Curry Condiments.

I apologise in advance to my friends from the Indian subcontinent, for the information in this post. Please do not shoot the historical messenger!

Until the mid nineteenth century, cookery books covered the full range of dishes, but at this time, a trickle of books on specific food topics began to appear. I was most pleased recently, to find a curry cookery book from 1891. It is Tempting Curry Dishes, and was published in New York in 1891.

The introduction notes that, in ‘an ancient cookery book in the Sanskrit language’ are preserved many of the formulae and recipes of the ‘mighty Hindoo kingdoms’. These, it said, totalled many hundreds of formulae – each dish having its own separate powder, which ‘are known to modern civilisation as Curry Powders.’

The introduction goes on to report:

‘ … a short time ago, the members of the famous New York Chafing Dish Club decided to hold a series of practical sessions in curry cookery, with a view to determining which Curry Powder on the New York market was the most appropriate for the United States [and] at the same time was made of the purest and most wholesome ingredients.’

Over forty different curry powders were tasted, and ‘a number of distinguished English epicures were present and took part in the contest.’ The labels of the competing brands were of course covered. The winner – universally chosen by the experts - was the Curry Powder of James P. Smith & Company’, from Park Place, New York.

This then, is the promotional cookery book for the product. There are recipes for curried apples, curried frogs, and curried tripe amongst the expected curried beef, chicken, and prawns. There is even a recipe for curried sandwiches. A great range of options for a spicy dinner for the discerning gourmet – and, most conveniently, every single dish receives its delicious curry flavour from ‘J.P.Smith’s Curry Powder.’

I do quite like the following ideas from the book, but perhaps we should experiment with our own blends of ‘curry powder’ to use instead of the (no doubt unobtainable today), J.P.Smith’s Curry Powder.

Curry Oil.
One of the agreeable and at the same time useful oils which should find a place on the shelf of every kitchen or butler’s pantry, is known as Curry Oil. It is made by putting into a six-ounce, large-mouthed bottle two tablespoonfuls of J.P.Smith’s Curry Powder, then filling up the bottle with Antonini Olive Oil. In a week it will be ready for use. A few drops of it should be added to sauces and salads.

Curry Vinegar.
Put in a pint of good cider or wine vinegar a tablespoonful of J.P.Smith’s Curry Powder, shake it well from time to time, and in ten days it will be fit for use. It is excellent for flavouring soups etc.

Quotation for the Day.

Lettuce, greens and celery, though much eaten, are worse than cabbage, being equally indigestible without the addition of condiments.
William Andrus Alcott, The Young House-keeper, (1846)

Imitation Soy Sauce.

How is it that soy sauce became an important ingredient in nineteenth century English cookery? Englishmen had certainly developed a taste for salty, vinegary, strongly flavoured foods over the previous few centuries – at least in part thanks to the long sojourns that many of them spent in the furthest reaches of the Empire. Long slow journeys meant that preserving these flavours for travelling purposes was also desirable. Were these the reasons for the well-known love of the English for bottled sauces (such as Worcestershire sauce, for example)?



Many of the recipes for sauces in nineteenth century English cookery books – sauces of the bottled kind, that is – include soy sauce as an ingredient. Dr. William Kitchiner in his Cook’s Oracle (1817) included it in the list of essential components of his Magazine of Taste. He included a general description of its manufacture in his book, the information apparently coming from a person who had been to the East - but the details of the process remained mysterious.

How then, was the English cook of the nineteenth century to obtain this important ingredient? The book that has been our source of fun for the last couple of days - Pharmaceutical Formulas - A Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade (1898) – agreed that the details of the manufacture of soy sauce in China, India, and Japan were “practically a secret” and added that “as the product cannot be accurately imitated, we recommend only imported soy to be used in making sauces.” In spite of this advice, and no doubt in consideration of its vital role in the kitchen, the authors then went on to give recipe for:

Factitious Soy
… is made by mixing together 1 gal. of malt syrup (extract of malt 4 lbs., water to 1 gal.), 5 lbs. treacle, 4 lbs. salt, and 2 pints of mushroom juice. Heat gently in order to facilitate the mixing, set aside for a fortnight, and decant from it any deposit.

I guess the mushrooms provide the umami flavour. How convincing do you think this ‘soy’ sauce would be?


Quotation for the Day.

If I could only have one type of food with me, I would bring soy sauce. The reason being that if I have soy sauce, I can flavor a lot of things.
Martin Yan

Prescription Sausages.

Yesterday’s source - Pharmaceutical Formulas - A Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade, published in 1898 – provides much other food for thought. The ‘Drug Trade’ includes all manner of fascinating formulas for household use, including cleaning materials, writing materials, perfumes, preparations for the hair and teeth and so on, as well as those with medicinal applications.

Quite a number of the recipes in the chapter on Household and Domestic Requisites (in which we found yesterday’s sauces), are decidedly difficult to reconcile with the health implications implicit in a publication for pharmaceutical professionals, but neither do they seem to fall on the industrial chemical side of things. Yesterday I said ‘I live in hope of the day when the friendly neighbourhood pharmacist will provide recipes for the daily dinner’. Even if this were to happen in the amazingly mysterious future, I cannot image that the meal prescription will ever, ever, ever, include sausages (although it should, with reservations, of course). In our source manual for the day however, we find the following recipe (without comments as to meat quality or type, it must be said) ….


Pork Sausage Flavouring.
White Pepper 2 oz.
Jamaica Pepper 6 dr.
Black Pepper 3 dr.
Ginger 3 dr.
Capsicum 2 dr.
Mace 1 dr.
Cloves 10gr.
All in fine powder, mixed. A little nitre helps to keep the colour of the meat.
(an alternative recipe suggests “tinting the powder a dark salmon colour by means of finely powdered red sanderswood.)

The pharmaceutical focus is evident in the use of pharmaceutical units of measurement in this recipe. The abbreviations and conversions are:

gr = grain (not gram!); one gram is about 60 grains
dr = dram, or drachm; one dram is approximately 3.89 gm.

Here is another lovely idea from the book.

Lemon Pickle.
Slit unpeeled lemons, previously cured, into quarters, without separating the pieces, sprinkle with salt, and lay aside in dishes for a week. Then pack in jars with two or three cayenne pods to each lemon and a good sprinkling of turmeric, and cover with hot vinegar.
[the instruction “previously cured” is odd here. It presumably means salted, but then the recipe goes on to describe the salting process. Perhaps an example of the inexact art of recipe writing?]

Quotation for the Day.

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.
Alfred E. Newman

The Drug Trade, on Sauces.

I never tire of the ‘food as medicine’ theme. It is an ancient theme indeed - and one which has been undergoing something of a revival over recent decades. The modern thrust tends to be deconstructionist - promoting nutrients rather than food, or at least single specific foods such as the supposed ‘superfoods’ (avocado, berries, etc). The pity is that very little of the advice distributed by professionals in the health and nutrition fields is recipe driven. With many folk feeling themselves de-skilled in the kitchen arts, or time-poor, or just not interested, the default meal is often purchased pre-prepared and its ingredients (and their health-impact) are slightly mysterious.

I love it that the ‘Rx’ symbol used to indicate a medical prescription is actually an abbreviation of the Latin for ‘recipe’(or ‘receipt’). Not so long ago, the medicinal ‘recipe’ aspect was more obvious, and in fact druggists manuals were quite like cookery books, even to the extent of overlapping content. I live in hope of the day when the friendly neighbourhood pharmacist will provide recipes for the daily dinner.

We have touched on this issue before, with selections from the Druggists General Receipt Book (1850) [here, and here]. Today I want to give you some recipes from Pharmaceutical Formulas - A Book of Useful Recipes for the Drug Trade, (the ‘Drug Trade’ – now there’s a phrase with an entirely different connotation today!) published in 1898. It is a book that would be quite at home on your cookery book shelf. It includes recipe for almost 30 sauces of the bottled kind! In some, the measurements are apothecarial (is that a word?), so I have selected those with more accessible units of measurement. Beware – they make industrial quantities!

Newmarket Sauce.
Shallots 40 oz.
Capsicum 1 lb
Cloves 3 oz
Celery-seed 2 oz
Mace 1 oz
Walnut Ketchup 2 qts.
Indian Soy 3 qts.
Beafoy’s acetic acid 1 gals.
Water 6 gals.
Salt 2 lb.
Peel and slice the shallots, bruise the capsicum, cloves, celery-seed and mace, and pour on the other ingredients.

Penny Sauce.
Sauce gruffs* 6 lb.
Vinegar 2 gals.
Sliced garlic 2 oz.
Treacle 3 lbs.
Soy 2 lbs.
Salt 8 oz.
Capsicum ½ oz.
Caramel 1 lb.
Essence of anchovy 8 oz.
Boil the gruffs with the vinegar, garlic, and salt half an hour; strain, add the rest of the ingredients, and boil for another half-hour, and bottle when cold.

*“the accummulated remains of chutney or any kindred sauce preparations.”



Quotation for the Day.

The longer I work in nutrition, the more convinced I become that for the healthy person all foods should be delicious.
Adele Davis.

A Royal Breakfast in Nepal

In December 1911, King George V of England visited Nepal, and during the visit a shooting expedition was organised by the Maharajah and his three sons in their “tiger-infested jungles.” An artist was given special permission to accompany the royal party on the ten-day visit, and he sent a lengthy report on the events along with the expected drawings. The report found its way into the New York Times, and I give you some of the details.

Two “camps” were used, but these were not rough bush tent-sites with pit latrines and all of the other enticing features of the archetypal outdoor life. There were bungalows with “modern fittings” including electric lights, and there were also automobiles to supplement the elephant transport. The King himself shot “remarkably well”, rarely requiring a second barrel to complete his personal total kill of 37 tigers. A great deal of other wildlife was also consigned to trophyism, including 19 rhinos.

Our focus is of course, on the food in the story. The artist enclosed “the ordinary breakfast menu” of the camp – which I note does not include tiger or rhino meat in any form.

Porridge.

Bekti [a freshwater fish]Maitre d’Hotel.

Oeufs aux choux saucisses.

Grilles.

Curry de legumes viandes.

Froids.

Café

The Curry de Legumes Viandes is presumably meant to be Curry de Legumes et de Viandes (curry of vegetables and meat), and represents an Anglo-Indian “fusion” dish. From The Englishwoman in India, by “a lady resident”, published in 1864, I give you the following receipt for a nice pickle to accompany your curry.

Dried Mango Pickle.
Salt, brown sugar, onions, garlic, green chillies, gren ginger, raisins, and mango slices (sliced and dried in the sun), take half a pound of each; cut the ginger and onions in slices, put all the ingredients into a jar, fill with vinegar, and stand in the sun every day for a month.

Quotation for the Day.
We had kangaroo curry for breakfast next morning; and having fed our horses, and sounded to saddle, set out again in pursuit of game.
Edward Wilson Landor, The Bushman.

Oxford Sauce.

The “English” sauce today is Oxford Sauce, and it presents an interesting challenge. It is commonly said to be the “traditional” sauce for brawn (specifically Oxford Brawn), yet there is a real dearth of recipes and information on it. The Oxford English Dictionary does not acknowledge it at all, which must be significant surely?

It is particularly interesting that the recipes that do exist for Oxford Sauce often begin with “proceed as for Cumberland Sauce , but ..."  and it does indeed sound almost identical to that port and orange “traditional” sauce. Here is Escoffier’s description:

Oxford sauce: A British sauce of red currant jelly dissolved with port and flavored with shallots, orange zest and mustard; usually served with game.

The earliest recipe I have found so far is from the intriguingly named The Englishwoman in India: information for ladies on their outfit, furniture … , published in 1864. The recipe is not at all similar to Cumberland Sauce however.

Oxford Sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon made mustard
1 saltspoon salt
½ saltspoon pepper
3 tablespoons best salad oil
2 tablespoons strong vinegar.

The next recipe I found was in - of all things, in view of our other insights this week - an American cookery book - Mrs Elliott’s Housewife, published in 1870. The recipe is also unlike Cumberland sauce, and is slightly different from the above as it contains allspice, cayenne, and horseradish as the flavouring agents.

So, my question to you is – how old or commonly used does something have to be to be called “traditional”?


Quotation for the Day.

Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish.
Henry Miller.

Yorkshire Sauce.

Today we continue on our quest to unravel some of the secrets of “English Sauces” – that is, sauces apparently named for English towns and counties. It is the turn of Yorkshire Sauce.

A recipe for Yorkshire Sauce in the American cookbook The Steward’s Handbook and Guide to Party Catering, by Jessup Whitehead (Chicago, 1903) sounds suspiciously like Cumberland Sauce – which is intriguing as we considered yesterday that the latter might possibly have come by its name in America. Is Yorkshire Sauce then another example of American naming? I have been unable so far to find any reference to Yorkshire Sauce in any English cookery book, which perhaps reinforces the theory. Here is Jessup Whitehead’s recipe – you will see how similar it is to yesterday’s Cumberland Sauce:

Yorkshire Sauce.
Orange sauce for ham; espagnole, currant jelly, port wine, orange juice and boiled rind cut in shreds.

The Oxford English Dictionary does not have any reference to Yorkshire Sauce, but it does have a relatively lengthy entry on Yorkshire Relish, which it defines as “the proprietary name of a kind of savoury sauce.” The proprietary sauce was manufactured by Goodall Backhouse and Co. of Leeds, and the first reference is to it is in the Trade Marks Journal of 1877. The name was the subject of a legal dispute in 1895, the manufacturers attempting to prevent a rival company marketing their own product under the same name. The plaintiffs’ case was successfully argued by scientists who analysed the composition of both products, and concluded that, amongst other things, “a marked peculiarity of the imitation ‘relish’ was the large amount of cream of tartar it contained in the form of crystals”, and there were significant differences in specific gravity, and the type of sugar used.

Ironically, Whitehead’s book also acknowledges the proprietary relish, and gives a recipe for an imitation:

Bottled Table Sauce.
The recipe for making the genuine Yorkshire Relish is probably known only to the manufacturers. However, the following is said to yield a good imitation of that popular sauce:
1 oz. garlic, 1 teaspoonful cayenne, 2 tablespoonfuls Indian soy, 2 tablespoonfuls mushroom ketchup, and 1 pt. vinegar; boil altogether 10 minutes and strain, and bottle
when cold.

It would seem sensible to go to a Yorkshire source for ideas on Yorkshire-named recipes. From the Yorkshire Observer recipe collection of the 1930’s we have:

Yorkshire Relish.
½ oz. cloves,
¼ oz. cayenne pods,
1 oz. peppercorns.
Put in pan with one pint of water, boil 20 min then add
1 quart of vinegar
½ lb sugar,
¼ lb salt, and
2d.[dessertspoons?] burnt sugar.
Boil altogether for 5 min. Strain and it is ready for use when cold.
(Mrs.Scargill, Batley)

Then, just to confuse or enrich the subject further, here is a sweet version (from an American source) - a lemon-essence flavoured hard sauce to put on your pudding.


Yorkshire Sauce
Three ounces of butter
Five table spoonfuls of powdered sugar
Three drops of essence of lemon
Nutmeg or cinnamon to the taste.
Beat the butter and sugar to a cream, and add the lemon and spice.
This sauce is eaten with baked puddings, fritters, &c. Some add a tea spoonful of brandy.
The National Cookbook, by Hannah McBouvier, Philadelphia 1866

Quotation for the Day.

Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with Give us pasta with a hundred fillings.
Robert Farrar Capon.

Darkie Pickle, Darkie Pie.

An atmosphere of political correctness makes us shudder at some phrases – food phrases included – nowadays, doesn’t it? Ugly phrases with nasty connotations. Makes one reluctant to mention them. Fearful of being labelled oneself as something equally ugly and nasty. Nevertheless, the names, the phrases, and the concepts all have history, and we cant pretend they don’t.

I give you two recipes from the 1930’s from The New York Times’ column Recipes for Small Households. The common ingredient is Demarara (or Demerara) sugar, which is raw or unrefined sugar named for the colony of Demarara in Guyana.

Darkie Pickle.
Throw salt over half a peck of green tomatoes. Let them stand overnight. Then rinse out the salt and put them into the preserving pan. Now mix in a bowl half a pound of demarara sugar, half an ounce of ground cloves, the same quantity of ginger, pepper, and allspice, and one ounce of dry mustard. Sprinkle the tomatoes with this mixture. Add sufficient vinegar and let it boil for five hours, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Then cool and put into jars. The vinegar must completely cover the pickle. It will keep for a long time.


Darkie Pie.
Cut eight bananas in thin slices lengthways. Place a layer in a buttered pie-dish, sprinkle with Demarara sugar, a little powdered cinnamon, a squeeze of lemon juice. Dot with small pieces of butter. Repeat the layers, finishing with butter, sugar, and lemon. Add a tablespoon of water and bake in a moderate oven for about 45 minutes. Serve hot with whipped cream and brandy snaps.


Quotation for the Day.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Proverbs xv. 17

Flowery Pickles.

Yesterday’s story suggested nasturtiums instead of capers to make a sauce to accompany mutton, so has given me an opportunity to address a near dearth of flower recipes on this blog.

Botanically speaking, there are two ‘nasturtiums’. The bright cheeky flower that we commonly call nasturtium is officially Tropaeolum majus. Within the cabbage and mustard family (the Brassicas) there is also a genus Nasturtium which includes the peppery pungent cresses such as watercress and garden cress. It is the happy yellow or orange or red flower (sometimes called Indian cress) that we are talking about today.

All parts of the nasturtium are edible. For a spectacular splash of colour and a peppery bite the flowers can be added to salads, and they can also be used to flavour and colour vinegar, as this mid-nineteenth century recipe shows.

Nasturtium Vinegar.
Pick full- blown nasturtium flowers; fill a wide-mouthed bottle with them; add ½ a clove of garlic and a moderate-sized shalot chopped; pour as much vinegar as the bottle will take; in 2 months' time rub the whole through a fine sieve; add a little cayenne pepper and salt.
Murray’s Modern Domestic Cookery, by A Lady, 1851

The best-known nasturtium pickle however, is that of the seed pods – the alternative to capers for making sauce for your mutton, or putting wherever else you usually put capers.

Nasturtium Pickle.
So much resemble capers, both in flavour and the mode of pickling, as to be frequently used in the same manner; the seeds should be allowed to get ripe after the buds and flowers have gone off. Gather them upon a dry day, and keep them for a few days after they have been gathered; put them into a jar, and pour boiling vinegar well spiced upon them; when cold, cover the jar. They will not be fit for use for some months, but will be finely flavoured after keeping, and are sometimes preferred to capers, for which they are an excellent substitute, being useful also in serving up all dishes in which pickles are warmed with the gravy. Young red capsicums and elder-flowers before they open may be done in the same way.
Murray’s Modern Domestic Cookery, by A Lady, 1851

Quotation for the Day.

Nobody really likes capers no matter what you do with them. Some people pretend to like capers, but the truth is that any dish that tastes good with capers in it, tastes even better with capers not in it.
Nora Ephron.

Out-takes.

May 16 ...

A reader has taken me to task (in the nicest possible way – thanks Sandra), for suggesting Dr Kitchener invented spice mixes. Sandra is correct of course, for spice mixes were made in medieval times, and it is unfortunate that we do not know the exact formulae for the very common mixes called powder douce and powder forte.

Dr. Kitchiner was however, very serious on the subject of flavourings, and gave a huge number in The Cook’s Oracle. He has recipes for essences, quintessences, tinctures, catsups, sauces, and plain powdery mixes, and his Magazine of Taste contained spaces for a selection of twenty-eight varieties. Recipes for most of his own choices are also given in the book. Perhaps some of the choices don’t appeal to you, and you have a spare spot in your mahogany box? He has plenty to spare.

Many of the essences would be equally at home in the cocktail bar and the home medicine chest.

Essence of Celery.
Brandy, or proof spirit, a quarter of a pint.
Celery seed bruised, half an ounce, avoirdupois weight.
Let it steep for a fortnight.
A few drops will immediately flavour a pint of Broth, and are an excellent addition to Pease, and other Soups, and the salad mixture of Oil, Vinegar, &c.

Essence of Cayenne.
Put half an ounce of Cayenne Pepper into half a pint of Brandy, or Wine; let it steep for a fortnight, and then pour off the clear liquor.
This is nearly equal to fresh Chilli juice.
Obs. – It is extremely convenient for the extempore seasoning, and finishing of Soup, Sauces, &c., its flavour being instantly, and equally diffused. Cayenne Pepper varies so much in strength, that it is impossible to season Soup any other way to the point of piquance.

Tincture of Cinnamon.
This exhilarating Cordial is made by pouring a bottle of genuine Cogniac on three ounces of bruised Cinnamon (Cassia will not do.)
Two teaspoonfuls in a wine-glass if water are a present and pleasant remedy in Nervous Langours, and in relaxations of the Bowels – in the latter case, five drops of Laudanum may be added to each dose.

Tincture of Lemon Peel.
A very easy, and economical way of obtaining, and preserving the flavour of Lemon Peel, is to fill a wide-mouthed pint bottle half full of Brandy, Rum, or proof spirit; and when you use a Lemon, pare the rind off very thin, and put it into the Brandy, &c., - in a fortnight, it will impregnate the spirit with the flavour very strongly.

The lemon peel in brandy idea is the one most likely to be prepared in my own kitchen – it seems like a fine way to use the lemon zest from a lemon squeezed for another recipe. Are there any cocktail enthusiasts out there who would consider inventing a new cocktail using the Essence of Cayenne? Do let us all know if you do – and please consider naming it The Kitchener, or Doctor William, wont you?

Monday’s Story …

Reassuring Roux.

Quotation for the Day …

In the orchestra of a great kitchen, the sauce chef is a soloist. Fernand Point

A little Soy.

May 15 ...

Dr. William Kitchiner and his Magazine of Taste is our inspiration for the week. It proves that spice mixes are not a new idea. It is probably fair to say that Dr. Kitchiner was the inventor of the concept in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. The box itself is an even more impressive idea and has a lot of appeal in this plastic world – in fact I would quite like one myself, if I could find someone to make it for me out of mahogany (another beautiful timber would do), with the correct number of compartments.

It has not been easy to decide which recipes to include this week, but I found myself slightly intrigued by ‘Pea Powder’. I assumed it must consist of dried peas, simply pre-ground to speed up the cooking process. It is not. It is a flavouring powder (of course) with the most amazing power of suggestion.

Pea Powder.
Pound together in a marble mortar half an ounce each of dried Mint and Sage, a drachm of Celery Seed, and a quarter drachm of Cayenne Pepper; rub them through a fine sieve. This gives a very savoury relish to Pea Soup, and to Watergruel, which, by its help, if the eater of it has not the most lively imagination, he may fancy he is sipping good Pease Soup.

Another essential sauce in Dr. Kitchiner’s box is Soy (position 15 in his box) and he uses it in many recipes. He does not attempt to fake it, which is surprising, given that he does not hesitate to tell how to make all manner of other sauces and catsups. Luckily, one of his contemporaries gave instructions for the genuine article:

SOY, is a liquid condiment, or sauce, imported chiefly from China. It is prepared with a species of white haricots, wheat flour, common salt, and water ; in the proportions respectively of 50, 60, 50, and 250 pounds. The haricots are washed, and boiled in water till they become so soft as to yield to the fingers. They are then laid in a flat dish to cool, and kneaded along with the flour, a little of the hot water of the decoction being added from time to time. This dough is next spread an inch or an inch and a half thick upon the flat vessel (made of thin staves of bamboo), and when it becomes hot and mouldy, in two or three days, the cover is raised upon bits of stick, to give free access of air. If a rancid odor is exhaled, and the mass grows green, the process goes on well; hut if it grows black, it must be more freely exposed to the air. As soon as all the surface is covered with green mouldiness, which usually happens in eight or ten days, the Cover is removed, and the matter is placed in the sunshine for several days. When it has become as hard as a stone, it is cut into small fragments, thrown into an earthen vessel, and covered with the 250 pounds of water having the salt dissolved in it. The whole is stirred together, and the height at which the water stands is noted and the height at which the water stands is noted. The vessel being placed in the sun, its contents are stirred up every morning and evening ; and a cover is applied at night, to keep it warm and exclude rain. The more powerful the sun, the sooner the soy will be completed ; but it generally requires two or three of the hottest summer months. As the mass diminishes by evaporation, well water is added; and the digestion is continued till the salt water has dissolved the whole of the flour and the haricots ; after which the vessel is left in the sun for a few days, as the good quality of the soy depends on the completeness of the solution, which is promoted by regular stirring. When it has at length assumed an oily appearance, it is poured into bags, and strained. The clear black liquid is the soy, ready for use. It is not boiled, but is put up into bottles, which must be carefully corked.
[A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines: Containing a Clear Exposition ... Andrew Ure, 1847]

Dr Kitchiner’s Magazine of Taste - impressive as it is - contains only a small fraction of the essences, quintessences, sauce bases, and powders on his book. Tomorrow we will enjoy some of its omissions.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Out-takes.

Quotation for the Day …

A well made sauce will make even an elephant or a grandfather palatable. Grimod de la Reynière.