Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/697

Rh cellar were rented at 142 Pleasant Street, "a respectable part of the city, consisting mostly of small shops and of houses let out in flats or rooms, and occupied by people who follow various trades."

By January 24, 1890, the kitchen was opened for the sale of food, it offering at that time beef broth, vegetable soup, pea soup, corn mush, boiled hominy, oatmeal mush, cracked wheat, and spiced beef. Since then other preparations have been added.

Every dish offered by the kitchen is what would be known as a standard dish as compared with one suited only to occasional times. In order to be able to offer standard dishes, the requirements which they must meet were several. "First, the cost of material must not go beyond a certain limit. Second, the labor of making it must not be too great. Third, it must be really nutritious and healthful. Fourth, it must be in a form that it could be easily served, and kept hot without loss of flavor. Fifth, it must suit the popular taste enough to be salable."

One of the first things accomplished by the New England Kitchen was the making of beef broth from the cheaper cuts of meat which was unvarying in nutriment and flavor. To this end the broth was frequently analyzed under the supervision of Mrs. Richards at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

More than twenty experiments were tried in its preparation, and one gets the best idea of the care which these college women took to have every scientific principle of soup-making carried out by quoting from the first report published: "The old-fashioned method of making soup in a pot on the stove was tried, and given up; the use of a Papin soup digester was no more satisfactory, the difficulty of regulating the heat and of retaining the flavors of the meat being found to be insurmountable. Gas or oil used under a pot gave little better satisfaction, the bottom being always hotter than the top, and the loss of heat from the whole surface proving wasteful. The labor of making soup by these methods was considerable, and it required the constant supervision of an experienced hand; moreover, no way could be devised for making large quantities at a time. Along with these experiments went others with the Aladdin oven, which were so promising in their results that we had tin-lined copper vessels made to utilize the entire capacity of the oven—i. e., thirty quarts—and settled on this method for making the broth. It was found to have these advantages: First, it made the scientific requirements for soup-making possible—i. e., (a) long, slow heating before the coagulating point was reached; (b) the continuation of the cooking at a temperature slightly below the boiling point, and long enough to get from the bones and tendons that proportion of gelatin which we knew to be desirable; (c) the retention of the full flavor; and (d)