PREPARATION OF CONCENTRATED FOOD." IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by François Joseph Chevet at the
"
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st August 1877.
FRANÇOIS JOSEPH CHEVET, of Paris, France, Merchant.
PREPARATION OF CONCENTRATED FOOD."
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
I have combined under the title of " Chevet's Concentrated Soups," a food
destined for the army and for ordinary consumption.
The base of the product is extract of neat, which I mix with farinaceous
materials, peas, beans, lentils, maize, oatmeal, and similar substances, but without
combining in the same soup different kinds of farinaceous food. By this means a
soup will be obtained having the savour of the farinaceous food which enters into
its composition. This product, in the solid state, assumes all forms of tablets,
prisms, cylinders, sausages, and the like. I take, for example, 100 kilogrammes of
ground peas, which I first dry or stew in order to extract the humidity therefrom;
30 kilogrammes of extract of meat, 50 kilogrammes of liquid beef fat; I put in 2
kilogrammes of onions (that is to say, I cut the onions into small pieces and cook
them with a fatty body till they assume a golden colour). I mix together the meal,
the onion, the fat, and the extract, add spice, and stir the mixture for about 20
minutes, during which time it is subjected to a temperature of about 60 degrees..
I have been led to employ the extract of meat, by reasoning, as follows:-Meat
of whatever sort, beef, mutton, or pork has, before being employed for this purpose,
been subjected to two dressings and one drying. This salted meat, smoked, dried,
and re-dried, has therefore lost all nutritive properties.
A further grave inconvenience attaches to the employment of pork. This meat
is capable of containing terrible poison. Even admitting that pigs destined for
this purpose have been killed in a perfect state of health, it is a well established
fact that in hot countries, or in hot weather in any country, the use of pork is
unhealthy, and engenders several epidemic maladies, such as dissentery. For these
reasons I have sought to eliminate from my products all meat useless for nourish-
ment, which increases the weight of the soldier's baggage, and I have replaced it by
an extract of meat whose recommendation is its nutritive and hygienic properties,
combined with small bulk and weight.

page_text: Hitherto it has not been possible to incorporate bread in concentrated soups. My
product, with extract of meat for base, may be formed with bread, either with the
crumb of bread, dried, or with little cubes, or the bread may be replaced by semoule
or other similar material, either alone or mixed with the ground peas or other fari-
naceous substance.
To manufacture thus soups with bread, the bread either in crumbs or cut in little
sippets is first dried, submitted to fat or butter, and placed in the cooking vessel
about 10 minutes before withdrawing it from the fire.
"
The process of manufacture is exactly the same whatever be the meal employed.
In the same way "soup with onions is made for this last product; 100 kilo-
grammes of onions are employed instead of only 2 kilogrammes, as in the other
soups.