The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

Portable and concentrated animal food is of great consequence to explorers and travellers, and therefore it may be well to allude here to the article pemmican, which is so much used by arctic travellers and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s traders. This is meat of any kind dried and pounded, and saturated with fat. There is as much nourishment in one pound of pemmican as in four pounds of ordinary meat. It may be eaten as it is, or partially cooked, and has a pleasant taste. Sometimes it is mixed with a sufficient quantity of Indian meal and water to cause it to adhere, and then fried or stewed.

The North American Indians dry their venison by exposing thin slices to the heat of the sun, on a stage, under which a small fire is kept, more for the purpose of driving away the flies than for promoting exsiccation; and then they pound it between two stones on a bison hide. In this process the pounded meat is contaminated by a greater or smaller admixture of hair and other impurities.

The fat, which is generally the suet of the bison, is added by the traders, who purchase it separately from the natives, and they complete the process by sewing up the pemmican in a bag of undressed hide, with the hairy side outwards. Each of these bags weighs 90 lbs., and obtains from the Canadian voyageurs the designation of ‘un taureau.’ A superior pemmican is produced by mixing finely powdered meat, sifted from impurities, with marrow fat, and the dried fruit of the Amilanchier.

Sir John Richardson having been employed by government to prepare pemmican on a large scale, at the Victualling Yard, Gosport, for the use of the different arctic expeditions, it will be interesting to describe the process he adopted, as given in his Arctic Searching Expedition, or a Journal of a Boat Voyage, &c.—

‘The round or buttock of beef of the best quality having been cut into thin steaks, from which the fat and membraneous parts were pared away, was dried in a malt kiln, over an oak fire, until its moisture was entirely dissipated, and the fibre of the meat became friable. It was then ground in a malt mill, when it resembled finely grated meat. Being next mixed with nearly an equal weight of melted beef suet or lard, the preparation of plain pemmican was complete; but to render it more agreeable to the unaccustomed palate, a proportion of the best Zante currants was added to part of it, and part of it was sweetened with sugar. Both these kinds were much approved of in the sequel by the consumers, but more especially that to which the sugar had been added. After the ingredients were well incorporated by stirring, they were transferred to tin canisters, capable of containing 85 lbs. each; and having been firmly rammed down and allowed to contract further by cooling, the air was completely expelled and excluded by filling the canister to the brim with melted lard, through a small hole left in the end, which was then covered with a piece of tin and soldered up.

‘As the meat in drying loses more than three-fourths of its original weight, the quantity required was considerable, being 35,651 lbs. (reduced by drying to about 8000 lbs.); and the sudden abstraction of more than one thousand rounds of beef, from Leadenhall Market, occasioned speculation among the dealers, and a rise in the price of a penny per pound, with an equally sudden fall when the extra demand was found to be very temporary.’

We import about 13 or 14 tons of gelatine a year from France, besides what is made at home, and the greater part of what passes under this name is, I believe, used for food. The Americans, some years ago, tried to pass off upon us isinglass made from fish bones, but it would not go down.

Gelatine of all kinds has usually been considered wholesome and nourishing; and while few object to cow-heel or calf’s foot jelly, very many are possibly unaware of the sources of much of the gelatine vended in shapes so beautifully transparent, but which is made from bones and hide clippings, and parchment shavings. It is said that a pair of lady’s gloves have ere now made a ragout; and there is a hiatus in the parchment specifications at the Patent Office, caused by an unlucky boy, who changed them away for tarts, in order that they might be converted into jellies.

The dust of the ivory turner in working up elephants’ tusks forms an excellent material for jellies, and is commonly sold for this purpose, at about 6d. per lb.

M. Payen has recently been at pains to disprove the vulgar notion that bones make good soup. The celebrated Gelatine Commission, some years ago, declared, as the results of many experiments, that gelatine was not nutritious; and this result has been repeated in almost every text-book of physiology as conclusive, and is adopted by M. Payen, who tests it in another series of experiments. He boiled in one pot a portion of beef completely divested of bone, and in another the bone taken from the beef, with only a little salt. After five hours’ slow boiling, the liquid from the beef was perfectly limpid, and of a light amber colour, leaving that aroma and delicate taste known to belong to good beef tea. The liquid from the bones was whitish-gray, troubled and opaque, having a very slight odour, and a not agreeable taste. Nothing could be more opposed than the two soups thus produced. In another experiment, he repeated this process with the addition of some vegetables, and even some drops of caramel. The beef-soup here maintained its delicious aroma, agreeably combined with that of the vegetables; its limpidity was the same, but its colour of course stronger. The bone-soup had a dominant odour of vegetables, but its troubled and opaque aspect made it very unappetising. From these experiments M. Payen concludes that the prejudice in favour of the addition of bones to the soup is a prejudice, and that, in fact, bones are not at all nutritious.