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Bread-Dice for Soups
Take slices of stale bread, cut in small squares, throw in hot lard and fry till brown, skim out, drain, and put in the soup-tureen before serving the soup. Crackers crisped in the oven are nice to serve with oyster soup. -Mrs. V. G. H.
This is a recipe for croutons, written before the word was common in American kitchens. The technique is sound; only the fat and the timing need comment.
- The fatLard fries bread beautifully and gives a clean, slightly savory crust. Clarified butter, a neutral oil, or a butter-oil mix all work; whole butter alone will brown the milk solids before the bread crisps.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "hot" lard; fat at around 350F is a reasonable modern reading — a cube dropped in should sizzle at once and color in under a minute. Cooler fat soaks in and gives you greasy, heavy dice rather than crisp ones.
- Stale bread mattersDay-old bread with a dry crumb absorbs less fat and holds its shape. Fresh bread collapses and turns oily. Cut the squares a scant half inch so they crisp through.
- Work in batchesCrowding the pan drops the fat temperature and steams the bread. Fry a single layer at a time, skim out with a spider, and drain on paper or a rack.
- Timing in the tureenPut the dice in the tureen just as the soup goes to the table, as directed. Any earlier and they turn to sponge. If they must wait, pass them separately.
- Crisped crackersThe recipe does not say which crackers; plain soda crackers or the small oyster crackers of the period are the likely candidates. It gives no oven setting either — a slow oven, around 300F for eight to ten minutes until they smell toasted, will dry and firm them for the broth.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. A thick slice of bread will give roughly a cup of dice. They are best used the day they are fried.
Fried bread was a common American soup garnish in the nineteenth century, and community cookbooks like Buckeye Cookery (first published in Ohio in 1877 as Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping) treated it as a matter of thrift as much as of style: stale bread was not thrown out, and a household that rendered its own lard had the frying fat on hand. The name "bread-dice" is a plain description of the cut, and it appears alongside "sippets" and "croutons" in period usage. The contributor's initials at the end are typical of the book, which was assembled from recipes submitted by individual housekeepers — the format that made these volumes both fundraisers and records of what particular women in particular towns cooked.