Stock (food)

“ Of concentrated foods used for fattening stock, none stands higher in the estimation of the farmer than linseed-cake, although it appears to me that the price of the article is somewhat too high in relation to its amount of nutriment, and that corn, if its price be moderate, is a more economical food. ”

“ Different feeders have different dietaries, and the nature of the aliments supplied to fattening stock depends very much upon the market prices of food-stuffs, and the locality in which the feeding-house is situated. ”

“ No doubt, most feeders are practically acquainted with the relative value of corn and oil-cake—of Swedish turnips and white turnips; but their knowledge of the food equivalents of many other substances is still very defective. For example, every farmer is not aware that Indian corn [177] is a more economical food than beans for fattening cattle, and less so for beasts of burthen. Locust-beans, oat-dust, malt-combings, and many other articles, occasionally consumed by stock, have not, as yet, determinate places assigned to them in the feeder's scale of food equivalents. ”

“ The complete fattening of cattle is a losing business with some feeders, and a profitable one with others. Stall-feeding is a branch of rural economy which, perhaps more than any other, requires the combination of "science with practice;" yet how few feeders are there who have the slightest knowledge of the composition of food substances, or who are agreed as to the feeding value, absolute or relative, of even such well-known materials as oil-cake, straw, or oats! ”

“ They consider that a pound's worth of oil-cake, or of corn, will produce at least a pound's worth of meat, and that the manure will be had for nothing, or, rather, will be the profit of the business. The richer food is in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, the more valuable will be the manure it yields. ”

“ Although every farmer may not have used, there are few who have not heard of "Thorley's Condimental Food for Cattle." This nostrum is a compound of some of the ordinary foods with certain well-known aromatic and carminative substances. It possesses a very agreeable flavor, and it is therefore [247] much relished by horses, and indeed by every kind of stock. The price of this compound was at first so much as £60 per ton; but owing to competition, and perhaps to the attacks made upon the enormously high price of this article, it is now to be obtained at prices varying from £12 to £24 per ton. ”

“ When the stock is about passing from the winter keep to summer food, the transition should be gradual; a well-made compound of straw or hay with grass (natural or artificial) is much relished by cows. A supply of good water is absolutely necessary; but sufficient attention to this important point is seldom given. Cooked food is well adapted for milch cows. Mangels, kohl-rabi, and cabbages are each of them better food than turnips, as the latter is apt to impart a disagreeable flavour to the butter. Three feeds in the day is a sufficient number for cows. ”

“ Now, although it is pretty generally known that musty corn and diseased potatoes form good feeding stuffs, it is not so patent whether or not the natural food of stock, such as hay and straw in a diseased state, is proper food for those animals. ”

“ Of course, there may be objections to this plan on the score of economy; but as a general rule, too much liberality cannot be exercised in feeding growing animals; and there is nothing more certain than that the calf which is illiberally fed will never be developed into a valuable, matured animal. When carefully tended from their birth, comfortably housed in winter, and abundantly supplied with nutritious food, it is sometimes wonderful the rapid progress which young stock make. ”

“ This was to the effect that no difference existed in their market [170] value, but that the sheep fed on turnips would turn out the best quality of mutton, with most profit for the butcher. Both lots were sold at the same price, viz., 52s. 6d. During the three months of trial, we found that each lot consumed about the same weight of food—viz., 8 tons 13 cwt. 47 lb. of cabbage, being at the rate of 211⁄3 lbs. per day for each sheep, and 8 tons 10 cwt. 7 lb. Swedes, being at the rate of 209⁄10 lb. per day. ”

“ STOCK FOR SOUP
Stock in its composition is not confined to any set rules for any particular proportions. All cook books give particular as well as general directions for its manufacture; but all cooks know that the most economical plan is to have a general stock-pot, where, or into which, you can throw any pieces of beef or any piece of meat from which gravy can be extracted—bones, skin, brisket or tops of ribs, ox-cheek, ham, trimmings [Pg 4] of turkey and other fowls, pieces of mutton, bacon, veal, game, etc., etc. In fact, anything that will become a jelly will assist in making stock. ”

“ STOCK In all good cooking there is a constant demand for a half pint or a pint of stock. Brown sauce and tomato sauce, in fact, all meat sauces, are decidedly better made from stock than water, and as it comes to every household without the additional cost of a penny, there is no excuse whatever for being without it. Save the bones collected on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Chicken and veal bones may be kept together; beef, mutton and ham in another lot; one makes a white stock, the other brown. ”

“ In the manufacturing districts of Great Britain, there are several millions of people whose condition in relation to food is somewhat different from that of the small farmer and agricultural laborer. The artizans employed in our great industries are comparatively well paid for their toil ”

“ Notwithstanding the fact that it is the usual procedure, in culinary matters, to insist upon the importance of the part played by stock, I feel compelled to refer to it at the outset of this work, and to lay even further stress upon what has already been written on the subject.
Indeed, stock is everything in cooking, at least in French cooking. Without it, nothing can be done. If one’s stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result. ”

“ Note.—It is on a good stock, or first good broth and sauce, that excellence in cookery depends. If the preparation of this basis of the culinary art is intrusted to negligent or ignorant persons, and the stock is not well skimmed, but indifferent results will be obtained. The stock will never be clear; and when it is obliged to be clarified, it is deteriorated both in quality and flavour. In the proper management of the stock-pot an immense deal of trouble is saved, inasmuch as one stock, in a small dinner, serves for all purposes. ”

“ The third stock, being made from bones and pieces of meat left from roasts, and from the trimmings of raw meats, will always be changeable in color, quantity and quality. This is, however, a very important stock, and it should always be kept on hand. No household, even where only a moderate amount of meat is used, should be without a stock-pot. ”

“ Consommé is made precisely in the same manner as white stock, and, for ordinary purposes, will be found quite good enough. When, however, a stronger stock is desired, either put in half the quantity of water, or double that of the meat. ”

“ The instant anything of moment happens anywhere, it is reflected by a rise or fall in the price of securities or commodities such as wheat, corn, pork, cotton, etc., that are dealt in in the different stock-exchanges or boards of trade. ”

“ As for your fellow-passengers, they are—to a man, and to a woman—gross from over-indulgence of one form or another—mostly food and drink, and their interests are as far removed from yours as the stars. ”

“ The materials that may be put into the stock-pot are bones and the trimmings of meat, cooked or uncooked; poultry, giblets, poultry bones, game bones, the rinds and bones of bacon, the remains of gravies, but not sauces thickened with flour—the latter make the stock cloudy. Scraps of raw vegetables, if fresh and suitable, may be added in cold weather; cooked vegetables must not be used for they are liable to turn sour, especially in warm weather. ”

“ General Directions.—Before giving some receipts for soups, we wish first to remind our young housekeepers that it is important for them to bear in mind the necessity and economy of keeping good stock constantly on hand. The French stock-pot is always in readiness to receive every bone, coarse or refuse bit of meat not suitable to use for the main dish or for side-dishes. ”

“ All she wanted with money, she said, was to buy coffee, tea, and whiskey, and she could 'get enough any day by sending a batch of butter and chicken to market.' They used no wheat, nor sold any of their corn, which, though it appeared a very large quantity, was not more than they required to make their bread and cakes of various kinds, and to feed all their live stock during the winter. ”

“ How long a regular supply of beef and pork would be necessary depended on the quantity of live stock which might be introduced into the settlement, and on its increase, of which no judgment could be formed. ”

“ I was very much shocked to find that a young man—a slave—had been accused by the medicine-men as having bewitched the chief and induced his sickness. In consequence of this he had been stripped, and bound hands and feet in an old outhouse, and thus kept for some days without food. I only learned this about one hour before the death of the chief, and it was well I heard it even then, as I learned that they had determined to shoot him, and a man had been told off who had his gun ready for the purpose. ”

“ Four hours on and eight off was how we apportioned our watches and, thanks to fair winds and the easy handling of the dream ship, it was seldom necessary for more than one of us to be on deck at a time. In fact, there were hours on end when the helmsman could peg the tiller and take a constitutional.
Cooking we took week and week about, a dreaded ordeal. It is one thing to concoct food in a porcelain-fitted kitchen on terra firma, and quite another to do it over a primus stove in a leaping, gyrating fo'c's'le. ”

“ Hence the value of the stockpot. If the odds and ends accumulated in the kitchen do not suffice to make the quantity of stock required, they must be supplemented by stock prepared specially. The following recipes for making stock are sufficient for all ordinary needs.
Common Stock.— (a) 6 lb. shin of beef, 6 qt. water. Cut all the meat off the bones, and cut the meat across and across, and sprinkle a teaspoonful of salt over it and put it at once into the 6 qt. water in an earthen vessel, while you do as follows: wash and cut up 2 carrots and 2 turnips and leave them in clear water ”

“ Any bits of meat or fowl that are left over can be made into an appetizing dish by adding thickened stock to them and serving the combination over toast or rice. In fact, a large variety of made dishes can be devised if there is stock on hand to add for flavor. The convenience of a supply of stock will be apparent when it is realized that gravy or sauce for almost any purpose can be made from the contents of the stock pot. ”

“ Two or three women, aided by children, would suffice to make ready the daily repasts; instead of buying wood and charcoal in fractions, (33) and so paying for it double its value, the association of my workmen would, upon my security (their wages would be an efficient security for me in return) , lay in their own stock of wood, flour, butter, oil, wine, etc., all which they would procure directly from the producers. Thus, they would pay three or four sous for a bottle of pure wholesome wine, instead of paying twelve or fifteen sous for poison. ”

“ The enjoyment of heaven and the privations of hell they understand to be carnal. They do not suppose the wicked to be destitute of food any more than they were here, but they are treated as slaves and are badly clothed. ”

“ A stock must therefore be made from fresh materials, but as those are comparatively inexpensive, we need not grudge having them of the freshest and best. Readers of Thackeray will remember the little dinner at Timmins, when the hired chef shed such consternation in the bosom of little Mrs Timmins by his outrageous demands for 'a leg of beef, a leg of veal, and a ham', on behalf of the stock-pot. ”

“ Beef makes the best brown stock, but it lacks gelatinous substance; therefore stock for good consommé, or clear soup, should be made of beef and veal, and a fowl, or part of a fowl added to give it an additional flavour.
2. White stock is usually made from veal, bones and remains of poultry and calves' feet. The liquor in which calves' head or fowls has been boiled makes excellent white stock.
3. Stock meat should be as lean and as fresh as possible. Never wash meat unless obliged, as it deprives its surface of all the juices. ”

“ The points involved in the economic feeding of stock are not quite so simple as some farmers, more especially those of the amateur class, appear to believe. There are many feeders who sell their half-finished cattle at a profit, and yet they cannot, without loss, convert their stock into those obese monsters which are so much admired at agricultural shows. ”

“ Yet so fearful was the amount of death and desolation on every side of us till about the end of September, that the Indians had but little spirit left for building, or even for the gathering necessary food for the winter. ”

“ High-priced land, grain and labor will compel stockmen to grade up their herds, to discriminate more closely in the purchase of feeding stock, to improve feeding methods and to keep exact records of costs. ”