LECTURE SECOND.

Our lesson this afternoon will consist of some plain soups and stews of meat. I shall begin with a soup,—of yellow split peas. For four quarts of soup use an ordinary cupful of yellow split peas; pick them over and wash them in cold water, put them in a saucepan or a soup kettle with two quarts of cold water. Set the saucepan or soup kettle over the fire and let the water very gradually heat. When it boils put in some cold water,—part of a cupful, let them boil again; keep on putting in cold water every fifteen or twenty minutes, until you have used two quarts of cold water besides the first two quarts. The object of adding cold water slowly is this: You soften the peas by the gradual heating of the cold water. After the first boiling the addition of a little cold water lowers the temperature, and as the water heats again the peas are gradually softening; so that within an hour and a half or two hours you will find them quite tender enough. You will notice that I have used no salt; the salt would tend to harden the peas. You add salt after the soup is nearly finished. The old way of soaking the peas over night is a very good one, but this is rather better, for this reason: If you soak the peas over night you destroy a small portion of their nutritive properties; especially if you make the soup in warm water, there will be a slight fermentation. The object of soaking them over night is simply to soften them, and as you can soften them in this way you accomplish the same purpose by adding cold water gradually. You will notice that this is for perfectly plain pea soup. You can vary it by adding bones of cold ham, or of cold roast beef; you can boil the bones with the peas. In that way you get the flavor of whatever meat you add. A very nice soup is made simply with the peas without any meat, by the addition of a fried onion, for that soup you would peel and slice an onion and put it in the bottom of the soup kettle with a tablespoonful of butter or drippings,—beef drippings or poultry drippings,—and fry it light brown; then put on the peas and cold water and proceed just as we do to-day for a plain pea soup, without any addition except a seasoning of salt and pepper, and by and by a little flour and butter, which I shall put in at the close, the object of which I will explain to you then.

BEEF AND VEGETABLE SOUP.

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.

MEAT STEWS.

For a brown stew, use any kind of dark meat. To-day I am going to use some of the cooked round of beef; but you can use fresh beef; you can use raw beef, rare roast beef, or any of the dark meats; always use white meats for white stews. Presently we will make a white stew of veal; but for a brown stew use dark meats. Cut the meat in pieces about an inch and a half square, put it over the fire with enough fat of some kind to keep it from burning; use the fat of the meat, or drippings, or butter, and brown it as fast as possible. If you make a stew large enough for four or five people, use about three pounds of beef. As soon as the meat is brown, sprinkle a heaping tablespoonful of flour over it; then add enough boiling water to cover the meat, and three teaspoons of vinegar. The vinegar is used for the purpose of softening the fibres of the meat and making it tender. You will find that by adding vinegar to meat in cooking, you can always make it tender. When we come to treat of steak, I shall explain that. After the vinegar has been used, season the meat palatably with salt and pepper, cover it, and let it cook very gently for at least an hour, or until it is tender. To the stew add any vegetable you wish, or cook it perfectly plain, having only the meat and the gravy. To-day I am going to use carrots with it. For three pounds of beef use carrots enough to fill a pint bowl after they are cut in little slices, or in little quarters. Of course, if you add vegetables of any kind, carrots, turnips, or potatoes, you want to put them in long enough before the meat is done to insure their being perfectly cooked. For instance, carrots take from one to two hours to cook; I shall put the carrots in directly I make the gravy. Turnips, if they are fresh, will cook in about half an hour. Potatoes will cook in twenty minutes; small onions will cook in from half to three-quarters of an hour. The meat usually needs to cook about two hours. The meat being brown, I shall put in a tablespoonful of flour, stirring it, and then send it down to you so that you can see what it is like. The question naturally would arise about the color of this stew, throwing in raw flour, the white, uncooked flour. You can see for yourselves what the effect is.

Question. Does cold meat cook as long as raw?

Miss Corson. If you use cold meat, brown it just in the same way, just exactly as we browned this, first in drippings or butter and then putting in the flour; only if you use meat which already has been cooked, it will not take it so long to cook as it does this raw meat.

For a white stew, use any kind of white meat—veal, pork, poultry, or lamb. To-day I shall use veal. To go back to the question which was debated this morning about washing meat: first, wipe the meat all over with a wet towel. It is important to have the towel clean. Wet the towel in cold water and wipe the meat, then cut it in little pieces about two inches square. The butcher will crack all the bones, and if you wish he will cut the meat for you. At least he will crack the bones so that the meat can be easily cut in pieces about two inches square. Put it over the fire; suppose you have three pounds of meat; put it in cold water enough to cover it. Let it slowly boil; when it boils, add about a tablespoonful of salt and a dozen grains of peppercorns, or a small red pepper, or if you have not either of those seasonings, about half a saltspoonful of ordinary pepper; and let the meat boil slowly until it is tender. That will be in from an hour to two hours, according to the tenderness of the meat in the beginning. When the meat is tender lay a clean towel in a colander, set over a bowl or an earthen jar, and pour the meat and broth directly into the colander. Let the broth run through the towel. If the meat has any particles of scum on it, wipe the pieces with a wet towel to remove the scum. You can, in making the stew, remove the scum as you would from clear soup, but in that case you have not quite so richly flavored a stew. The better way is to wipe off the little particles after you have taken up the meat. Now you have the meat cooked quite tender and the broth strained. Then you make the sauce. Any of the ladies who were at the lesson this morning and saw the white sauce made, will understand the principle upon which the sauce is made for the stew. Put a heaping tablespoonful of butter and a heaping tablespoonful of flour into a saucepan for the quantity of broth which you would be likely to have from about three pounds of meat; that would be broth enough to cover it. Stir the butter and flour until they are smoothly mixed; then begin to add the meat broth gradually until you have used enough of the broth to make the sauce like thick cream. If you find that you have not enough broth from the meat, add a little hot water, to make the sauce or gravy like thick cream; then put the meat into it. Season it palatably with salt and pepper, remembering that you already have some seasoning in it. Stir the meat in the saucepan over the fire until it is hot, and then serve it. That gives you a plain white stew of meat. You can transform that into a dish called in French cookery books blanquette, or white stew of meat, by adding to it just before you take it off the fire a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and the yolk of one egg. You will add the egg by separating the yolk from the white, putting the yolk in a cup with two or three tablespoonfuls of gravy from the meat and mix it well; then turn it all among the meat, stir it and dish it at once. Don’t let the stew go back on the fire after you put in the yolk of egg; it may curdle the egg if the sauce or the stew boils after the egg is added. So you see you have a plain white stew, or a stew with the addition of chopped parsley, or chopped parsley and the yolk of an egg. Do not use the white of the egg.

Question. Why is not the fat meat as good as the lean?

Miss Corson. Do you mean why is it not as nutritious? Lean meat nourishes muscle and flesh. Fat meat affords heat to the system. That is the reason why we naturally crave more fat meat in cold weather. It is not so strengthening; it is heating and in that nutritious. A great deal of its substance, of course, is wasted in the cooking. That is another reason why, weight for weight, fat meat is not so nutritious as lean.

Question. In making this stew brown or white do you use bones?

Miss Corson. You can use bones. In making the soup to-day I used cooked lean meat that was on hand over from the soup this morning. You can use the breast of any kind of brown meat; you can use the ends of the ribs of roast beef; you remember the rather fat ends of the ribs of roast beef? After cooking the beef have these cut up in small pieces; after you have cooked them in the stew if there is any excess of fat, as there probably will be, skim that off and put it by to add to any brown stew or gravy; the fat replaces drippings in that case. That is a very good way to use ends of ribs of beef. Cold beefsteak makes a nice brown stew, treated in this same way.

Question. Do you skim the stew?

Miss Corson. No. Not unless you are going to make a perfectly clear soup need you ever skim; because, as I explained this morning, the scum which rises on the surface in boiling meat is not dirt, it is albumen and blood, with the same nutritious properties as the meat itself, and you do not want to remove them. If the water boils away in cooking soups and stews always add a little more; it will save time if you add boiling water, unless as in the case of peas, you add cold water for the purpose of softening them. You will find, if you are trying to cook dried beans, that it will be well to add cold water, and boil them gradually.

Question. In cooking beans isn’t it a good way to let the beans come to a boil and then pour off the water and put on more cold?

Miss Corson. That is simply a question of taste. It is not necessary to do it. If you pour away the first water in which they come to a boil, you pour away a certain amount of their nourishment, which already has escaped in the water. Some people say that they like to pour away that first water, because it carries off the strong taste of the beans. That is a question for any one to settle individually. The water would not have the strong taste of the beans if there were not some of the nourishment of the beans in it. While we are on the subject of beans I might tell you a good way to cook beans plainly, a favorite way in the south of France, the beans to be served with roast mutton. Cook them in just water enough to cover them, after having first washed them, adding only water enough to keep them covered all the time. They are dried white beans. Then at the last, when the beans are tender, leave off the cover of the sauce pan and let the beans cook, so that nearly all the water is evaporated, and the beans have about them simply water enough to form a very thick sauce, just enough to moisten them. Then they are seasoned with salt and pepper. In that way they are served as stewed beans, with roast mutton or roast lamb.

In regard to the lentils that I was talking to you about, I think you may be able to learn something more about them from Prof. Porter. He probably would know. You long ago have made their acquaintance in the form of the tares that the enemy sowed among the wheat. Lentils are really a species of tare or vetch. If you do not know about them—if they are not known in the market—it really would be worth while to make some inquiry which would lead to the introduction of them; but very likely if there are German people here, as I suppose there are,—there are always German people in every thriving city,—they will already have had them for sale in their special groceries; you can get them in that way, and they make a very good winter vegetable to use alternately with others. You cook them either by soaking them over night, or boil them just as we boiled the peas, until they are tender, and then drain them, and either heat them, with a little salt and pepper and butter, after they are drained, or fry them. They are exceedingly nice fried with a little chopped onion or parsley. If you have a pint bowl full of lentils, use a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a tablespoonful of onion, very finely chopped; put the onion in the frying pan with a tablespoonful of butter or drippings, and let it brown; then put in the lentils and chopped parsley, a little salt and pepper, stir them till you have them hot, and serve them. They are exceedingly good.

Prof. Porter. I may say that the first cousin of the lentils is well known among our Minnesota farmers in our wheat fields, and they are such an intolerable pest that we prefer paying the duties on the German article and importing them.

PEA SOUP—Continued.

(The pea soap being now about ready to take up, Miss Corson continued:)

You know how the flour of the peas settles to the bottom of the soup tureen or plate, and leaves the top clear? Prevent that by adding to the soup, just before it is dished, a little paste made of flour and butter. For four quarts of soup a tablespoonful of flour and a tablespoonful of butter; mix the flour and butter to a smooth paste just before the soup is done. After the peas are soft pour them into a fine sieve and rub them through the sieve with a potato masher; just a stout wire sieve. After you have rubbed them through the sieve put them back into the soup kettle with the soup, and mix the flour and butter in with them over the fire; stir them until they come to a boil, then season palatably with salt and pepper, and the soup is ready to serve. Remember this is a perfectly plain soup I am making to-day, without the addition of meat of any kind; but of course you will vary the flavor of the soup by adding the bones of ham or other meat, or a very little fried onion. Now, you can count for yourselves how cheap a soup that is.

Question. Can you give us your experience with regard to pea meal for soup?

Miss Corson. I have used one form that has been put on the New York market. It was made of dried green peas. I do not know whether there is on this market a meal made of the yellow peas. There is a German preparation which is admirable. In New York it is for sale at the German stores; but the meal of which I speak, the meal made of dried green peas, was not at all satisfactory to me. Of course the meal of the green peas has not the flavor of the split peas. You will find in rubbing the peas through the sieve that if you moisten them a little once in a while they will go through more readily.

I have left the brown stew with all the fat on. It is a question not only of taste but of economy whether you leave on the fat in addition to the first butter in which you browned the meat, a question of economy and nourishment. If the people you are cooking for have good strong digestions you do not need to remove the fat. The bread or potatoes which are eaten with the stew will absorb it and will render it perfectly digestible; and, of course, as I have already told you, the fat serves certain purposes in nutrition. If you are cooking for people having weak digestions then you would take the fat off the stew. The white stew I am going to finish plain, without any parsley or egg—simply seasoned with salt and pepper.