The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.

13

For this reason the translator adds the original names of the vegetables spoken of. It may happen that some of the kinds of fruits and roots mentioned by the author, do not exactly correspond with those which are considered as the same in this country. Whatever peculiarities there may be in the articles themselves, these will hardly affect the treatment they have to undergo in the process of preserving them. T.

14

A species of the Bella-donna very generally made use of as an ingredient in French soups. T.

15

The mode of extracting the juice of plants by means of water has more or less inconvenience. All those juices which have a principle that is very volatile and easy to evaporate, lose infinitely, even in warm water; much more so therefore, when the heat of the water is raised to a higher degree, and when the plants have been left for a long time in digestion.

Aromatic vegetables are infused, when the object is to preserve the aroma, and not impart to the water the extractive principle which the plant contains. Therefore, tea and coffee are made by infusion. But all the theories ancient and modern, and all the new apparatus employed to seize and hold fast the aroma of the coffee are still very deficient.

Ebullition which is often times resorted to in order to extract the aroma of plants by means of distillation, in spite of all the apparatus made use of for keeping the same closed up, most frequently destroys the nature of the productions.

Not only are the principles extracted by the water injured by this first operation, but they scarcely retain any strength after the evaporation which it is usual to make them undergo, in order to form essences of them. The extract therefore, exhibits nothing but the appearance of the soluble and nutritive principles of vegetable and animal substances; since fire, which is necessary to form an essence by means of evaporation, destroys the aroma and almost all the properties of the substance which contains it.

16

See the report made to the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie nationale, by Mr. Bouriat, in the name of the Committee. Two half-bottles, one of milk, the other of whey, after remaining uncorked from twenty to thirty days, had been re-corked with little cork; nevertheless the two substances retained all their properties.

17

“L’instruction sur les moyens de suppléer le sucre dans les principaux usages qu’on en fait pour la médecine et l’économie domestique; par M. Parmentier.”

18

The original is more precise, and refers to an instrument made use of in France for ascertaining the density of liquors, an Aræometer, which, at least in its application to grape syrup, is unknown in this country: the words are, “les degrés de cuisson de 25, 30, ou 33 à l’aréométre, devient indifférent pour conserver ces sirups,” &c. T.

19

Some persons of enlightened understandings, but who have, perhaps, delivered themselves over to the spirit of system and prejudice, have declared themselves against my method, alleging a pretended impossibility. But is it then difficult on the principles of a sound, natural philosophy, to assign a reason for the preservation of alimentary substance by my process? May we not infer, that the application of caloric, or heat, to the water-bath, operates in producing a gentle fusion of the constituent fermenting principles, so as to destroy the predominating agency of fermentation? This agency is an essential condition of fermentation, at least of its taking place with a certain promptitude. Further, there is no fermentation without air; this being also excluded by my method, we have two assignable causes for its success; the theory of which appears to flow naturally from the means practically employed.

Indeed, if we refer to any of the methods made use of and any of the experiments and observations of ancient and modern times, upon the preservation of alimentary substances, with which we are acquainted, we shall find that fire is every where the principal agent, either in the natural duration, or in the artificial preservation of vegetable and animal substances.

Fabroni has proved that heat applied to grape juice or must, destroys the fermentation of this vegeto-animal, which is pre-eminently leaven. Thenard has made like experiments on cherries, gooseberries, and other fruits. The experiments of the late Vilaris, and of Mr. Cazalès, learned chymists at Bourdeaux, who have dried meat by means of stoves, equally prove that the application of heat destroys the agents of putrefaction.

Drying, boiling, evaporating, as well as the caustic and savoury substances which are employed in the preservation of alimentary productions, all serve to shew that caloric in its various modes of application, produces the same effects.

20

These poëtes et littérateurs amiables qui chantent pour s’amuser, are M. de Berchoux, author of the charming poem la Gastronomie, and the authors of the Almanac des Gourmands, an annual publication written with infinite wit and humour, and which enjoys a higher reputation, and more extensive popularity, than any other work of taste published in France, since the revolution. For an account of both these productions the reader is referred to the Literary Panorama, Vol. VII. pp. 661, and 719. The Almanac of Gluttons, if it be not the standard of poetic genius in imperial France, is at least an indication of the direction which talent is now taking: a direction, which the laws and literary police of the Napoleon government will not fail effectually to maintain. T.