The council referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. Guyton-Morveau, Parmentier, and myself, the examination of vegetable and animal substances presented by Mr. Appert, and preserved by his process, for more than eight months.
These substances were,
Each of these articles was contained in an earthen vessel hermetically sealed, the cork being fastened with iron wire and pitched. Proceeding methodically in our enquiry:
We found in the pot-au-feu a jelly tolerably rich, with a piece of beef and two pieces of fowl in the middle. Warming the whole with care, to a suitable degree, the soup was found good, and the meat which was separated from it, very tender, and of an agreeable flavour.
The consommé appeared to us to be excellent; and though prepared fifteen months before, there was scarcely any discernible difference between its then state, and what it would have been, if made fresh the same day.
The milk was found to be of a yellowish colour, resembling that of colostrum or beestings, more thick, as well as sweeter and more savoury than the ordinary milk: a superiority it derives from the concentration it has undergone. It may be affirmed that milk of this kind, though prepared nine months before, may supply the place of the greater part of the cream sold at Paris. What however will appear more extraordinary is, that this same milk having been put into a pint bottle which was uncorked a month before, to take out a part of it, and re-corked afterwards with little care, was also preserved, having undergone scarcely any change. At first it appeared to have somewhat thickened, but a slight shaking was sufficient to bring back its ordinary liquidity. I present it here in the same bottle, that you may convince yourselves of a fact, which I should have had a difficulty to believe, if I had heard of it only, without having the evidence before me.
The whey which we afterwards examined, presented some singular appearances not less astonishing. It had all the transparency of whey recently prepared. Its colour was deeper, it had a stronger taste, and it was somewhat thicker. It underwent a change also with less rapidity, having been exposed to the air at the end of a fortnight; for a bottle opened six weeks ago, occasionally shaken, and ill corked, did not begin to lose its transparency till the end of a fortnight. Its surface at the end of more than a month was covered with a somewhat thick mouldiness, which when carefully taken off, left the remainder still possessing the flavour of whey.
The green peas and the Windsor beans, boiled with the attention enjoined by Mr. Appert, furnished two excellent dishes, which the remoteness of the usual season of such vegetables appeared to render still more finely flavoured and agreeable.