Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/525

 however, that while some parts of the scheme may be theoretically objectionable, and others may not be adapted for circumstances different from those in which they had their origin, the general features of the scheme are as sound as the spirit which prompted it was philanthropic.

PLANS FOR ECONOMISING FOOD AND FUEL

As one of Count Rumford's reasons for preferring a general system for the administration of charity was the superior economy which it admitted, especially in the articles of food and fuel, it is not to be wondered at that he turned his attention to a consideration of the subject of food and fuel itself. In doing so, he opened up a new field for the exercise of his practical genius. What is the cheapest way of feeding large bodies of men? and what is the most economical way of applying heat for the purposes of warmth, of cooking, and of manufactures? These are questions upon which Count Rumford occupied himself more zealously and more successfully than any one had done before him, or, probably, than any one has done since his time. With the former question he was engaged while yet resident in Bavaria—one of his subsidiary schemes for the benefit of the poor there, and in other large towns, being the establishment of public kitchens and dining-rooms, where the poor, or indeed the laboring classes generally, might be supplied with better food at a cheaper rate than in their own houses. As the subject of cookery—of the improvements which are possible in the mode of preparing food for the use of man, whether with respect to economy, or to the gratification of the palate, or to both—is one to which scientific men have not yet applied themselves with sufficient zeal, we will note down such of Rumford's conclusions on it as do not appear to be antiquated. The importance which Count Rumford himself attached to the subject will appear from his extraordinary saying, that 'the number of inhabitants who may be supported in any country upon its internal produce, depends almost as much upon the state of its art of cookery as upon that of its agriculture.'

With regard to the materials of food, it needs only to be mentioned that Rumford, besides recommending in Bavaria a larger use of vegetables generally, advocated in a special manner the introduction of the potato, and of Indian corn—the former by cultivation, the latter by importation. In recommending Indian corn, he says, 'The common people in the northern parts of Italy live almost entirely upon it, and throughout the whole continent of America it makes a principal article of food. In Italy it is called polenta; and it is there prepared in a variety of ways, and forms the basis of a number of very nourishing dishes. The most common way of using it in that country is to grind it into meal, and, with water, to make it into a thick kind of pudding, like what in England is called hasty-pudding, which is eaten with various kinds of sauce, and sometimes without sauce.' In America, besides being used for puddings, it forms an ingredient of bread. In testimony to its pleasantness and wholesomeness as an article of food, he mentions the circumstance of the universal fondness of the Americans for it; and that the negroes, in countries where both rice and Indian corn are grown, invariably prefer it to rice, alleging that 'rice turns to water in their bellies,' but 'Indian corn stays with them, and makes them strong to work.'