An essay on food and particularly on feeding the poor : exhibiting the science of nutrition, and the art of providing wholesome and palatable food at a small expense / by Count Rumford. Edited by Sir Richard Musgrave.

  • Rumford, Benjamin Thompson, count von, 1753-1814.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on food and particularly on feeding the poor : exhibiting the science of nutrition, and the art of providing wholesome and palatable food at a small expense / by Count Rumford. Edited by Sir Richard Musgrave. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    KKCEIVT FOR MAKING MACCARONI. the temperate climes of the United States of America, and in the buriiiiiii heats of the tropics: and it mii;ht be had from Africa and Asia as welUis from America. And were it even true—what I never can be persuaded to believe—that it would be impossible to introduce it ns an article of food in this country, it might at least be used as fodder for cattle, whose aversion to it, I will venture to say, would not be found to be unconquerable. Oats now cost near twopence the pound in this country. Indian corn, which would cost but a little more than half as much, would certainly be much more nourishing, even for horses, as well as for horned cattle ; and as for hogs and poultry, they ought never to be fed with any other grain. Those who have tasted the pork and the poultry fattened on Indian corn will readily give their assent to this opinion. CHAPTER VII. When I began writing the foregoing chapter of this essay, I had hopes of being able to procure satisfactory information respecting the manner in which the maccaroni eaten by the poor in Italy, and particularly in the kingdom of Naples, is prepared ; but though I have taken much pains in making these inquiries, my success in them has not been such as I could have wished. The process, I have often been told, is very simple ; and from the very low price at which maccaroni is sold, ready-cooked, at the Lazzaroni in the streets of Naples, it cannot be expensive. There is a better kind of maccaroni, which is prepared and sold by the nuns in some of the convents in Italy, which is much dearer; but this sort would in any country be too expensive to be used as food for the poor. It is, however, not dearer than many kinds of food used by the poor in this country, and as it is very palatable and wholesome, and may be used in a variety of ways, a receipt for preparing it may perhaps be not unacceptable to many of my readers. A RECEIPT FOR MAKING THAT KIND OF MACCARONI CALLED IN ITALY TAGLIATI. Take any number of ftesh laid eggs and break them into a bowl or tray, beat them up with a spoon, but not to a froth ; add of the finest wheat flour as much as is necessary to form a dough of the consistency of paste. Work this paste well with a rolling-pin ; roll it out into very thin leaves ; lay ten or twelve of these leaves one upon the other, and with a sharp knife cut them into very fine threads. 1 hese threads (which, if the mass is of a proper consis- tency, will not adhere to each other,) are to be laid on a clean board or on paper, and dried in the air. This maccaroni (or cut paste, as it is called in Germany, where it is in great repute.) may be eaten in various waysj but the most common way of uaing it is to eat it with milk instead of bread, and With chicken broth, and other broths and soups, with which it is boiled. With pioper care, it may be kept good for many months. It is sometimes fried in butter, and in this way of cooking it, it forma a most excellent dish indeed—inferior, I believe, to no (lish o! flour that can be made. It is not, however, a very cheap di>li, aii eggs and butter are both expensive articles in most countries.