Bone Broth, The Original Slush Fund

In the mid 1700s Royal Naval ships found a way to make extra money from one simple dish, bone broth.

Ships were out to sea for a long time so the cook made soup. To make broth they would take the large soup pot, fill it with water, add bones and maybe some bay leaves for flavor. The next step was simple, let it cook for hours. When the broth was rich with flavor they made soup, kept the bones and filled the pot with more water for the second, third, fourth and fifth batch of broth from the same bones.

After the first batch was done, however, a thick layer of fat sat on top of the pot. It was too much for the soup so the cook skimmed it off and saved the rich fat in empty beef or pork barrels.

When the ship returned to port the naval cook met individuals in the shipyard looking to purchase the rich fat skimmed from the top of the pot. This valuable ingredient was used for making candles, soap and cooking. The money was the fund, the skimmed fat was the slush, historically giving us the origin of the phrase slush fund.

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Today rich bone broth is prized for healing ailing intestinal tracks as well as nourishing hungry bodies. The broth, rich in amino acids (specifically arginine, glycine and poline) as well as gelatin that improves callagen and intestinal healing. Many people take a mixture of bones, broil them  and then make broth. Personally I dump a frozen bag of bones into my crock pot, fill it with filtered water, add some bay leaves and apple cider vinegar to extract nutrients from the bones and then my favorite part – leave!

The rule of thumb is to keep cooking the bones in new water until the bones crumble between your fingers.  I often cook one perpetual crock pot for five days solid, emptying the pot each day and refilling it with fresh filtered water. This one bag of soup bones will yield gallons upon gallons of bone broth, a new pot every day.

Please note there is a difference between healing meat stock which is used to heal the intestinal tract (click here for healing meat stock) and bone broth which we are discussing here. Bone broth will not heal a Leaky Gut but is nourishing.

Variations: add onions, carrots, celery and peppercorns to the pot while cooking.

My personal favorite cup of broth: one egg yolk from a grass fed, free ranging, bug eating, sun soaking chicken, lots of salt, pepper, turmeric and a heaping teaspoon of coconut oil. It’ll make your tongue so happy it’ll jump out your mouth and slap your eyebrows.

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Sources:

“American Slang,” History Channel, 2013.

McNally, William, Evils & Abuses in Naval & Merchant Service, 1839.

The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1756

The Royal Navy-men’s Advocate, 1757

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/slush-fund.html