UNITED
STATES PATENT OFFICE.
GAIL BORDEN, JR., OF
GALVESTON, TEXAS.
PREPARATION OF PORTABLE
SOUP-BREAD.
Specification
forming part of Letters Patent No. 7,066,
dated February 5, 1850.
To all whom it may
concern:
Be it known that I, GAIL
BORDEN, Jr., of Galveston, in the county of
Galveston and State of' Texas, have invented a new and useful
Improvement in the manufacture of a Portable Desiccated Soup-Bread; and
I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact
description.
The nature of my invention consists in
extracting the nutritious parts of flesh or animal meat of every
description and combining this concentrated extract with flour or
vegetable meal, and baking the two substances in an oven, thereby
forming a portable desiccated soup-bread containing a large amount of
the most important alimentary substance in a very small bulk and
convenient form, well adapted to seafaring purposes, travelers,
hospitals, and also for family use, which will save the trouble and
expense of much cooking.
To enable others skilled in the art to
make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its manufacture
or the process of making the same.
I take the flesh of a fat animal or of
any kind of good eatable fowl, fish, &c., and extract all the
nutricious parts out of it for the purpose of mixing it with the meal
or vegetable flour. In order to extract the nutritious parts of the
flesh, I mascerate it with heat or steam until its nutritious or
alimentary properties are completely separated from the bony and fleshy
parts, and are contained in the broth or soup. I then strain this
through strainers of wire and cloth as the best means of obtaining the
clear extract, which is further defecated by settling. This broth,
being reduced or evaporated by boiling to a consistence liable to burn
or scorch, I afterward place into another vessel of boiling liquid. (It
may be either water, or in the kettle boiling the meat for a succeeding
batch. The extract is thus reduced by evaporation until it attains to a
state of spissitude about the consistency of thick molasses; or the
better way is to evaporate the broth or soup by means of steam in a pan
or tub, with a steam-pipe coiled in the bottom, and by the vacuum
process, after the manner of making clarified sugar from the juice of
the cane. During this operation the fat or oily part that rises to the
top of the liquid is carefully skimmed off, and does not form any part
of the manufactured article. With the animal extract reduced to the
consistency described I mix good flour, meal, or an extract of
vegetables made into meal, until a dough is formed sufficiently stiff
to he rolled into a convenient sheet or webb and cut into pieces by a
common cracker-machine suitable for baking. By mixing the flour or meal
with the animal extract in a hot state, the dough becomes stiffer when
cold, therefore more convenient to handle or work, and more animal
extract can be combined with the flour or meal than by employing the
said extract when cold. Thus more animal nutriment will be combined
with a certain or specified quantity of the flour or meal. I bake the
dough, as heretofore described, in a baker's oven properly heated for
that purpose. I have not used, nor do I confine myself to any standard;
but I prefer to use the oven after a batch of common bread has been
baked in it. I allow it to bake slowly until it becomes
dry—about the common biscuit or cracknel dryness. The
excellence of this portable desiccated soup-bread depends upon the
quantity of animal substance used in its manufacture. The extract
should be reduced by the process of boiling or evaporation by steam to
about one-eleventh the weight of the flesh or animal substance that is
first placed in the vessel to macerate.
The bread thus made may be
ground into meal, for greater convenience for cooking, and packed,
either in the cake or meal, into small tight bags of gutta-percha or
other material, such as varnished cotton cloth, for the purpose of
keeping out air, water, and moisture. At present I am keeping the
bread, both in cakes and ground, in cases of tin and other vessels
hermetically sealed, and in air-tight bags, for shipping and other
purposes. When open it requires to be kept secure from the changes of
the atmosphere. It will keep on shipboard during long voyages in warm
climates for a great length of time. To make soup of it, and the bread
made fine, add sufficient cold water to form a thin batter, in which
let it stand five or ten minutes. Then add more water (boiling water is
best) and boil it, stirring frequently during the process. The bread
becomes macerated or decomposed in ten to fifteen minutes boiling. One
ounce will make a pint of rich thick soup, and water may be added to
reduce or dilute it to any state of consistency to suit the appetite,
or suitable for invalids. Add salt and pepper to suit the taste. Cooked
vegetables of various kinds or condiments may be used in the mixture.
In hospitals, half an ounce or
less of this bread, made of good beef, mutton, or fowls' flesh, could
be made into a very nourishing soup suitable for patient or invalid.
For seamen on long voyages, or travelers on long journeys through
destitute regions, it will be of the utmost importance and of
incalculable benefit.
I am well a ware that portable
soups and concentrated meats, preserved in hermetically-sealed vessels,
have been long known and used, but were very inconvenient to pack and
carry and liable to deteriorate. My soup-bread is as convenient and
portable as any biscuit, while it answers the double purpose of
concentrating in the same cake the nutritious properties of animal and
vegetable food, which are so essential to the healthful sustenance of
man.
This bread is not only useful
to mariners, travelers, and hospitals, but for private families,
especially in warm weather, as it may be cooked in a chaffing-dish over
a few coals or a lamp of alcohol. With a few ounces of this bread in
his pocket the geologist or surveyor can, with a match and hunter's
cup, make a dish of good, palatable, and healthful soup in a few
minutes.
This bread would be every way
suitable for export to other countries as an article of food, a great
quantity of nutriment being contained in a small bulk, thus saving in
the expense of freight. The article being manufactured where beef or
other meat is plenty and cheap, and exported to places where meats are
both scarce and dear, will prove a mutual benefit, to the producer and
consumer.
Having thus explained my invention, I
do not claim the extract of flesh made into what is known as "portable
soup," but I claim—
The new and useful manufacture of
desiccated soup-bread, formed of the concentrated extract of alimentary
animal substances combined with vegetable flour or meal made into cakes
and baked into bread, in the manner substantially as herein described,
for the purpose set forth.
G. BORDEN, JR.
Witnesses:
JAMES
WELSH,
O. D. JOHNSON,
R S. JOHNSON.
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