Pocket Soup for the 18th Century Traveler

[00:00] This is a bowl of soup,

[00:01] or at least it could be because this is what in the 18th and 19th century they called pocket soup

[00:07] or portable soup or veal glue.

[00:10] And it was the preferred way to transport soup for expeditions by land and on the ships of the British Navy.

[00:16] So thank you to Bombas for sponsoring 

[00:22] this time on Tasting History.

[00:30] So the exact origin of pocket or portable soup 

[00:36] is alas lost to history. But one of the first written mentions of it comes from Sir Hugh Plat 

[00:43] who sometime in the late 16th century wrote that 

[00:47] "neats feet and leg of beef... boiled to a great stiffness."

[00:51] Nearly a century later, a French dictionary called it

[00:54] "Tablette" and described it as a "broth to carry in your pocket."

[00:58] As for a proper recipe, the oldest that I could find came from 1694 in a book of handwritten recipes from

[01:05] Lady Anne Blencowe. Though she doesn't call it pocket soup, nor portable soup,

[01:09] but rather gives instructions "To make veal glue.

[01:12] Take a leg of vale and when the fat is cut clean off, make a very strong broth of it

[01:17] and strain it through a fine sieve that it may be clear.

[01:20] When this is done, put the broth into a flat broad stew pan that will hold it all,

[01:25] and set it on a high chaffindish dish of charcoal and stir it continually about that it may neither burn nor boil

[01:30] the whole time it is on the fire, which must be about seven hours...  

[01:34] [Then let it get] quite cold; then you may take it 

[01:40] and it will keep many years."

[01:43] There are some other instructions. It's actually a really really long recipe but that's the general gist of it.

[01:47] Now, it's a very simple recipe, but it takes a long time and you do kind of have to keep a close eye on it.

[01:54] Also, Lady Blencowe says to use a leg of veal, but  

[01:58] you don't have to use a leg of veal 'cus most of the other recipes from around this period say that you can use any kind of beef.

[02:06] So, that's what I'm using. Specifically, 15 pounds or 7 kilograms beef shank with the bone.

[02:13] And that bone is actually what's really, really important because while a lot of the flavor will come from the meat itself,

[02:19] what we really need is the collagen that comes from the bone and the tendons and the sinew and everything kind of

[02:26] connecting the meat to the bone. Also,  

[02:29] I chose 15 lbs of beef because that's what would 

[02:34] But if you have a bigger pot, you can have more. And if you 

[02:40] So begin by putting the meat in the largest pot 

[02:45] and set it over a high heat. And before the water 

[02:51] And you want to clear as much of that off as possible.

[02:54] Once you clear it, more will come. And you want to just keep clearing it off, something they called scumming,

[03:00] until you have scummed as much as you can.

[03:03] Then once the water comes to a boil, reduce it to a medium heat so that it's just simmering

[03:08] and set the lid on the pot with just a little crack to let out some steam. And then you wait.

[03:13] You wait for a long time, like 8 to 12 hours.

[03:18] You want to try not to add any more water in. But if it does get too low, you can add a little bit. But really, as it boils,

[03:23] the meat will just start to kind of fall to the bottom, and it takes up less room in the pot.  

[03:28] And you can kind of move it around to help this along.

[03:31] What you're looking for is for the meat to be boiled beyond belief until it is just not even really meat anymore.  

[03:37] There are some really good descriptions from old recipes that tell you what exactly you're looking for.

[03:43] Like Hannah Glasse says to boil it until "the meat is good for nothing".

[03:47] William Gelleroy said until "the meat has lost its virtue".

[03:51] And William Bird gives the most vivid description saying to boil "the meat to rags till all the goodness be out."

[03:57] Boil the meat until it looks like rags.

[04:00] So, you want it to look like that pair of socks that has been washed like 50 times and is just absolutely falling apart. 

[04:08] Unless you get your socks from today's sponsor, 

[04:14] See, I actually started working with Bombas about 2 years ago, and I started an experiment  

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[04:34] And so I decided to do that with a pair of socks. And it's this pair of socks. I have worn these

[04:39] pretty much every single Sunday for the last year and a half, which means that they have been washed like 80 times.

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[04:55] Though don't let the name fool you because you can wear these clogs any day of the week.

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[05:26] And now, let's check in on our boiling meat.

[05:30] So after 8 to 12 hours, the meat should be cooked to oblivion, and that is exactly what you want.

[05:35] And then you have to remove all of the pulverized 

[05:40] and any other bits that have fallen to the bottom. I have this wonderful pot within a pot that made this really easy.

[05:45] But you can just pick pieces out one at a time. And then what you should be left with is a very meaty smelling broth, like

[05:51] super concentrated beef broth. Though in some of the old recipes,  

[05:56] they actually add other ingredients to kind of 

[06:00] Like in 1747, Hannah Glasse suggests using "twelve anchovies, an ounce of mace, a quarter of an ounce of cloves,

[06:09] an ounce of whole pepper, black and white together, six large onions, a little bundle of thyme, sweet marjoram,  

[06:14] and winter-savory, the dry hard crust of a two 

[06:19] The thing is, while this is going to add a lot of other flavor,

[06:22] it locks those flavors into the broth and then into the portable soup,  

[06:27] which is going to be condensed down even further. So, a lot of recipes at the time say

[06:33] to not do this because if you ever want a soup that doesn't have anchovey flavor, you're out of luck. So,  

[06:41] I'm going to go with them and say that just 

[06:44] And while you do want all of that beefy flavor, you don't want 

[06:51] does run the risk of becoming rancid. And so, 

[06:57] which is kind of the goal. So, you want to let 

[07:03] And then the fat will firm up and float to the top.

[07:06] And it's really easy to just remove the whole thing.

[07:09] Then, the original recipe says to strain this broth through a fine sieve. And many of the recipes actually say to use a cloth.

[07:16] So, that is what I did.

[07:17] I just ladled a bit of the broth through some cheesecloth and that made sure that every bit of meat and fat were gone.

[07:23] Now the next part is really where you have to plan 

[07:29] and you want to make sure that you don't 

[07:35] you've ruined it all and you have to start way 

[07:40] So, what you're looking to do is steam all of this broth all the way down where there's just collagen left.

[07:47] And back in the day, they would do this by setting 

[07:53] going underneath it at the time. But modern stoves have difficulty staying at such low temperatures  

[08:00] for such long periods of time. So, I suggest 

[08:04] and then setting it onto the lowest setting possible just so that it's steaming, but so that it's not simmering.

[08:10] In all, it took about 14 hours for me to get this down to where I needed it. But by hour four,  

[08:16] I could actually feel it working. And when I 

[08:23] When you stir it with a spoon, there will be this gelatinous goop on the end of the spoon,

[08:28] and that is what we want. Eventually, the whole darn pot will just be that gelatinous goop.

[08:34] That is the veal glue. But since that takes all day, literally sometimes more,  

[08:40] I figure I have more than enough time to tell you 

[08:50] While we may not know who the first person 

[08:54] we do know when it started to really become 

[09:00] because that's when you start to see it in a lot of cookbooks meant to make this stuff at home.

[09:06] Essentially, you would make up a batch before you went on a long journey.  

[09:10] And it must have been fairly common because it is one of the few dishes that is actually called out

[09:16] in an early advertisement for 'The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy' in 1747. It says,  

[09:22] "This Book is not designed to reach professed 

[09:27] It begins with roast and boiled of all sorts...Also 

[09:33] which if gentlemen have with them they may always have... either veal broth, strong soups,

[09:38] or fine sauce for any made dish, and may be carried to the Indies and back again."

[09:44] And you'll note that it says it is not for professed cooks that is professional cooks

[09:48] but rather for the young and ignorant like me-

[09:52] the middle-aged and ignorant I guess. >_>

[09:55] Anyway a few years later it would become the domain of the professed or professional cooks 

[10:01] when a tavern keeper in London named Elizabeth Dubois began making it and advertised it as

[10:07] "useful on journeys or at sea" and "not disagreeable to chew when hunting."

[10:12] So, first of all, yes, she said to chew when hunting, meaning that you could make a soup or a broth out of it by dissolving it in hot water,  

[10:20] like a boullion cube, but you could also just put 

[10:26] which doesn't sound terribly appetizing, but I think I'm going to have to try that at the end of the episode.

[10:32] The second thing that she says is that it is for the Navy and that was the impetus

[10:39] for her getting a Navy contract in 1756 to manufacture large amounts of her portable soup  

[10:46] which is what the Royal Navy called it.

[10:48] One of the biggest proponents of this stuff was none other than Captain James Cook,

[10:52] who on his travels mapped much of New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific Islands

[10:56] and was the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands.

[11:00] And then a few years later in 1779, the inhabitants of said islands clubbed him to death.

[11:05] 11 years before that in 1768 he set sail on the Endeavor.

[11:10] And with him were ample amounts of fresh food like pigs and poultry,  

[11:14] as well as an 18 month supply of preserved foods 

[11:18] [clack clack]

[11:18] salt pork, and portable soup. And the portable soup was one of the things that they brought with them to stave off scurvy.

[11:25] "Sauerkraut, mustard, vinegar, wheat, inspissated orange and lemon juices,

[11:29] saloup, portable soup, sugar, molasses, vegetables...

[11:33] These were of such infinite service to the people in preserving them from a scorbutic taint,

[11:38] that the use of the malt was almost entirely precluded."

[11:41] Of course, malt doesn't stave off scurvy, nor did most of those other foods. In fact,

[11:47] pretty much just the sauerkraut and then the orange and lemon juices did. But

[11:51] Cook didn't know that and so he really insisted on people drinking this portable soup which was often served as a breakfast

[11:58] like mixed with oatmeal and sometimes on occasion with celery.

[12:03] "Saturday, October 28th, 1769...

[12:06] As I intend to sail in the morning some hands were employed picking of celery to take to sea with us,

[12:11] this is found here in great plenty and I have caused it to be boiled with portable soup and oatmeal every morning for the people's breakfast,

[12:19] and this I designed to continue as long as it will last or any is to be got,

[12:23] because I look upon it to be very wholesome and a great anti-scorbutic."

[12:27] While in England it became a staple of the naval diet, in America it became a staple of

[12:32] the foods that people would bring with them on their long journeys into the interior of the continent.

[12:38] It was purchased in bulk for perhaps the most famous of these journeys which headed all the way west

[12:44] when Merriweather Lewis wrote in 1803,

[12:47] "Sir... the object of my visit to [Philadelphia] is principally to provide the articles necessary for my intended expedition in the western country.

[12:54] Portable soup, in my opinion, forms one of the most essential articles in this preparation,

[12:59] and... I have taken the liberty to request that you will procure 200 pounds of it for me...

[13:05] Your friend and obedient, humble servant, Merriweather Lewis."

[13:09] I'm going to start signing off my emails like that. Your friend and obedient, humble servant, Max Miller.

[13:14] Just sounds dignified.

[13:16] Now, Merriweather Lewis said that he was expecting to pay $1 a pound for the portable soup.

[13:22] But if he could get all 200 pounds, he was willing to go to $250 for the lot.

[13:28] Unfortunately for old Merriweather, they couldn't get 200 pounds. It ended up only being 193 pounds  

[13:35] and it ended up costing $289.50 or $1.50 

[13:41] This Louis and Clark packed into 32 canisters and brought it with them on their journey west.

[13:46] The thing is, while portable soup may be, you know, useful, it's not actually the most delicious way to have a soup, I guess.

[13:56] And so, it was reserved only if they really couldn't 

[14:02] And they did require a lot of food to eat. 

[14:05] As William Clark wrote in his journal, "We eat an immensity of food.

[14:09] It requires 4 deer, or an elk in a deer, or one 

[14:16] Now it wasn't just Lewis and Clark eating all of this food because they had a whole team with them.  

[14:20] There was, of course, Sacagawea along with 30 to 40 other people depending on where they were. Now,  

[14:27] they had plenty of food for most part. When they were traveling the plains, they could do hunting, they could do gathering,

[14:33] but about 18 months into their journey, they were crossing the Bitterroot Mountains

[14:39] in what is now Idaho and Montana, and there was no food to be had.  

[14:45] So, it was time for portable soup.

[14:48] "Captain Lewis gave out some portable soup, which he had along, to be used in cases of necessity.

[14:53] Some of the men did not relish this soup, and agreed to kill a colt, which they immediately did, and set about roasting it;

[15:00] and which appeared to me to be good eating."

[15:02] But the colt didn't seem to last very long because 

[15:06] the next day, they resorted to that portable soup. 

[15:13] that was the mainstay of their diet. So much so that they started with 32 canisters.  

[15:19] And by the end, they said that they only had a few. 

[15:23] Once you pop, you can't stop.

[15:25] Now, 10 years after this expedition, portable soup received a blow

[15:29] that would eventually render it kind of obsolete.

[15:34] See, after 60 years of being a compulsory part of the British naval ration, Sir Gilbert Blane published a work called

[15:41] 'Statements of the Comparative Health of the British Navy' in 1815.

[15:45] This gathered evidence from decades of naval expeditions to determine what did and did not have an effect on scurvy.

[15:52] And he came to the conclusion that portable soup had none.

[15:56] The one item that he said did have a considerable 

[16:02] And so after this, that became the staple of the naval diet

[16:09] and portable soup pretty much vanished.

[16:12] But it did still hold a place in the diet of those who were journeying over land.

[16:17] Because in 1857, Eliza Leslie suggested

[16:21] "If you have any friends going the overland journey to the Pacific,

[16:24] a box of portable soup may be a most useful present to them."

[16:29] But even then, portable soup was losing popularity because of the proliferation of canned goods.

[16:36] Now, obviously, canned goods are not as easy to carry around. They're heavier, they're bulkier, but they taste a lot better.

[16:43] Also by this time a more palatable and easier to procure alternative to portable soup  

[16:48] appeared in the form of Liebig's extract of meat 

[16:53] Baron Justus von Liebig had perfected the production of beef extract, a sort of beef syrup.

[17:00] His company in conjunction with Oxo would eventually introduce the boullion cube

[17:04] which was in many ways the last gasp for portable soup.

[17:08] By the 20th century, recipes for portable soup were all but gone from cookbooks.

[17:13] A relic of the past.

[17:16] And before I become a relic of the past, I think I ought to try this

[17:20] 1694 recipe for portable soup, pocket soup, or veal glue.

[17:27] Except that it's actually not ready yet because after 14 hours of simmering,

[17:32] there was just about 3/4 of an inch of meat juice left in the slow cooker. This mostly being collagen.

[17:38] And at that point, it needs to cool so it can congeal into this, a rubbery slab of condensed meat essence.

[17:46] Hmmm.

[17:47] Now here the original recipe says that you want to let it dry on a piece of cloth by turning it over every day and until it's dried.  

[17:55] But William Byrd's recipe from a few decades 

[18:01] laying them single in the cold that they may dry the sooner."

[18:04] So that's what I did. I sliced it into little pieces and laid them on a piece of cloth

[18:09] and then I set a fan to blow on it. I also had to surround these things with little bottles of stuff

[18:14] because the cat was extremely interested and I had to make a wall.

[18:18] In all the drying process took about 5 days.

[18:21] And here we are, veal glue, portable soup or the pocket soup of the 17th through 19th centuries.

[18:28] Now there are a few ways to enjoy this pocket soup or veal glue.

[18:33] One would be to use it to make like a sauce as like a base for a sauce or a more complicated stew.

[18:40] But probably most common was just to dissolve it in hot water  

[18:45] and then drink it basically as broth. So that's 

[18:50] I just put it into some boiling water and let it cook for about 30 seconds

[18:56] and then poured it into this glass so I could just drink it as broth.

[19:01] It's actually pretty clear. You know, it's a little- a little murky,  

[19:06] but I think I did pretty good.

[19:08] Smells like beef broth. So, let's give it a taste.

[19:12] [Sluuuuurp]

[19:17] Tastes like beef broth. I mean, it tastes 

[19:25] Not terrible. There's nothing gluey to it now that 

[19:31] I did notice that in different recipes it says to use different amounts to reconstitute it.

[19:37] One says that it needs to be an ounce, which is like

[19:42] six of these into one cup or a half pint of water.

[19:48] But the original recipe that I'm using from 1694 actually says

[19:53] "A piece the bigness of a nutmeg will make half a pint of broth.

[19:57] The whole leg of veal, unless very large, will not make a piece of glue bigger than your hand.

[20:02] It is made into broth by pouring hot water on it."

[20:05] It's crazy that an entire leg of veal will be reduced down into a piece of glue

[20:10] no bigger than your hand. I got one like that big, so a little bit bigger. So

[20:15] I don't know. But you know she said a piece of like a nutmeg. So I'm just thinking like one little square. So that's what I used.

[20:23] Now there is one other way to eat this and that is just to let it dissolve in your mouth.

[20:29] I don't know if this is going to work but I'm going to try and see if I can get maybe just

[20:36] part of it to dissolve in my mouth. I don't know if I 

[20:41] it's not rock hard, but it's hard. It's like a-

[20:46] if you let it- left a caramel out for like a year.

[20:50] [CHOMP]

[20:53] It's not my teeth cracking.

[20:58] Ah, let's put the whole thing in.

[21:06] Oh, it's so beefy.

[21:09] SO BEEFY.

[21:14] It's working though.

[21:16] I can't.

[21:18] I can't.

[21:19] I can't, haha.

[21:23] Oh, it's so beefy. It's so- the 

[21:31] It's working. This is gross. I'm showing you my chewed food.

[21:34] It's working. And it would work if I continued. But the-

[21:41] the- what's happening inside my mouth would not change the more that I chewed it. 

[21:46] It's just going to be more of the same. So, I'm not going to continue because there's just no point.

[21:51] This is not the way to eat it.

[21:53] This- This is the way to have it. Don't just chew on it. You can.

[21:57] They said you can. It's good to do while hunting, I guess, but I'm not hunting and  

[22:01] so I'm not going to do it anymore because 

[22:05] take me like 10 minutes and you don't want to watch that and I don't want to do it.

[22:09] What I am going to do is I am going to save all of the rest of this portable soup that I have made,

[22:17] and it's supposed to last for a very long time, all the way on a trip to the Indies and back.

[22:23] So I'm going to keep it and in like a year I'm going to try it again. I think maybe I'll make like

[22:29] the version that Captain Cook suggested where he mixed it with oatmeal with a little celery.  

[22:37] There are other versions that mix it with like 

[22:45] meet me back here in a year to to see me eat 

[22:49] Meet me back here in a week, of course, 'cus you know, I do a video 

[22:55] we'll have to wait a year or so. And until then,

[23:00] I will see you next time on Tasting History.