What I have always admired about the "real aristocrats" is caring for the poor. Both in the Russian Empire and beyond its borders, the poorest strata of the population, in the opinion of the elites, were somewhere on the same rung as domestic animals. And even lower.
This is me to those who longingly recalls the crunch of French buns and tells how various communities of benefactors took care of the orphan and the poor.
For some reason, this concern is put down now in the form of a lady with a basket filled with delicacies and delicacies. And this lady goes to feed the poor, and the footman drags the basket. Or two baskets - two footmen. In general, it all depends on the imagination.
In fact, the "greatest minds" of that time were sometimes preoccupied with the question of how to feed the hungry.
One - the English Earl of Rumford - even invented the soup. Especially for the poor. To feed them charitably without spending a lot of money. Soup recipe is fine until cramps (stomach)
5 lb. barley, 5 lb. corn, 3p herring, 1p of salt, 1p of vinegar, 2p of pepper and herbs, for a total of 20 ¾p, it turns out soup for 64 people, while at average prices for bread, the cost of this can be further reduced to ¼ pence per soul.
Then a lot of options were offered - instead of vinegar, use sour beer, for example. Or replace the herring with jerky, and later with Liebig's meat extract. One poor man relied on 600 or 700 ml. soup. At the same time, it had to be eaten slowly, and Rumford, in complete ecstasy from his invention, called the soup "the cheapest, tastiest and most nutritious food that you can only imagine ", and was glad that he confirmed this by experiments - five years on the inhabitants of workhouses experimented ...
In general, it is worth writing separately about Rumford and his services to cooking. He undoubtedly has merit besides the soup - for example, the invention of the adjustable heat cooker!
But something hurts me this soup.
Moreover, the count himself obviously did not eat it. Despite the fact that, in fact, he was not born a count, but was an adventurer from a small American town, he preferred to live well and satisfyingly. Talent allowed (titles, by the way, were not assigned to him, but given in a legal way)
The saddest thing is that organizations such as the Salvation Army still feed tramps on the streets with this soup of his.
Would you dare to try?