pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar. In temperate
weather, every other day may be sufficient.--It has been imagined that
soups tend to relax the stomach; but so far from being prejudicial in
this way, the moderate use of such kind of liquid food may rather be
considered as salutary, and affording a good degree of nourishment. Soup
of a good quality, if not eaten too hot, or in too great a quantity, is
attended with great advantages, especially to those who drink but
little. Warm fluids in the form of soup, unite with our juices much
sooner and better, than those which are cold and raw. On this account,
what is called Restorative Soup is the best food for those who are
enfeebled by disease or dissipation, and for old people, whose teeth and
digestive organs are impaired. After taking cold, or in nervous
headachs, cholics, indigestions, and different kinds of cramps and
spasms in the stomach, warm broth or soup is of excellent service. After
intemperate eating, to give the stomach a holiday for a day or two, by a
diet on mutton broth, is the best way to restore its tone. The
stretching of any power to its utmost extent, weakens it; and if the
stomach be obliged every day to do as much as it can, it will every day
be able to do less. It is therefore a point of wisdom to be temperate in
all things, frequently to indulge in soup diet, and occasionally in
almost total abstinence, in order to preserve the stomach in its full
tone and vigour.--Cheap soups for charitable purposes are best made of
fat meat, well boiled with vegetables. Much unreasonable prejudice has
prevailed on this subject, as if fat was unsuitable for such a purpose,
when it is well known that the nutritious parts of animal and vegetable
diet depend on the oil, jelly, mucilage, and sweetness which they
contain. The farina of grain, and the seeds of vegetables, contain more
of the nutritious and essential parts of the plant than any other, as is
evident from the use of celery seed, the eighth part of an ounce of
which will give more relish to a gallon of soup, than a large quantity
of the root or stalk. On the same principle, the fat is the essence of
meat, nearly so as the seeds of plants are of their respective species.
To establish this fact, a simple experiment will be sufficient. Boil
from two to four ounces of the lean part of butcher's meat in six quarts
of water, till reduced to a gallon. Thicken it with oatmeal, and the
result of the decoction