Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil InstitutionsSoyer, Alexis
History
Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions
Soyer, Alexis
Cooking for military personnel; Crimean War, 1853-1856
Miss Nightingale was at this period gradually recovering, and the time
for her departure drew near. That lady and Mr. Bracebridge had both
expressed their wish for me to return to Scutari with them, which I was
also very anxious to do. I wanted to give an important _coup d’œil_
at the hospitals there, which were still very full. So I made the most
of my remaining time; visited the French, Turkish, and Sardinian camps,
and their hospitals, from each of which, I am proud to say, I gleaned
some important and useful dietetic information. It was, however, better
suited to the camp than to the permanent hospitals. What struck me most
in the French and Sardinian treatments, which are based upon a similar
system, was this--viz., that too much liquid of a weak nature was
administered to the patients, and in too great quantities--especially as
the climate had so great a tendency to produce diarrhœa, dysentery,
and cholera.
I had remarked during my stay at Scutari, and when the hospital was
filled with patients suffering from those diseases, that the succulent
mutton and barley broth I had introduced was selected daily from the
dietary by the English doctors, in preference to beef-tea,
chicken-broth, &c.; as well as the receipts for plain boiled rice,
savoury rice, slightly curried rice, rice-pulp, ground rice-pudding,
sago-jelly, sago-panada; and for beverages, strong rice-water,
barley-water, and arrowroot-water, in preference to lemonade during the
first stage of those diseases; and that numbers of these light though
nutritious dishes were selected by the doctors when the disease was at
its height.
Though I am aware that in different countries men have different
constitutions, I also remarked that the Turkish system of diet closely
resembled the English, as they used a great deal of rice, flour--stewed,
broiled, and boiled meats, &c. &c. In giving this opinion, _en passant_,
it is only with the intention of submitting to the public, if not to the
faculty, things which struck me forcibly during my visits to those
important establishments, in which everybody has and ever will take a
national interest. Nor can I bring these few remarks to a close without
returning my grateful thanks to the authorities in these various
establishments for their very courteous attention upon all occasions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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