Cassell's dictionary of cookery

One of the great difficulties attending desiccation is that animal matter preserved by its means loses its flavour, and becomes tough and indigestible; the fat also becomes rancid, and in damp weather the meat absorbs moisture, and is liable to turn mouldy and sour. To a certain extent, this obstacle is overcome by mixing absorbent substances with fatty food, as in " pemmican," where sugar and spice are mixed with dry powdered meat. Meat biscuits, such as those now supplied by wholesale manufacturers, are made on the same principle of farinaceous meal absorbing meat essences. The first recorded patent in this country for the preservation of vegetables by desiccation was granted in 1780 to John Graefer, who dipped the vegetables in boiling salt and water, and then diied them. In November, 1850, a patent was obtained for drying and forcibly compressing vegetables, so that they were reduced to oneseventh their original size ; a cubic yard thus contained rations for 16,000 men. The French have been very successful in this line of preservation, but many English houses now produce vegetables in the form of chips or of compressed cakes. From America dried vegetables are being imported at Is. 6d. a pound, half an ounce being sufficient for adding to a pint of soup. "Considering," says one writer, " the high price charged by greengrocers for vegetables, and the waste in utilising them in almost every household, housekeepers, even among the working classes, would do well to give their attention to these dried vegetables, and at least give them a trial. When soaked and well boiled they will be found not onlj' economical in their use, but excellent in soups, and even in eating with meat in lieu of ordinary fresh vegetables. The process of drying eliminates little else but the water, and takes from them little, if any, of their flavour." Perhaps the reader remembers that compressed vegetables, together with dried meat, were largely consumed in the Crimea by the English and French armies, and that vast quantities of compressed vegetables were supplied to the British troops during the Ashantee campaign. In soup squares or tablets we have a form of preserved food prepared partly by the desiccating method. Most of them are compressed, but some are in the form of grains or flour, being composed of various substances, combined with l^owdered meat or meat extracts. One house offers an almost endless variety of soup squares, such as carrot, pea, chestnut, mulligatawny,, &c. ; also large cubes called " Gargantua," after the mythical giant celebrated by Rabelais, one of which, dissolved in three pints of water, makes a most delicious pot-pourri of four pounds' weight of nutritious food. The second method, the preservation of food by refrigeration, will be found explained in a succeeding article (see Refrigeration, Food Preserved by).