Читать книгу A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery - Juliet Corson - Страница 13

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For four quarts of soup use one cupful each of the ingredients which I shall name: lean beef cut in half-inch pieces; carrot, which must first be scraped and then cut in half-inch bits; turnip, which must be peeled and then cut in small pieces; rice, picked over, washed in cold water; tomatoes, peeled and sliced if they are fresh; but if you use canned tomatoes simply cut them in small pieces; half a cupful of onion, peeled and chopped rather fine; and four quarts of cold water. First put the water over the fire with the beef in it, and let it gradually heat; while it is heating get ready all the other ingredients that I have spoken of, and add them when the water is hot. Don’t add salt for seasoning until after the soup has been cooking for a little while, because it would tend to harden the meat. When the soup is boiling, put in all the other ingredients; and after the soup has cooked for an hour, season it with salt and pepper. Cook it slowly for about two hours, or until the vegetables are tender. The length of time will depend somewhat on the season of the year. You will find that carrots and turnips, like all vegetables which have woody fibre in them, will cook more quickly early in the winter while they still have their natural moisture in them. The later in the winter it grows the drier they get, the harder the woody fibre is, and the longer it will take to cook them tender. So you will cook the soup until the vegetables are tender; and then, having seen that it is palatably seasoned, serve it with all the vegetables in it. You notice that this is a thick soup, made in an entirely different way from that which I made this morning. I think some of the ladies are here who were here this morning. Then we were making clear soup which is to be served without any vegetables in it. This is a good hearty soup for every-day use; in fact it is so hearty that you can make the bulk of a meal using this and bread or potatoes. When all the vegetables are quite tender then the soup simply is to be served.

Now, while I am preparing the soup, I want to say a little about the value of soup as a food. This comes properly into our afternoon course of instruction. Many of the ladies may not have thought of it in precisely the connection in which I am going to speak of it. Habitually, Americans do not use soup. Some have grown gradually accustomed to have soup as a part of their every-day dinner, but as a rule people have it once or twice a week. I am speaking now of average families. As a matter of fact, it ought to be used every day, because it is not only a very easy form in which to obtain nourishment, but you obtain from soup that which you would not get from any other dish; that is, you get every particle of the nourishment there is in the ingredients which you put into the soup. You can make a perfectly nutritious and palatable meal with soup at about one-half the cost of a meal without soup, because the soup, if it is savory, will be eaten with a relish; and it will satisfy the appetite for two reasons; the first I have already spoken of—because you get every particle of nourishment there is in the ingredients; and second, because directly you eat it—that is, directly it reaches the stomach, some of its nutritious liquid properties will begin to be absorbed at once. They pass directly into the system, by the process which is known in physiology as osmosis—that is, absorption by the coats of the stomach; so that the liquid part of the food is actually absorbed and passes into the circulation in less than five minutes after you have eaten it. A very familiar illustration of that fact was made by Sir Henry Thompson several years ago, in his exceedingly valuable article called “Food and Feeding,” where he said that a hungry man eating clear soup for his dinner would feel a sense of refreshment in less than three minutes; that is, he would feel the effect of his plate of clear soup almost as soon as he would feel the stimulus which he would receive from a glass of wine. He would feel refreshed at once; his sense of hunger, which is the indication that his system needs food, would be practically appeased within three minutes from the time he had taken his soup.

Then there is another very important question; and that is the effect of soups and liquid foods on the appetite for stimulants. I am not a temperance advocate in the sense in which the word is usually understood. That is, I neither believe in nor advocate total abstinence; but I do believe in temperance—in the temperate use of everything; no matter whether it is drink, or food, or pleasure, in a life of work, so that I speak solely from the standpoint of an advocate of the moderate use of everything. The system requires a certain amount of liquid nourishment. We have to get that in the form of liquid, and many people take it by using water to excess—drinking quantities of water. On the other hand, there are some people who never drink more than a glass of water all day long. They must drink something—some kind of liquid—to make up the quantity of water that is absolutely required by the system in the course of twenty-four hours. Some persons take it in the form of tea and coffee; others drink beer and wine; but a certain amount of liquid the system must have. Now, you can easily see that you can supply a part of that liquid in the form of soups and stews. It is not possible for many people to drink much cold water: it does not seem to agree with them. The advocates of the latest craze, for hot water, will get their quantity of liquid, but they will get it in a form that by and by will make serious trouble for them; because, while under certain conditions the entire mucous membrane or lining of the digestive tract, warm water may be desirable, still the excessive use of it is very apt in time to produces a serious congestion. Now, the fact once admitted that we must have a certain amount of liquid supplied to the system every day, then the question comes of giving it in a form that will be the least injurious to the system. I think I have shown you one or two good reasons why soup supplies it well. On the score of economy there is no food which can be as cheaply prepared as soup—that is, no palatable, enjoyable, nutritious food. It is possible to make this soup, this thick soup which I am making now, in New York, and here also, I suppose, for less than ten cents a gallon, buying the materials at retail; and I am sure a gallon of this soup will go very far towards satisfying one’s hunger. I presume, from what I have seen of the market reports in the papers, that it can be made here quite as cheaply as it can in New York.

Question. Does that make very strong soup—does it give a very good rich flavor of the meat, with one cupful of meat to a gallon of water?

Miss Corson. That gives a perfectly nutritious soup. It gives as much nutriment from the meat as is needed by the system.

Question. Wouldn’t a bone or two thrown in be a good thing?

Miss Corson. You can put in bones if you want to. But I am giving you a recipe for a perfectly nutritious soup, made upon the most economical principles. The proportion of meat which I use here is all that is required by the system in connection with the other ingredients. We Americans have, as a rule, the idea that there is no nutritious food except meat. We think that we get all our nourishment from meat; and the other things—the vegetables and bread, and all those other articles of food that we eat, are what the dressmakers would call “trimmings.” We do not regard them as real nourishing food, when in reality there are some vegetables which are nearly as nutritious as meat. Take for instance, lentils; I do not know if you are familiar with them. They are a variety of vetch or field pea, little flat, dried peas, that grow very abundantly; in fact, if they are once planted in a field it is almost impossible to root them out. They have been for ages used in all older countries, in Egypt, in Asia, all through Europe, especially in Germany. Within the last ten years they have become known in this country. Lentils, with the addition of a very little fat in the form of fat meat, suet drippings or butter, are quite as nutritious as meat; that is, they sustain strength, and enable people to work just as well as meat. So, you see, that so far as actual nourishment is concerned, vegetables approach closely to meat. Next to lentils come peas and beans, dried peas and beans. I have not graded the different articles of food, but some day when we have more time I will give you a table of nutritive values of different articles of food so that you can form some comparison in your own mind. Remember this, that meat is not the only nutritious article of food in use, and we only need a certain quantity of it. For instance, for the purpose of health meat once a day will answer. It is very nice to have it two or even three times if we want it, or if we can afford it; but if we have it once a day we answer all the requirements of health, and in communities where it is not possible to have an abundant supply of fresh meat, a very small proportion of salt meat used in connection with the most nutritious vegetables keeps the health and strength of the really active laborers up to the working point.