EVELYN AND FOOD CONSERVATION.
[To THE EDITOR OT THE "SPECTATOR."]
Srn,—In these days of fool economy might it not be well to draw attention to the following extract from Evelyn's Diary, which I came across a few days ago? It is under the date April rth, 1682 :—
" I went this afternoon with severall of the Royal Society to a supper which was dressed both fish und flesh in Monsieur Papin's Digesters, by which the hardest bones of beefe itself and mutton were made as soft as cheese, without water or other liquor, and with lease than eight ounces of conies producing an incredible quantity of gravy, and for close of all a jelly made of bones of beef, the best for clearness and good relish and the most delicious that I bad ever scene or tasted. We eat pike and other fish bones, and all without impediment, but nothing exceeded the pigeons, which tasted just as if baked in a pie, all being stewed in their own juice without any addition of water save what swam about the Digester, which reduces the hardest bones to tendernesse, but It is best descanted with more particulars for extracting tinctures, preserving and stewing fruite and saving fuel in Dr. Papin's booke, published and dedicated to our Society, of which he is a member."
Would it be possible, through your influence, to induce the Royal Society to hunt up Dr. Papin's "Digester," and give its secret to housewives, who in these days would only be too glad to cook and "eat bones and all "2-1 am, Sir, S.c.,
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