Okra Soup
Take a nice joint of beef filled with marrow, one gallon water, one onion cut fine, two sprigs parsley, half a peck of okra, one quart tomatoes; boil the meat six hours, add vegetables and boil two hours more. - Mrs. E. L. F.
A plain long-boiled beef and okra soup of the kind that stood on the back of a coal range all day. The proportions are generous to the point of vagueness, and the vegetable timings are the part worth rethinking.
- The joint of beef"Filled with marrow" means a cut of shank or leg sawn across so the marrow is exposed. Ask for beef shank cross-cuts or marrow bones plus about 2 lb of chuck or shin for meat; a 3-4 lb total is right for a gallon of water.
- Half a peck of okraA dry peck is 8 quarts, so this is 4 quarts of pods, roughly 3 to 4 lb. That is a great deal for a gallon of liquid and will produce something closer to a stew than a soup. A pound and a half to two pounds, sliced, gives a soup that still thickens properly.
- One quart tomatoesMost likely home-canned tomatoes, skins and juice together, though a quart of fresh tomatoes would serve as well. Two 14.5 oz cans, or about 2 lb of fresh tomatoes peeled and chopped, is the equivalent.
- Two hours on the vegetablesOkra held at a boil for two hours collapses entirely and the soup turns grey-green and slick. Its mucilage is the point of the dish, but 30 to 45 minutes releases it fully; add the okra in the last half hour and the tomatoes with it.
- Six hours on the meatNot wasted time — this is what draws the gelatin out of the shank. A covered pot at a bare simmer for 3 to 4 hours does the same job on a modern burner. Keep it below a rolling boil or the broth goes cloudy.
- Skimming and saltNo seasoning is listed. Skim the grey foam in the first twenty minutes, then salt at the end, after the liquid has reduced and you can judge it.
- YieldA gallon of water, reduced, gives 10 to 12 servings. It thickens considerably overnight.
Okra soup was a Southern and coastal dish that traveled north with the vegetable itself, which came to the Americas from West Africa through the slave trade — the name is generally traced to Igbo ọ́kụ̀rụ̀, while the alternative "gumbo" is usually linked to Bantu words for the same plant. Its appearance in Buckeye Cookery, a book compiled from Ohio housewives' contributions in the 1870s, shows how far the pod had spread inland by then, though the recipe's confidence about buying half a peck at a time suggests the contributor had a garden rather than a grocer. The structure — a marrow-rich joint boiled most of a day, vegetables thrown in near the end — is the standard economy of a household with a stove that was hot anyway.