.
ON STOCK SOUPS AND POT AU FEU.
“Soup makes the soldier.” — Napoleon /.
“You cannot feed soldiers on soups made out of nothing.”—
Napoleon 111,
Page 9 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1887. 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
Strain your soups twice if necessary, and avoid as much as possible the use of ground pepper. Salt, when meat is being cooked, is best added towards the end, as its tendency is to harden the meat. Consider whether the things you propose to cook are in season, and readily obtained ; so arrange your work that you have everything ready when it is wanted. Let everything be done at its proper time, and nothing wasted; keep everything dry, clean, and in its place ; use everything properly. A convenient time should be selected for trying new recipes. Never use soda for cooking purposes. Let us begin with the Pot au Feu, and let me beg of you to spare no time or trouble in preparing this dish. Do it over and over again until you are able to do it from memory as perfectly as possible. It is both an economical and wholesome dish,
Pot au Feu and Bouilli.
and well suited either to a large or small family. Beef broth is the best of broth for all cooking purposes. We commenced in the cookery school with the pot au feu ; it is the standard dish of all classes in France ; and is the origin of beef stock. As a rule, you cannot prepare a more wholesome or hearty kind of food than soups and stews ; it is the only kind of cooking by which you obtain the full value of all your materials, and it is not only the most wholesome, but it is the cheapest and most profitable form by which food can be prepared for working people. What a blessing if the wife of a labouring man knew how to turn little scraps of meat and bones, fish and vegetables into good food by making soups and stews. Persons who cook their food in water do it more economically, and derive from it a greater amount of nourishment than those who employ the direct action of heat, as in baking and roasting. Stewing, which must not be confounded with boiling, affords a greater facility for using up different kinds of animal and vegetable food.
Bread is generally the cheapest food. At 1 \d. per lb. it yields 1 995 grains of carbon, and 90 grains of nitrogen.
Bread made of the whole meal is much richer in phosphates, which are necessary in the formation and repair of the bones. It has been said by a distinguished medical authority, that the early decay of teeth among children often proceeds from eating nothing but white bread.
Brown meal is as expensive as fine flour, because brown bread is now a mark of luxury. It is frequently seen in the houses of the rich, but never in the cottages of the poor.
Brown bread should be made from the whole meal, and not from hap-hazard mixtures of pollards, sharps, and bran.
ON STOCK SOUPS AND POT AU FEU.
“Soup makes the soldier.” — Napoleon /.
“You cannot feed soldiers on soups made out of nothing.”— Napoleon 111,
Records on this page
Pot au Feu