  219. SALEP is the powder of the dried roots of several well-known field-plants of the orchis tribe (Orchis morio, O. mascula, &c.) As an article of diet, salep is supposed to contain the largest portion of nutriment, in an equal compass, of any known vegetable production: even arrow root (17) is, in this respect, inferior to it. The orchises from which it is manufactured flourish in great abundance in meadows and pastures of several parts of England, flowering about the months of May and June. As soon as the flower-stalks begin to decay, the roots should be dug up, and the newly-formed bulbs, which have then attained their perfect state, should be separated. When several roots are collected, they should be washed in water, and have their external skin removed by a small brush, or by dipping them in hot water, and rubbing them with a coarse linen cloth. The next process is to place them on a tin plate, and put them into an oven for about ten minutes, by which time they will have lost the milky whiteness which they before possessed, and will have acquired a transparency like horn. They are then to be spread in a room, where, in a few days, they will become dry and hard. Although salep might be procured in great abundance in our own country, we import nearly the whole of what we use from the Levant, and generally in oval pieces of yellowish white colour, somewhat clear and pellucid, and of almost horny substance. When these, or the powder prepared from them, are put into boiling water, they dissolve into a thick mucilage. With the Turks, salep has great celebrity, on account of the restorative qualities which it is supposed to possess. It is much recommended as nutritive food for persons recovering from illness; and, in particular, as a part of the stores of every ship about to sail into distant climates. It not only possesses the property of yielding an invaluable nutriment, and, in a great measure, of concealing the saline taste of sea-water, but is likewise of essential service against the sea-scurvy. When it is stated that one ounce of this powder and an ounce of portable soup, dissolved in two quarts of boiling water, will form a jelly capable of affording sustenance to one man for a day, the utility of salep will be further seen as a means of preventing famine at sea for an infinitely longer time than any other food of equal bulk. |
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