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Cottage Soup
Put three pounds of bones, broken into small pieces, into a stewpan, with a heaped table-spoonful of salt, a bunch of savoury herbs, a pennyworth of bruised celery-seed tied in a muslin bag, or two or three of the outer sticks of a head of celery, and four quarts of cold water. When the liquid boils, skim it, draw it to the side of the fire, and let it simmer very gently but continuously for three or four hours. Strain it, and put the fat into a frying-pan, with two onions sliced, and a carrot and turnip cut into dice. Fry these till lightly browned, put them with the soup, and boil it up again with a tea-spoonful of moist sugar, and half a tea-spoonful of pepper. Thicken it with four ounces of either oatmeal or prepared barley, taking care to mix them smoothly with a little cold water before putting them with the rest of the soup. Wash half a pound of rice, put it with the soup, boil it until tender, and serve. A little powdered mint should be sent to table with the soup, to be used or not, according to taste. Probable cost, 3d. per quart. Sufficient for three quarts.
A Victorian economy soup: bone stock stretched with fried root vegetables, meal and a great deal of rice. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the quantities and ingredient names need translating before you start.
- The fat you fry inThe recipe assumes you will skim fat from the stock and use it for the vegetables. Strain the broth, chill it until the fat sets on top, then lift it off; three pounds of bones may yield only a spoonful or two, so have butter or oil ready to make up the difference.
- Bones to buyAsk for marrow and knuckle bones, sawn rather than cracked at home. Roasting them at 425F for 30 minutes first is not in the original but gives far more colour and flavour to what is otherwise a very pale broth.
- A pennyworth of celery-seedThere is no reliable modern equivalent for a pennyworth. Use about a teaspoon of bruised celery seed in a muslin bag, or the two or three outer celery sticks the recipe offers as an alternative.
- Moist sugar and prepared barleyMoist sugar is soft light brown sugar. Prepared barley means finely milled barley flour, not pearl barley; if you use oatmeal instead, choose fine or medium oatmeal rather than rolled oats, which will not thicken the same way.
- SaltA heaped tablespoon goes into four quarts of water that will reduce to three, and the meal and rice absorb a good deal of it. Salt lightly at the start and correct at the end instead, particularly if you have used any commercial stock.
- Rice and thicknessHalf a pound of rice plus four ounces of meal in three quarts produces something closer to a thick porridge than a soup, and it thickens further as it stands. Keep extra water or stock hot and thin it to the consistency you want; stir often, as the meal catches on the bottom.
- Simmering"Drawn to the side of the fire" means the barest tremble, three to four hours. On a modern burner that is the lowest setting with the lid ajar; a rolling boil will cloud the broth and emulsify the fat you want to skim.
- Yield and servingThree quarts, generous for six to eight as a main-course soup. The dried mint sent separately to table is worth doing as written, powdered fine in a small dish.
Cassell's gives the cost as threepence a quart, and that figure is the whole point of the recipe: it belongs to a large family of Victorian "cottage", "family" and "charity" soups devised to feed a household on bones the butcher sold cheaply or gave away, bulked out with cereal rather than meat. The pattern was standard in nineteenth-century philanthropic and domestic cookery, where soup kitchens and parish relief committees published broadly similar formulas, and it is why the rice and oatmeal ratios here look so heavy to a modern eye. Grain, not meat, is doing the feeding. The mint sent separately to table leaves the seasoning to the diner rather than the pot, and the celery seed priced by the pennyworth is a reminder that such seeds were still bought loose from the grocer in very small quantities rather than in jars.