Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/103

Rh This reduces the cost to a little above one farthing per dinner—1 exactly.

In the essay from which the above is quoted, there is another account, reducing all the items to what they would cost in Loudon in November, 1795, which raises the amount to 2 farthings per portion for No. 1, and 2 farthings for No. 2. In this estimate the expenses for fuel, servants, kitchen furniture, etc., are three times as much as the cost at Munich, and the other items at the prices stated in the printed report of the Board of Agriculture of November 10, 1795.

But since 1795 we have made great progress in the right direction. Bread then cost one shilling per loaf, barley and peas about fifty per cent more than at present, salt is set down by Rumford at 1d. per pound (now about one farthing). Fuel was also dearer. But wages have risen greatly. As stated in money, they are about doubled (in purchasing power, i. e., real wages, they are threefold). Making all these allowances, charging wages at six times those paid by him, I find that the present cost of Rumford's No. 1 soup would be a little over one halfpenny per portion, and No. 2 just about one halfpenny. I here assume that Rumford's directions for the construction of kitchen fireplaces and economy of fuel are carried out. We are in these matters still a century behind his arrangements of 1790, and nothing short of a coal-famine will punish and cure our criminal extravagance.

The cookery of the above-named ingredients is conducted as follows: "The water and pearl-barley first put together in the boiler and made to boil, the peas are then added, and the boiling is continued over a gentle fire about two hours; the potatoes are then added (peeled), and the boiling is continued for about one hour more, during which time the contents of the boiler are frequently stirred about with a large wooden spoon or ladle, in order to destroy the texture of the potatoes, and to reduce the soup to one uniform mass. When this is done, the vinegar and salt are added; and, last of all, at the moment that it is to be served up, the cuttings of bread." No. 1 is to be cooked for three hours without the potatoes.

As already stated, I have found, in carrying out these instructions, that I obtain a purée or porridge rather than a soup. I found the No. 1 to be excellent. No. 2 inferior. It was better when very small potatoes were used; they became more jellied, and the purée altogether had less of the granular texture of mashed potatoes. I found it necessary to conduct the whole of the cooking myself; the inveterate kitchen superstition concerning simmering and boiling, the belief that anything rapidly boiling is hotter than when it simmers, and is therefore cooking more quickly, compels the non-scientific cook to shorten the tedious three-hour process by boiling. This boiling drives the water from below, bakes the lower stratum of the porridge, and spoils the whole. The ordinary cook, were she "at the strappado, or all the racks in the world," would not keep anything barely boiling