Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/413

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COOKERY FOR THE POOR.
385

fully appreciated by a poor man and woman, but the child which has often gone to bed satisfied and happy, after a supper provided by some good neighbour, cannot be expected to grow up without some of those feelings of personal respect and attachment for its benefactor, which, while they prevent the contrast of riches with poverty from becoming odious, are the strongest assurances of union between him who claims a property in the soil and him whose labour makes that property of value. Self-interest and humanity are not the least at variance in this matter; the same course of policy is dictated to both. It may seem glorious to be advertised throughout Europe, and to be read of in newspapers, as a large subscriber to a public Institution; but the benefits which are confined to a single parish are the more lasting from being local, and the fame of the distributor, though bounded in distance, is all the more deserved, the longer kept alive and cherished, and, consequently, the better worth endeavouring to obtain.

The soup I would recommend for poor people, should be made of the shin, or any coarse parts of beef, shanks and scrags of mutton, also trimmings of any fresh meat or poultry. 1 pound of meat to every pint of soup (that is, every three ½ pints of water), and then all the meat should not be boiled to rags, but some be left to eat. There should be a sufficient quantity of turnips, carrots, onions and herbs; also pepper and salt; and dumplings, of either white or brown flour, would be a good addition. A quart of soup, made in this way, with about ½ lb. of meat, and a dumpling for each person, would be a good dinner for a poor man, his wife and children; and such a one as a lady who has a kitchen at her command, may often regale them with. Less meat will do where there is pot-liquor. The liquor of all boiled meat should be saved, in a clean pan, and made the next day into soup. That of a leg of mutton will require but little meat in addition, to make good soup. The liquor of any fresh meat, of boiled pork, if the latter be not very salt, will make good peas soup, without any meat.—Soak a quart of peas all night, in soft water, or pot-liquor, and, if the former, some bones or pieces of meat; a small piece of pork would be very good. Put in 2 onions, cut up, a head of celery, a