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What Is Relativity An Intuitive

Introduction to Einstein s Ideas and


Why They Matter Jeffrey O. Bennett
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What Is RelatIvIty?
also by JeffRey bennett

For Adults
On the Cosmic Horizon: Ten Great Mysteries
for Third Millennium Astronomy
Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and
Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future
Math for Life: Crucial Ideas You Didn’t Learn in School

For Children
Max Goes to the Moon
Max Goes to Mars
Max Goes to Jupiter
Max Goes to the Space Station
The Wizard Who Saved the World

textbooks
Using and Understanding Mathematics:
A Quantitative Reasoning Approach
Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life
Life in the Universe
The Cosmic Perspective
The Essential Cosmic Perspective
The Cosmic Perspective Fundamentals
JeffRey bennett

What Is RelatIvIty?

an IntuItIve IntRoductIon
to eInsteIn’s Ideas,
and Why they MatteR

Columbia university Press


new york
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Jeffrey Bennett
Paperback edition, 2016
All rights reserved

Figures 1.1, 1.3, 2.1–2.4, 3.1–3.5, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1–5.6, 6.2–6.5, 6.8–6.11, 7.1, and
8.1–8.3 are all adapted from similar illustrations in Jeffrey Bennett, Megan
Donahue, Nicholas Schneider, and Mark Voit, The Cosmic Perspective, 7th ed.
(2014). By permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, N.J.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Bennett, Jeffrey O.
What is relativity? : an intuitive introduction to Einstein’s ideas, and why
they matter / Jeffrey Bennett.
   pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16726-0 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-16727-7
(pbk. alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-53703-2 (e-book)
1. Relativity (physics)—Popular works. I. Title.
QC173.57.B46 2014
530.11—dc23
2013026801

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent


and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America

c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover image: © Bettmann/CORBIS. Personality rights of Albert Einstein are


used with permission of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Cover design: Alex Camlin
Book design: Lisa Hamm

References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.


Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Contents

Preface vii

Part 1 GettinG started


1 Voyage to a Black Hole 3

Part 2 einstein’s speCial theory of relativity


2 Racing Light 27
3 Redefining Space and Time 45
4 A New Common Sense 67

Part 3 einstein’s General theory of relativity


5 Newton’s Absurdity 87
6 Redefining Gravity 107

Part 4 impliCations of relativity


7 Black Holes 135
8 The Expanding Universe 163
Epilogue: Your Indelible Mark on the Universe 181

Acknowledgments 185
Index 187
In celebration of the 100 th anniversary of the 1915 publication
of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology.
pReface

My first real exposure to Einstein’s theory of relativity came in a course


I took during my freshman year of college. Like everyone else, I’d always
heard that relativity was supposed to be really hard. But as I listened to
my professor and studied at home, I soon realized that its reputation was
undeserved. Relativity didn’t make things harder; it made everything seem
simpler, at least once you got the hang of it. It also seemed important—I
suddenly realized that prior to studying relativity, I had misunderstood
the basic nature of space and time. Given that we spend our entire lives
living on a planet in space and moving through time, that seemed like a
rather fundamental gap in my earlier education.
Within a year I was teaching some of the ideas of relativity to elemen-
tary and middle school children, as part of a summer school I ran for kids
who were interested in space and science. I was amazed at how readily
many of them grasped the key ideas, and their ease with the concepts
helped me realize a fundamental fact: Much of the difficulty that most
people have with relativity comes about only because it seems to run
counter to ideas of space and time that have become deeply ingrained
in our minds. For children, who have those ideas less deeply ingrained,
relativity does not seem quite so strange, allowing them to accept it more
easily than adults.
This insight proved particularly helpful a few years later, when I began
teaching at the college level and made relativity an integral part of my
PreFACe |
viii

courses in introductory astronomy. On the basis of my work with younger


children, I focused on helping students overcome their natural resistance
to revising their ideas of space and time. An added advantage of this
approach was that it could be done without most of the mathematics
that goes with relativity, allowing the students to focus on building a
conceptual understanding. Year after year, on end-of-course evaluations,
relativity consistently took the top spot when I asked students their favor-
ite part of the course. When I asked why they enjoyed relativity so much,
the most commonly cited reasons were (1) they appreciated the way rela-
tivity opened their minds in new and unexpected ways; and (2) they’d
always assumed that relativity was a subject that would be beyond their
comprehension, so they were excited to find out that they could actually
understand it.
Over the years, I continued to emphasize relativity in my astronomy
classes, and continued to refine my approach to teaching it. When three
friends (Mark Voit, Megan Donahue, and Nick Schneider) and I landed
a contract to write a textbook for introductory astronomy, we included
two full chapters on relativity, even though surveys showed that very few
faculty spent significant time teaching relativity in their astronomy courses
for nonscience majors. We have at least some evidence that our inclusion
of these chapters has inspired more instructors to include the topic.
That brings us to my goals for this book. I hope to help you, the reader,
gain the same kind of appreciation for relativity that I have gained myself,
and that I hope I’ve shared with my past students and with readers of
my textbooks. I think you’ll find the subject to be both much easier to
understand and much more amazing than you expected. I also hope you’ll
come to agree with me that relativity is important to the way we view
ourselves as human beings in a vast universe. As we approach the 100th
anniversary of Einstein’s 1915 publication of his general theory of relativ-
ity, I believe it’s time to take relativity out of the realm of obscure science
and bring it into the realm of general public consciousness. If this book
helps accomplish that, then I will feel it has been a success.
Jeffrey Bennett
Boulder, Colorado
What Is RelatIvIty?
Part 1
GettinG
Started
1
VoyaGe to a Black Hole

ImagIne that the Sun magically collapsed, retaining the same mass but
shrinking in size so much that it became a black hole. What would
happen to Earth and the other planets? Ask almost anyone, including
elementary school kids, and they’ll tell you confidently that the planets
“would be sucked in.”
Now imagine that you’re a future interstellar traveler. Suddenly, you
discover that a black hole lurks off to your left. What should you do?
Again, ask around, and you’ll probably be told to fire up your engines
to try to get away, and that you’ll be lucky to avoid being “sucked into
oblivion.”
But I’ll let you in on a little secret that’s actually important to under-
standing relativity: Black holes don’t suck. If the Sun suddenly became
a black hole, Earth would become very cold and dark. However, since
we’ve assumed that the black hole will have the same mass as the Sun,
Earth’s orbit would hardly be affected at all.
As for your future as an interstellar traveler . . . First of all, you
wouldn’t “suddenly” discover a black hole off to your left. We have
ways to detect many black holes even from Earth, and if we are some-
day able to embark on interstellar trips we’ll surely have maps that
would alert you to the locations of any black holes along your route.
Even in the unlikely event that one wasn’t on your map, the black
GettinG started |
4

hole’s gravitational effect on your spacecraft would build gradually as


you approached, so there’d still be nothing sudden about it. Second,
unless you happened to be aimed almost directly at the black hole, its
gravity would simply cause you to swing around it in much the same
way that we’ve sent spacecraft (such as the Voyager and New Horizons
spacecraft) swinging past Jupiter on trips to the outer solar system.
I realize that this may be very disappointing to some of you. As my
middle-school daughter put it, “But it’s cool to think that black holes
suck.” I was able to placate her only somewhat by pointing out that
being cool and “it sucks” don’t usually go together. Still, you’re prob-
ably wondering, if black holes don’t suck, what do they do?
The answer has two parts, one mundane and one so utterly amazing
that you’ll never again miss your visions of a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
The mundane part applies to black holes observed from afar, because
at a distance the gravity of a black hole is no different than the grav-
ity of any other object. That’s why turning the Sun into a black hole
would not affect Earth’s orbit, and why a spacecraft can swing by
a black hole just like it swings by Jupiter. The amazing part comes
when you begin to approach a black hole closely. There, you’d begin
to observe the dramatic distortions of space and time that we can
understand only through Einstein’s theory of relativity.
That brings us to the crux of the matter. I’ve begun this book on
relativity by talking about black holes because although almost every-
one has heard of them, you cannot actually understand what black
holes are unless you first understand the basic ideas discovered by
Einstein. One goal of this book is to help you gain that understanding.
But I have a second, more important goal in mind as well.
In the process of learning about relativity, you’ll find that your every-
day notions of time and space do not accurately reflect the reality of
the universe. In essence, you’ll realize that you have grown up with a
“common sense” that isn’t quite as sensible as it seems. It’s not your
fault; rather, it is a result of the fact that we don’t commonly experi-
ence the extreme conditions under which the true nature of time and
space is most clearly revealed. Therefore, the real goal of this book is
| VoyaGe to a Black Hole
5

to help you to distinguish reality from the fiction that we grow up with,
and in the process to consider some of the profound implications of
this reality that Einstein was the first to understand.
To get started, let’s take an imaginary voyage to a black hole. This
journey will give you an opportunity to experience the two condi-
tions under which Einstein’s ideas have their most dramatic effects: at
speeds approaching the speed of light and in the extreme gravity that
exists near black holes. For now, we’ll focus only on what you actually
observe on your trip, saving the why that lies behind your observations
for the chapters that follow.

cHoosinG your Black Hole


If you’re going to visit a black hole, the first step is to find one. You
might think that would be difficult, since the term black hole sug-
gests something that would be invisible against the blackness of space.
There’s some truth to that. By definition, a black hole is an object
from which no light can escape, which means that an isolated black
hole would indeed be invisibly black. However, as far as we know, all
black holes are also quite massive—at least a few times the mass of
our Sun, sometimes much more. As a result, we can in principle detect
them by virtue of their gravitational influence on their surroundings.
A black hole’s gravitational influence can reveal its presence in two
basic ways. First, the black hole may be revealed by its effect on orbiting
companions that are easier to see. For example, suppose you observe a
star that is clearly orbiting another massive object, but the other object
is not shining like it would be if it were itself a star. Since something
must be there to explain the visible star’s orbit, it’s at least possible
that the something is a black hole.
Second, a black hole’s presence may be revealed through the light
emitted by gas that surrounds it. Although we often think of space as
being empty, it is not a complete vacuum; you’ll always find at least
a few stray atoms even in the depths of interstellar space, and the
GettinG started |
6

beautiful nebulae that you see in astronomical photos are actually vast
clouds of gas. Any gas that happens to be near a black hole will end
up orbiting around it, and because a black hole is both very small in
size and very large in mass, the gas that is closest to it must orbit at
very high speed. Gas moving at high speed tends to have a very high
temperature, and high-temperature gases emit high-energy light, such
as ultraviolet and X-ray light. Therefore, if you see X-ray emission
coming from the region surrounding a very compact object, there’s a
chance that the object is a black hole.
You can see how both ideas work together in the case of the famous
black hole in Cygnus X-1, which gets its name because it is located
in the constellation Cygnus and is a source of strong X-ray emission.
Cygnus X-1 is a binary system, meaning a system in which two massive
objects are orbiting each other. Most binary systems have two stars
orbiting each other, but in the case of Cygnus X-1, only one star can
be seen. The orbit of this star tells us that the second object must have
a mass that is about 15 times the mass of our Sun, yet it does not show
up directly in any way. Moreover, the visible star is not hot enough to
produce the X-ray emission that we observe from the system, so the
X-rays must be coming from very hot gas around the second object. We
thereby have both of the key clues to the possible presence of a black
hole: a star orbiting a massive but unseen object, and X-ray emission
suggesting that the unseen object is compact enough in size to have
very hot gas orbiting it. Of course, before we conclude that the unseen
object is a black hole, we must rule out the possibility that it might be
some other type of small but massive object. We’ll discuss how we do
this in chapter 7, but current evidence strongly suggests that Cygnus
X-1 really does contain a black hole.
Many similar systems are now known, and by combining observa-
tions with our current understanding of stellar lives, we’ve learned that
most black holes are the remains of high-mass stars (stars at least 10
or so times as massive as the Sun) that have died, meaning that they
have exhausted the fuel that keeps them shining during the time when
GettinG started |
18

The clock’s viewpoint is simple enough, but things look quite dif-
ferent from your vantage point on the ship. At first, you’ll see the
clock accelerating toward the black hole, much as the clock would see
itself doing. But as you watch the clock get closer to the black hole,
its acceleration will be offset by the slowing of time. The ticking of
the clock will continue to become slower and slower as it approaches
the place known as the event horizon of the black hole. In fact, if you
could continue to watch the clock, you’d see time on it come to a halt
as it reached the event horizon, which means it would never actually
fall past that point.
However, you won’t actually be able to see the clock’s face become
frozen in time, because of the gravitational redshift. The same effect
that made the clock’s numerals shift from blue to red in color will
continue, so as the clock falls the frequency of its light will get lower
and lower. Light with frequency lower than that of visible light is what
we call infrared light, and light of even lower frequency makes what
we call radio waves. You might therefore be able to watch the clock
for a short time with an infrared camera, and after that with a radio
telescope, but before the clock reaches the event horizon, its light will
have reached such low frequencies that no conceivable telescope could
detect it. It will vanish from your view, even as you realize that time is
about to come to a stop on it.

plunGinG in
Back on the spaceship, you and your crewmates are busy discussing
what you’ve just seen, when curiosity overwhelms the better judgment
of one of your colleagues. He slips away from the conversation, hur-
riedly climbs into a space suit, grabs the other clock, and jumps out of
the air lock on a trajectory aimed straight for the black hole. Down he
falls, clock in hand. (For reasons we’ll discuss shortly, he will die long
before he reaches the black hole. But let’s ignore that for the moment,
and imagine that he could still observe as he fell.)
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Milk, cocoa-nut flavoured, for sweet dishes, 456
lemonade, delicious, 583
remarks on, 450
Mild eschalot sauce, 127
mustard, 130
ragout of garlic, or l’ail à la Bordelaise, 126
Minced collops, 201
fowl, 276
veal, 230
veal, with oysters, 231
Mincemeat (author’s receipt), 368
superlative, 369
fritters, 383
Mince pies (entremets), 369
royal, 370
Miniature round of beef, 199
Mint julep, 582
sauce, 132
Mock, brawn, 260
turtle soup, 23
turtle soup, good old-fashioned, 26
Modern blanc-mange-mould, 476
cake-mould, 540
chicken pie, 353
jelly-mould, 470
potato pasty, 350
varieties of calf’s feet jelly, 463
Monitor’s tart, or tourte à la Judd, 370
Moor game, to roast and hash, 291, 292
Mould for French pies, or casseroles of rice, 344
Mull, to, wine, an excellent receipt (French), 581
Mullagatawny soup, 35
vegetable, 37
Mullet, grey, to boil, 76
red, to bake, broil, or roast, 76
Mushroom catsup, 146
catsup, another receipt for, 148
catsup, double, 148
forcemeat, 159
powder, 154
sauce, brown, 123
sauce, another, 123
sauce, white, 122
Mushrooms, au beurre, 329
dried, 153
partridges with, 289
in pigeon pie, 354
pickled, in brine for winter use, 536
to pickle, 535
potted (delicious), 330
toast, or croûte aux champignons, 330
Mussel-plums, preserves of, 516
Mustard, to make, 130
mild, 130
Tartar, 155
another Tartar, 155
horseradish vinegar for ditto, 153
Mutton, broth, 44
to choose, 233
cutlets broiled, and Soubise sauce, 243
cutlets, to broil, 241
cutlets of, cold, 243
cutlets, stewed in their own gravy, 240
fillet of, roast or stewed, 238
haunch of, to roast, 234
kidneys à la Française (entrée), 243
kidneys, broiled, 244
kidneys, Oxford receipt for, 244
leg of, to boil (an excellent receipt), 237
leg of, boned and forced, 236
leg of, braised, 236
leg of, roast, 235
loin of, roast, 238
loin of, stewed like venison, 239
neck of, roast, 239
pie, common, 355
pie, good, 355
pudding, 401
saddle of, to roast, 235
shoulder of, broiled, 240
shoulder of, to roast, 239
shoulder of, forced, 240
a good family stew of, 242
stock for soup, 16
Nasturtiums, to pickle, 539
Nesselrôde cream, 471
pudding, 491
Norfolk biffins, dried, 572
sauce, 99
Norman harricot, 224
Normandy pippins, 572
Nougat, 564
Nouilles, to make, 5
Œufs au plat, 450
pochés au jus, 449
Old-fashioned boiled custard, 481
Oil, to fry salmon and other fish in (Jewish), 607
Olive sauce, 128
Omlette aux fines herbes, 380
soufflée, 381
Omlets, observations on, 380
Omlet, common, 380
King of Oude’s, 612
Onion sauce, brown, 125
sauce, brown, another receipt for, 125
sauce, white, 125
Onion and sage stuffing for ducks and geese, No. 9, 160
rich white sauce of, or Soubise, 126
Onions, to pickle, 537
stewed, 342
Orange, baskets for jelly, 466
calf’s feet jelly, 464
conserve for cheese-cakes, or pudding, 501
fritters, 384
gravy, 102
isinglass jelly, 465
marmalade, 527, 529
plums, preserve of, 514
salad, 571
snow-balls, 420
wine, 585
Orange-flower, candy, 565, 566
Seville, paste, 568
filled with jelly in stripes, 466
Tangerine, 571
Oven, American, 178
management of, 595
objection to iron ones, 595
Oxford receipt for Bishop, 580
for mutton kidneys, 244
punch, 580
Ox-cheek, stuffed and baked, 208
Ox-tail, broiled (entrée), 195
stewed, 195
soup, 42
Ox tongue, to pickle, 202
potted, 305
Oyster forcemeat, No. 5, 159;
No. 6, 159
patties, 359
sauce, common, 114
sauce, good, 114
sausages, 87
soup, white, or à la Reine, 30
Oysters, curried, 302
to feed, 85
to fry, 80
scalloped, à la Reine, 86
to scallop, 86
to stew, 86
to stew, another receipt, 87
Pain de pore frais, or sausage-meat cake, 261
Pain de veau, or veal cake, 222
Pain de veau (Bordyke receipt), 222
Palace-bonbons, 567
Palates, beef, to dress, 194, 195
Panada, 165
Pancakes, 382
to crisp, 130
fried, 130
Parsley green for colouring sauces, 129
Parsneps, to boil, 337
fried, 337
Partridge, broiled (breakfast dish), 290
broiled (French receipt), 290
French, or red-legged, to dress, 290
potted, 305
pudding, 401
soup, 35
Partridges, boiled, 289
with mushrooms, 289
to roast, 288
salmi, or rich hash of, 292
salmi of (French), 292
Paste, almond, 367
brioche, 349
cherry (French), 504
currant, 510
gooseberry, 501
very good light, 346
English puff, 316
fine puff, or feuilletage, 345
quince, 525
Pastry, to colour almonds or sugar-grains for, 542
to glaize or ice, 345
icing for, 345
sugar-icing for, 543
her Majesty’s, 366
general remarks on, 344
sandwiches, 374
Pasty, potato, 350
varieties of, 351
mould for, 351
Pâte Brisée, or French crust for hot or cold pies, 347
Patties à la Pontife (entrées), 360
good chicken, 359
common lobster, 559
superlative lobster, author’s receipt, 359
oyster (entrée), 359
sweet boiled, 422
tartlets, or small vols-au-vents, to make, 361
Peach, fritters, 384
jam, or marmalade, 518
mangoes, 534
Peaches, compote of, 459
to dry, an easy and excellent receipt, 518
to pickle, 534
preserved in brandy (Rotterdam receipt), 571
stewed, 459
Suédoise of, 488
vol-au-vent of, 358
Pears, baked, 573
stewed, 573
meringue of, 486
Pearled fruit, 570
Peas, green, to boil, 320
green, with cream, 321
green, soup of, 39, 40
green, stewed, à la Française, 320
pudding, 401
soup, common, 41
soup without meat, 42
soup, rich, 41
Perch, to boil, 82
to fry, 83
Pheasant, boudin of, 288
cutlets, 275
to roast, 287
salmi of, 292
soup, 33, 34
Pickle, for beef, tongue, and hams, 197
Hamburgh, for pork, &c., 197
to, beet-root, 537
cherries, 532
eschalots, 532
gherkins, 537
gherkins (French receipt), 533
limes, 538
lemons, 538
lemon mangoes, 538
melon, sweet (foreign receipt), 534
mushrooms in brine, 536
mushrooms (an excellent receipt), 535
nasturtiums, 539
onions, 537
peaches, and peach mangoes, 534
red cabbage, 539
walnuts, 536
Pickles, where to be procured good, 532
general remarks on, 531
Pie, beef-steak, 354
a common chicken, 353
a modern chicken, 353
a good common English game, 352
mutton, common, 355
a good mutton, 355
pigeon, 354
Pies, excellent, cream crust for, 347
French crust for, 347
suet-crust for, 348
meat jelly for, 92
mince, 369
mince royal, 370
pudding (entremets), 371
raised, 356
Pigeons, to boil, 280
to roast, 280
served with cresses, for second course, 280
Pig, divisions of, 247
Kentish mode of cutting up and curing, 254
to bake a sucking, 250
sucking, en blanquette (entrée), 250
to roast a sucking, 249
à la Tartare (entrée), 250
Pig’s cheeks, to pickle, 254
feet and ears, in brawn, 260
Pike to bake, 81
to bake (superior receipt), 81
to boil, 80
Pilaw, a simple Syrian, 613
Pine-apple marmalade, superior, 513
pudding-sauce, 405
pudding-sauce, very fine, 405
Pintail, or Sea Pheasant, to roast, 294
Pippins, Normandy, to stew, 572
Piquante sauce, 118
Plaice, to boil, 75
to fry, 75
Plate, hot, for cooking, 174
Plum-puddings, 416, 417, 441, &c.
Plums, compote of, 458
Imperatrice, to dry, 521
Imperatrice, marmalade of, 521
Poêlée, 169
Poet’s, the, receipt for salad, 135
Polenta à l’Italienne, 393
Pontac catsup, 150
Poor author’s pudding, 442
Pork, to choose, 247
cutlets of, to boil or fry, 251
Italian cheese of, 260
different joints of, 247
observations on, 247
to pickle, 254
to roast, 251
to roast a saddle of, 251
sausages of, 261, 263
Portable lemonade, 583
Potage à la Reine, 29
Pot-au-Feu, or stock pot, 8
fowls, &c., boiled in, 9
Potato-balls (English), or croquettes, 314
boulettes (good), 314
bread, 600
fritters, 384
flour, or fecule de pommes de terre, 154
pasty (modern), 350
puddings, 436
ribbons, to serve with cheese, 313
rissoles, French, 315
soup, 21
Potatoes, à la crême, 315
à la Maître d’Hôtel, 315
to boil, as in Ireland, 310
to boil (Lancashire receipt), 311
boulettes (entremets), 314
to boil (Captain Kater’s receipt), 312
crisped, or potato-ribbons (entremets), 313
fried (entremets), 313
mashed and moulded in various ways 313
new, in butter, 312
new, to boil, 311
remarks on their properties and importance, 309
to roast or bake, 312
scooped (entremets), 312
Potted anchovies, 306
chicken, partridge, or pheasant, 305
ham, 304
hare, 307
meats (various), 303
meat for the second course, moulded, 306
mushrooms, 330
ox-tongue, 305
shrimps, or prawns, 306
Poultry, to bone, 265
to bone, another mode, 265
to bone, for fricassees, &c., 266
to choose, 264
to lard, 181
Powder, mushroom, 154
of savoury herbs, 155
Prawns, to boil, 93
to dish cold, 93
to pot (see shrimps:306)
to shell easily, 93
Prepared apple or quince juice, 456
calf’s head (the cook’s receipt), 211
Preserved fruit, general remarks on the use and value of, 493
Preserve, a fine, of red currants, 509
delicious, of white currants, 510
good common, 512
an excellent, of the green orange, or Stonewood plum, 514
groseillée, a mixed, 513
another good mélange, or mixed, 513
nursery, 512
Preserve, to, the colour and flavour of fruit-jams and jellies, 497
Preserving-pan, 495
Preserves, French furnace and stewpan convenient for making, 494,
495
general rules and directions for, 496
Pruneaux de Tours, or compote of dried plums, 573
Prince Albert’s pudding, 411
Pudding (baked), à la Paysanne (cheap and good), 442
almond, 425
almond, Jewish, 608
apple or custard, 437
apple (the lady’s or invalid’s new), 608
Bakewell, 427
barberry and rice, 406
light batter, 443
good bread, 429, 430
common bread and butter, 429
rich bread and butter, 428
cake and custard, and various inexpensive, 437
curate’s, 442
the good daughter’s mincemeat, 426
Dutch custard, or raspberry, 438
the elegant economist’s, 428
Gabrielle’s, or sweet casserole of rice, 438
green gooseberry, 435
good ground rice, 437
a common ground rice, 435
Mrs. Howitt’s (author’s receipt), 426
an excellent lemon, 426
lemon-suet, 427
Normandy, 441
plum, en moule, or moulded, 424
poor author’s, 442
(baked) potato, 436
a richer potato, 436
the printers’, 424
the publishers’, 410
Queen Mab’s, 470
a common raisin, 441
a richer raisin, 442
raspberry, or Dutch custard, 438
ratafia, 427
cheap rice, 434
a common rice, 433
a French rice, or Gâteaux de riz, 433
rice, meringué, 434
richer rice, 434
rice, à la Vathek, 440
Saxe-Gotha, or tourte, 431
a good semoulina, or soujee, 430
a French semoulina (or Gâteau de semoule), 430
soujee and semola, 439
sponge cake, 436
vermicelli, 439
welcome guest’s own, 412
common Yorkshire, 440
good Yorkshire, 440
young wife’s (author’s receipt), 425
Pudding (boiled) à la Scoones, 416
apple, cherry, currant, or any other fresh fruit, 408
a common apple, 409
the author’s Christmas, 417
common batter, 406
another batter, 406
batter and fruit, 407
beef-steak, or John Bull’s, 399
beef-steak, epicurean receipt for, 400
small beef-steak, 400
a black-cap, 407
Ruth Pinch’s, or beef-steak à la Dickens, 401
bread, 418
brown bread, 419
cabinet, 413
a very fine cabinet, 414
common custard, 411
the elegant economist’s, 415
German pudding and sauce, 412
Herodotus’ (a genuine classical receipt), 409
Ingoldsby Christmas, 416
Her Majesty’s, 410
mutton, 401
partridge, 401
peas, 401
small light plum, 416
Prince Albert’s, 411
the publishers’, 410
vegetable plum, 417
a very good raisin, 415
a superior raisin 415
a cheap rice, 420
a good rice, 419
rice and gooseberry, 420
rolled, 418
savoury, 399
Snowdon, 414
Kentish suet, 407
another suet, 408
the welcome guest’s own (author’s receipt), 412
a Kentish well, 417
Baden-Baden, 431
Puddings, general directions for baked, 423
to mix batter for, 397
general directions for boiled, 395
butter crust for, 398
cloths for, to wash, 366
suet-crust for, 398
to clean currants for, 397
Madeleine, to serve cold, 432
sauces for sweet, 402, 406
to steam in common stewpan, 397
Sutherland, or castle, 432
Pudding-pies, 371
a common receipt for, 371
Pudding sauces, sweet, 402-406
Puff-paste, canellons of, 417
English, 346
finest, or feuilletage, 345
very good light, 346
Puffs, German, 484
raspberry, or other fruit, 375
Punch, Cambridge milk, 581
Oxford, 580
Punch, Regent’s, or George IV.’s (a genuine receipt), 582
sauce for sweet puddings, 402
Purée, fine, of onions, or Soubise sauce, 126
of tomatas, 328
of turnips, 127
of vegetable marrow, 127
Quenelles, or French forcemeat, 163
Queen cakes, 556
Queen’s custard, 481
Queen Mab’s pudding, 470
Quince blamange, 478
blamange, with almond cream, 478
custards, 482
jelly, 524
juice, prepared, 456
marmalade, 524
and apple marmalade, 525
paste, 525
Rabbits, to boil, 286
Rabbit, to fry, 287
to roast, 286
soup, à la Reine, 31
soup, brown, 31
Radishes, turnip, to boil, 318
Ragout, mild, of garlic, 126
Raisin puddings, 441, 442
wine, which resembles foreign, 583
Ramakins à l’Ude, 375
Raspberries, to preserve for creams or ices, without boiling, 506
Raspberry jam, 506
jam, red or white, 506
jelly, for flavouring creams, 507
jelly, another good, 508
vinegar, very fine, 578
Red cabbage, to stew, 340
Regent’s, or George IV.’s punch (genuine), 582
Remoulade, 137
Rhubarb, or spring fruit, compote of, 457
Rice, to boil for curries, or mullagatawny soup, 36
boiled, to serve with stewed fruit, &c., 422
cake, 546
casserole of, savoury, 351
casserole of, sweet, 438
croquettes of, 385, 386
savoury croquettes of, 386
puddings, 419, 420, 433-435
soup, 14
soup, white, 15
sweet, à la Portugaise, or arocē docē, 489
Rice flour, to make, 154
soup, 15
to thicken soups with, 4
Risotto à la Milanaise, 615
Rissoles, 387
very savoury, English (entrée), 387
Roasting, general directions for, 169
slow method of, 171
Roast beef (see Chapter X.)
chestnuts, 574
game (see Chapter XV.)
lamb (see Chapter XII.)
mutton (see Chapter XII.)
potatoes, 312
pork (see Chapter XIII.)
poultry (see Chapter XIV.)
veal (see Chapter XI.)
Rolled shoulder of mutton, 240
ribs of beef, 198
sirloin of beef, 198
Roll, beef, or canellon de bœuf, 201
Rolls, breakfast or dinner, 600
Geneva, 601
excellent meat, 360
Roux, or French thickening brown (for sauces), 106
white, 106
Rusks, sweet, 554
Rusks, 602
Sago soup, 14
Salad, to dress (English), 140
forced eggs for garnishing, 137
French, 140
of mixed summer fruits, 570
excellent herring (Swedish receipt), 143
lobster, 142
very elegant lobster, 584
orange, 571
peach, 570
the Poet’s receipt for, 135
Suffolk, 141
walnut, or des cerneaux, 141
Yorkshire ploughman’s, 141
dressings and sauces, 140
sorrel, 142
of young vegetables, 141
Salamander to brown with, 183
Salmi of moor fowl, pheasants or partridges, 292
French, or hash of game, 292
of wild fowl, 294
Salmon à la Genevese, 59
à la St. Marcel, 60
baked over mashed potatoes, 60
to boil, 59
crimped, 60
to fry in oil, 607
pudding (Scotch receipt), 60
Salsify, to boil, 341
to fry in batter, 341
Salt fish, to boil, 62
à la Maître d’Hôtel, 63
Salt, to, beef, in various ways, 196
Sandwiches, lemon, 374
pastry, 374
Sand-launce, or Sand-eel, mode of dressing, 77
Salzburger Nockerl, 620
Sauce (American), cold, for salads, salt fish, &c., 133
anchovy, 115
baked apple, 124
boiled apple, 124
brown apple, 125
arrow-root, clear, 403
asparagus, for lamb cutlets, 120
béchamel, 107
béchamel maigre, 108
another common béchamel, 108
bread, 112
bread, with onion, 113
caper, 121
brown caper, 121
caper for fish, 121
celery, 128
brown chestnut, 129
white chestnut, 129
Chatney, capsicum, 144
Chatney, sausage, 609
Chatney, shrimp (Mauritian receipt), 144
Chatney, tomato, 609
Chatney (Bengal receipt), 146
Christopher North’s own (for many meats), 119
crab, 114
cream, for fish, 115
common cucumber, 121
another common cucumber, 122
white cucumber, 122
currants, 404
Dutch, 111
cold, Dutch, 133
common egg, 110
egg, for calf’s head, 111
very good egg, 110
English, for salad, cold meat, &c., 134
epicurean, 151
mild eschalot, 127
Espagnole, 100
Espagnole, with wine, 100
fricassee, 112
fruit, superior, 404
mild garlic, 126
Genevese, or sauce Genevoise, 117
German, for fricassees, 107
German cherry, 406
German custard pudding, 403
gooseberry, for mackerel, 120
horseradish, excellent, to serve hot or cold, with roast beef, 118-
133
hot horseradish, 119
the lady’s, for fish, 117
common lobster, 113
Maître d’Hôtel, or steward’s sauce, 116
cold Maître d’Hôtel, 133
Maître d’Hôtel sauce maigre, 117
sharp Maître d’Hôtel, 116
Imperial mayonnaise, 136
mayonnaise, red or green, 136
mayonnaise (very fine), to serve with cold meat, fish, or
vegetables, 135
mint, common, 132
mint (superior), for roast lamb, 133
strained, 132
brown mushroom, 123
another mushroom, 123
white mushroom, 122
Norfolk, 109
olive, 128
brown onion, 125
another brown onion, 125

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