Pocket Soup for the 18th Century Traveler

TL;DR

Pocket soup was a dehydrated beef concentrate used by 18th-century travelers and navies as a portable, long-lasting broth substitute before bouillon cubes existed.

Key Points

• 1.Pocket soup dates to at least the late 16th century. Sir Hugh Plat first mentioned it, made from 'neats feet and leg of beef boiled to great stiffness'; the oldest proper recipe comes from Lady Anne Blencowe in 1694, calling it 'veal glue.'
• 2.Making it requires 15 lbs of beef shank boiled 8–12 hours until 'the meat is good for nothing.' Collagen from bones and tendons is the key ingredient; the resulting broth is then strained, defatted, and slow-cooked another 14 hours until only a gelatinous slab remains.
• 3.Captain James Cook was one of its biggest naval proponents. He brought portable soup on his 1768 Endeavor voyage, serving it mixed with oatmeal and celery for breakfast, believing it prevented scurvy — though only the sauerkraut and citrus juices actually did.
• 4.The Royal Navy gave tavern keeper Elizabeth Dubois a contract in 1756 to mass-produce it. She advertised it as useful at sea and 'not disagreeable to chew when hunting,' meaning it could dissolve in hot water like a bouillon cube or simply be chewed directly.
• 5.Meriwether Lewis ordered 200 lbs of portable soup in 1803 for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Only 193 lbs were procured at $289.50 total ($1.50/lb), packed into 32 canisters; the crew reluctantly ate it for 11 straight days crossing the Bitterroot Mountains when no other food was available.
• 6.Sir Gilbert Blane's 1815 naval health study effectively killed portable soup's dominance. He proved it had no effect on scurvy, elevating citrus juice as the true preventive; canned goods and Liebig's beef extract (later Oxo bouillon cubes) made it fully obsolete by the 20th century.
• 7.The reconstituted broth tastes exactly like concentrated beef broth. One nutmeg-sized piece dissolves in half a pint of hot water; chewing it raw is intensely beefy but impractical — the host confirmed it works but abandoned it after a few seconds.