M. Brocchière, a French manufacturer, has lately extended these economical processes so far, as to attempt to produce concentrated food from the blood of cattle. He dries up the liquid or serous portions of the blood, and forms into a cake, with admixture of other substances, the coagulable portion, which contains fibrin, the source of flesh and muscle. Unless a more delicate name could be given to this preparation, prejudice would have some influence in depriving it of the chance of fair play. The dry blood is in some cases combined with a small portion of flour, and made into light dry masses, like loaves or cakes, to be used as the basis of soups; while in other cases it is combined with sugar, to make sweet biscuits and bon-bons. Another kind of preserved animal fluid is the _ozmazome_, prepared by Messrs Warriner and Soyer. This consists of the nutritious matter or juice of meat, set free during the operation of boiling down fat for tallow in Australia; it is afterwards concentrated, and preserved in the form of sausages. A great amount of nutriment is thus obtained in a portable form; when boiled with gelatine, it forms a palatable diet, and it is also used to form a gravy for meat.
Masson's method of preserving vegetables seems to be very effective, as applied to white and red cabbages, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and such like. The process, as conducted in France, is very simple. The vegetables are dried at a certain temperature (104 to 118 degrees Fahrenheit), sufficient to expel the moisture without imparting a burnt taste; and in this operation they lose nearly seven-eighths of their original weight. The vegetables are then pressed forcibly into the form of cakes, and are kept in tinfoil till required for use. These vegetables require, when about to be eaten, rather more boiling than those in the ordinary state. Some of the French ships of war are supplied with them, much to the satisfaction of the crews. Dr Lindley has stated, on the authority of a distinguished officer in the antarctic expedition under Sir James Ross, that although all the preserved meats used on that occasion were excellent, and there was not the slightest ground for any complaint of their quality, the crew became tired of the meat, but never of the vegetables. 'This should shew us,' says Dr Lindley, 'that it is not sufficient to supply ships' crews with preserved meats, but that they should be supplied with vegetables also, the means of doing which is now afforded.' Generally speaking, the flavour of preserved vegetables, whether prepared on Masson's or on any other process, is fresher than that of the meats--especially in the case of those which abound in the saccharine principle, as beet, carrot, turnips, &c. The more farinaceous vegetables, such as green peas, do not preserve so well.