Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460: Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460: Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852
Various
Periodicals
M. Brocchiere, a French manufacturer, has lately extended these
economical processes so far, as to attempt to produce concentrated
food from the blood of cattle. He dries up the liquid or serous
portions of the blood, and forms into a cake, with admixture of other
substances, the coagulable portion, which contains fibrin, the source
of flesh and muscle. Unless a more delicate name could be given to
this preparation, prejudice would have some influence in depriving it
of the chance of fair play. The dry blood is in some cases combined
with a small portion of flour, and made into light dry masses, like
loaves or cakes, to be used as the basis of soups; while in other
cases it is combined with sugar, to make sweet biscuits and bon-bons.
Another kind of preserved animal fluid is the _ozmazome_, prepared by
Messrs Warriner and Soyer. This consists of the nutritious matter or
juice of meat, set free during the operation of boiling down fat for
tallow in Australia; it is afterwards concentrated, and preserved in
the form of sausages. A great amount of nutriment is thus obtained in
a portable form; when boiled with gelatine, it forms a palatable diet,
and it is also used to form a gravy for meat.
Masson's method of preserving vegetables seems to be very effective,
as applied to white and red cabbages, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and
such like. The process, as conducted in France, is very simple. The
vegetables are dried at a certain temperature (104 to 118 degrees
Fahrenheit), sufficient to expel the moisture without imparting a
burnt taste; and in this operation they lose nearly seven-eighths of
their original weight. The vegetables are then pressed forcibly into
the form of cakes, and are kept in tinfoil till required for use.
These vegetables require, when about to be eaten, rather more boiling
than those in the ordinary state. Some of the French ships of war are
supplied with them, much to the satisfaction of the crews. Dr Lindley
has stated, on the authority of a distinguished officer in the
antarctic expedition under Sir James Ross, that although all the
preserved meats used on that occasion were excellent, and there was
not the slightest ground for any complaint of their quality, the crew
became tired of the meat, but never of the vegetables. 'This should
shew us,' says Dr Lindley, 'that it is not sufficient to supply ships'
crews with preserved meats, but that they should be supplied with
vegetables also, the means of doing which is now afforded.' Generally
speaking, the flavour of preserved vegetables, whether prepared on
Masson's or on any other process, is fresher than that of the
meats--especially in the case of those which abound in the saccharine
principle, as beet, carrot, turnips, &c. The more farinaceous
vegetables, such as green peas, do not preserve so well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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