―129―ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.
For the Weekly Magazine.
REVIEW.
Count Rumford's Third Essay.
Of Food, and particularly of Feeding
the Poor.
[Continued from page 99.]
THE remaining part of this essay
is of less importance than the fore-
going. We have already dwelt so
copiously on this work, that little
will be said on that which still re-
mains to be noticed. We shall over-
look his commentaries upon cut paste
or maccaroni. The ingredients are
not cheap, nor the process easy; and
it is not prepared by professed cooks,
in this country.
Potatoes seem to be of chief value,
but little new information is commu-
nicated to American house-wives in
this performance. The points, chiefly
dwelt upon, is the boiling of potatoes
and bringing them to table with the
skins on: when boiled it is recom-
mended, to evaporate the moisture
by replacing the vessel, in which they
were boiled, over the fire. Receipts
are likewise given for preparing pota-
toes in puddings and dumplins.
The preference is given to barley
over wheat, as to its nutritiousness;
but it is chiefly recommended as the
basis of soups. Barley-meal may be
used for this purpose with as much
benefit as pearl-barley. One ounce
and a quarter of barley-flour, to one
pint and a quarter of water, will
produce twenty ounces of soup; and
this is a sufficient portion for one man.
Samp, or the grain of Indian corn,
boiled and peeled, is celebrated as
savoury and nutritive. The prepa-
ration is, however, tedious and com-
plex. Soaking, for twelve hours, in
a lixivium of water and wood-ashes,
and, subsequently, boiling it four
times as long, are necessary parts of
this process. If grinding were an
household process, it might be doubted
whether samp would not be prefer-
able, in simplicity and cheapness, to
hasty pudding, but the invention of
mills has greatly simplified and expe-
dited the pulverization of this grain.
Some person perhaps may discover
more compendious and comprehensive
modes of making samp than are at
present in use.
Brown soup is a Bavarian dish.
It consists of butter and a little meal,
fried, and afterwards dissolved in
boiling water: It has little power of
nourishment, but it is infinitely to be
preferred to tea, which is the darling
of almost all classes. Tea is a perni-
cious potion, corrigible only by a
plentiful addition of milk, and sugar,
and solid eatables.
Rye-bread seems to be in bad re-
pute in Great Britain. This preju-
dice is thought by Count Rumford
to be chiefly owing to imperfect pre-
paration. Among the lower classes,
in Europe, it is the chief species of
bread. This circumstance attests its
―130―
wholesomeness, and the author refers
us to tables and receipts, yet to be
published, for information on its
comparative advantages in cookery.
The great purpose of these essays
is to alleviate the miseries of the
lower classes of the people. It is
impossible to say how much this
publication may promote this end.
His exertions as the minister of a
despotic prince, produced a consi-
derable effect; but it is likely that
the deluge of war has swept all traces
of his institutions from the face of
the earth: By delineating these esta-
blishments, and exemplifying the
truth of his deductions by their suc-
cess, he has done all that his situation
permits.
Poverty is a disease that can be
cured only by investigating and out-
rooting the causes by which it is ge-
nerated. If these causes be the de-
fects of the political constitution,
every remedy is ineffectual that stops
short of these. Perhaps the philan-
thropist will derive more sorrow from
contemplating the transitoriness of
the author's improvements in Bava-
ria, than from surveying their short-
lived success, and despair of confer-
ring any benefit on nations who know
no liberty among themselves, and no
equity in their conduct towards each
other.