Lutefisk is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) and soda lye (lut).

Antoine Labarraque replaced potash lye by the cheaper soda lye, thus obtaining sodium hypochlorite (Eau de Labarraque).

The drink typically includes maize grains, crushed with mortar and pestle, then soaked in water with soda lye (although the traditional reagent used is fern ash, which contains high amounts of potassium carbonate), and finally cooked until soft.

He then tried other forms electrochemical energy storage, the idea being to develop prototypes of small cottage industry: from limestone and coal he produced Calcium carbide according to the process of Thomas L Willson and from salt he produced soda lye, sodium hydroxide.