On 10 August 1811 wholesale ironmonger George Backhouse of Kendal billed Kirkby Lonsdale Workhouse for a single item, a digester, costing £1 11s 4d.[1] In a pamphlet from around 1740, entitled Cheap provision, recommended to the publick in general, and poor in particular, the purpose of a digesterwas to dissolve bones that could be used in soups and broths.[2] It was not evident how a digester worked.
‘An excellent Broath is made with Bones, dissolved by a digester, and thicken’d with Rice. To make a nourishing and satisfactory Dinner of it Put Half a Pound of Meat, of any Sort, salt or fresh, or both, or Ox Cheek, Cow Heel, Calves, Feet &c cut into Bits, into a Gallon of Water, after you have made it boil and froth up, put in a Pound of Rice, let it Boil for three Hours, adding another Gallon of Water warm’d’.[3] To this, may be added with discretion, ‘any garden stuff … Pease, Turnips, Potatoes, Parsnips, Leeks, … and it may be season’d with Ginger, Jamaica or black Pepper’.
Sixty years later, the snappily-titled The economy of an institution, established in Spitalfields, London, for the purpose of supplying the poor with a good meat soup, At One Penny per Quart. Principally extracted from the Papers of the Society, and published with a view to the Establishment of similar institutions, in towns, villages, and populous neighbourhoods produced by the Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor, reported that a digester had been installed in Spitalfields, but it was not yet in use.[4] The committee was of the opinion that ‘most of the nutrient may be extracted from the bones by the usual mode of preparing the Soup’, to wit they had four boilers, two of one hundred gallons each and two of 150 gallons each.[5]
The society gave the following recipe for one hundred gallons of soup: eight stones of beef, 16 stones of shin of beef, 46lbs of pease, 36lbs of Scotch barley, 24lbs of onions, 8lbs of salt, 10oz of black pepper.[6] These were to be placed in a boiler filled with water and simmered overnight. In the morning the water was to be topped up.
The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor thought a digester saved both food and fuel.[7] The reports gave a description from the Birmingham Soup Shop on how a digester functioned. ‘Soup is prepared by previously dissolving the meat and bones in the digester; a vessel which … is capable of dissolving bones to jelly within a few hours’.[8]
‘The bones are cut into small pieces with an axe, and part of them put into the digester, which is filled two-thirds with water, and the lid screwed down; when the first operation takes place, for two of three hours, with a light weight on the valve. What then remains undissolved is put a second time into the digester, with the rest of the bones, and the same quantity of water, greater weight being laid on the valve, equal to 40lb or 50lb on the square inch. When the bones are supposed to be nearly dissolved, and the vessel cool enough to open, the meat is added … and the whole boiled together for two or three hours, with only a small pressure on the valve’.[9] For this to work successfully, ‘some skill, and a great degree of attention is required’.[10]
[1] Cumbria Archive Service, Kendal, WPR19/7/1/5/1, Kirkby Lonsdale Overseers’ Voucher, George Backhouse, 10 August 1811.
[2] Cheap provision, recommended to the publick in general, and poor in particular (London[?], 1740[?])
[3] Cheap provision, recommended to the publick in general, and poor in particular (London[?], 1740[?]), pp.1-2.
[4] Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor, The economy of an institution, established in Spitalfields, London, for the purpose of supplying the poor with a good meat soup, At One Penny per Quart. Principally extracted from the Papers of the Society, and published with a view to the Establishment of similar institutions, in towns, villages, and populous neighbourhoods (London: W. Phillips, George Yard, Lombard Street, 1799).
[5] Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor, The economy of an institution, p. 15.
[6] Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor, The economy of an institution, p. 14.
[7] Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (London: printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1798-1800), p.151.
[8] Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (London: printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1798-1800), p. 166.
[9] Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (London: printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1798-1800), p. 164.
[10] Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (London: printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 1798-1800), p. 164.