Skip to main content
Drink

Diet Table. Hospital Patients. — Full Diet.

A diet table for hospital patients listing portions of meat, potatoes, bread, butter, beer, and tea.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Diet Table. Hospital Patients. — Full Diet.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare 1 lb. of meat and cook it.

  2. Boil 1 lb. of potatoes until tender.

  3. Serve 14 oz. of bread with 1 oz. of butter.

  4. Pour 1 pint of tea for each meal.

  5. Provide 2 pints of beer for men and 1 pint for women.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Beer + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Meat
Supplies protein and fat, forming the main substance of the meal.
Potatoes
Provide starch that softens when boiled, making a tender, filling base.
Bread
Adds starch and bulk to the meal.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture on the bread.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, butter, beer, tea):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, butter, beer, tea. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Spruce BeerSpruce Beer58 recipesGinger BeerGinger Beer11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipes