Bentham

date

1795 - 1800 (1)

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[Copied Jan 24 th:1796] General Cooking

[Copied Jan 24 th:1796]

General Cooking Directions

Puddings consume much more flour in crust than pies do —

Pudding or pie crust a very disadvantageous way of employing flour

Grain is not so nourishing when used whole as when broken —

Perhaps by cooking it in a digester it might be as completely digested as if ground

Potatoes should be used with y e skin

Potatoes should be mashed while boiling hot to save labour

Wherever water is used with grain the grain should be boiled in it before the other ingredients are put in —

The quantity of water directed in the receipts never allows for great evaporation; when much evaporates in boiling more water must be added to bring it back to the original quantity —

The milk is always supposed to be new therefore with the addition of an equal quantity of water, will be richer & better flavoured than the milk usually sold by milk carriers —

Make fruit puddings of any kind of fruit that happens to be cheap, & other dishes of fruit similar to those for which there are receipts for one kind of fruit by way of example

The quantity of treacle and other sweetening ingredients must be regulated by the degree of acidity of the fruit, by the heat & dryness of the weather, & by the general disposition to endemic diseases —

Make root puddings & cakes of any vegetable that happens to be cheap —

Add bone soup, neats foot jelly, &c to any of the vegetable soups according to the taste of customers or plenty of the soup —

Any of the farinaceous dishes may have soup added to them —

The use of custard over baked fruit pudding is to prevent evaporation

Should it be more advantageous to sell the cream than to use new milk, or to make butter of it, add one pint of water to the quart of milk, instead of the quart directed in the receipts, if the milk has stood twelve hours; but if it has stood twenty four hours it must be used without any water —

When milk is disposed to turn sour mix a small quantity of alkali with it, which will restore it —

Soak grain in cold water as long as it can be done without danger of fermentation: by this a great deal of fuel is saved —

Put red herring pounded into soups and made dishes to give flavour —

Scotch barley absorbs three times its weight of water in boiling, & that without being in the least broken, dissolved or wet on the surface —

+ Butchers are in the practice of mixing water with the blood they sell to sugar bakers, which must be carefully prevented as a small quantity of water entirely spoils black puddings.

+ Mixtures of fluids and solids suchas black pudding, should be stirred while putting into skins or pans, so as to make all the puddings the same, otherwise the first filled will contain the fat & herbs, the latter ones blood & some of the heaviest of the potatoes

+ Anykind of farinaceous matter may be put into black puddings, stale bread, boiled grain when not all sold &c—

The best cheap method of cleaning entrails is to wash them while fresh in water, then in a small quantity of lime water, which is sufficient for the outer clean side, then turn them, draw them once through the hand in the lime water used for the other side, put them into a vessel of lime water where they may remain till

the next morning, draw them through the hand again, rince them in fresh lime water heated to about 110 — not more, then in cold water once or twice —

+The salt usually employed is expensive & wholly unnecessary, a very small quantity of lime mixed with the water is sufficient — perhaps a fourth in quantity of the salt generally used for this purpose, but where the lime water is after wards valuable as manure more may be employed.

+ Scraping the entrails is altogether unnecessary—

+ The lime water should run into a reservoir into which every kind of refuse should be thrown & according to the local situation it may be worth from one to three farthings a gallon as manure.

The lime water will prevent putridity —

Where black puddings are made feed pigs with the refuse —

Have ovens & steam cooking apparatus at the new cooks shops for dressing the provisions —

The whole business to be managed as much as possible by women & children —

Do not admit customers within reach of the provisions to prevent theft

Have narrow passages before the doors that customers may file through and be served in order as they come —

A tarif of the prices at the door, another at each of the counters from which no abatem t should be made —

Every person who serves to be accountable for the quantity of provisions delivered into his care —

Lend pans and platters to customers on leaving the value, the wholesale prime cost, not the usual selling price, to prevent their bringing their own for sale at the new price — or better have them made for the purpose of a particular kind—

Tin pans like the pudding pans of large hospitals the most convenient for baking pies & puddings —

Rince & wipe every vessel as soon as emptied, while hot if possible to save labour —

Have mops and brushes suited to the size and form of the vessels for cleaning them —

Rince with boiling water for expedition in cleaning and that the vessels may dry immediately —