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Fruit Soups
Fruit Soups are usually served cold-where convenient chilled on ice-in very small china or glass bowls or bouillon cups. With this daintiness of service, however, it may be forgotten or not realised that such soups are not to the stomach mere empty, introductory flourishes, whatever the intent. Fruit soups are foods and as such are used in many countries by even the peasants, though they may lack delicate table appointments. It is true that a fruit may be used which is not of itself substantial (though the opposite may hold, as with prunes) but the sago, arrowroot, or tapioca used for thickening furnishes a certain amount of heat-producing material and where wine is added this is increased, so it may readily be understood why, when used in quantity, such combinations may approach, of themselves "substantial meals" or why, even in small measure, fruit soups with but slight additions of foods containing other balancing elements, may arrive at the right to be chief "dish" of a luncheon or light supper. As a general rule stewed fruit passed through a sieve may have added to it an equal quantity of water and to each pint a heaping teaspoon or scant dessertspoon of sago, arrowroot (for which cornstarch may be substituted) or tapioca. Some instructors give the rule of a level tablespoon of cornstarch to each pint of clear, pressed fruitjuice, which, however, may be slightly diluted. The arrowroot or cornstarch is a quicker process and should be dissolved till smooth in a little cold water, added when the fruit juice is at boiling point, then cooked till clear; meantime adding sugar, and later a tablespoon of lemon juice or wine. If sago or tapioca is used it must be cooked till thoroughly tender and translucent. A fruit soup made of raspberries may serve as example of a lighter fruit soup and the Swedish of those more substantial. See also the Prune, the Apple, etc., or apply as convenience and taste dictate.
This is a master formula rather than a fixed recipe: sieved stewed fruit or pressed juice, diluted, thickened with starch, sweetened, and sharpened with lemon or wine. The proportions are sound, but the vocabulary and the starch behaviour need translating.
- The base ratioEqual parts sieved stewed fruit and water, then a heaping teaspoon of sago, arrowroot or tapioca per pint. The alternative given for clear juice is a level tablespoon of cornstarch per pint (about 8 g per 480 ml), which yields a soup that just coats a spoon rather than a pudding.
- DessertspoonA British measure between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, roughly two teaspoons. "A heaping teaspoon or scant dessertspoon" means the same amount described two ways.
- Starch slurry, not lumpsArrowroot and cornstarch must be slaked smooth in cold water and stirred into the juice at a full boil, then cooked only until the cloudiness clears. Arrowroot in particular thins and turns slimy if held at a boil, so pull it as soon as it goes translucent.
- Acid and starchFruit juice is acidic, which breaks cornstarch down. Add the lemon juice or wine after thickening, as the text directs, and do not hold the soup hot for long or it will slacken.
- Sago and tapiocaThese are not interchangeable in timing with the powdered starches. Pearl tapioca and sago need long, gentle simmering, twenty to forty minutes depending on pearl size, and must be cooked until wholly translucent with no white centre. Pre-soaking in cold water for an hour shortens this.
- Serving temperatureChilled, in small bowls or bouillon cups. Starch-thickened soups set noticeably as they cool, so make the hot soup slightly looser than you want the finished result, and whisk before serving.
- YieldThe text gives no yield. A pint of finished soup will fill roughly four of the very small cups described, or serve two if it is made the centre of a light supper. Scale the sugar to the fruit; sour cherries, currants and rhubarb take considerably more than raspberries.
- WineWhere wine is added it goes in after the thickening, a tablespoon per pint, as the text directs; the recipe does not name a wine. Added at that stage little of the alcohol will cook off, which matters if serving to children.
Cold fruit soup is a Northern and Central European habit that American cookbooks of the early twentieth century presented as both exotic and thrifty. The "Swedish" example the author cites is the family of dishes around fruktsoppa, most familiarly a dried-fruit soup built on prunes and raisins thickened with potato starch or sago, still eaten in Scandinavia; Hungarian sour-cherry soup and the German Kaltschale belong to the same tradition. The writer's insistence that these are foods rather than "empty, introductory flourishes" reflects the nutritional preoccupations of the period, when domestic-science teaching was busy reclassifying dishes by their fuel value and defending anything sweet or cold from the charge of being merely decorative. The starches named track the pantry of the day: sago and tapioca were cheap imported palm and cassava products, arrowroot was the invalid-cookery thickener of choice, and cornstarch is offered as the domestic substitute for it, which tells you where American kitchens were heading.