Crab Soup

What survives here is the ingredient table for a cream-thickened crab soup of the domestic-science school, where the method was expected to follow the standard pattern for a pureed shellfish soup. A few of the items need translating before anyone shops for them.

• White Stock IIIA cross-reference to a numbered stock recipe elsewhere in the book; a period white stock of this kind is usually a light veal or veal-and-chicken stock, mildly seasoned. A mild homemade chicken stock is the closest substitute; avoid anything dark, reduced, or heavily salted, which will bully the crab.
• Hard-shelled crabsMost likely blue crabs, sold live, as distinct from the soft-shells that appear after moulting. Six average crabs yield roughly a cup or so of picked meat. A cup of pasteurised lump crabmeat will stand in, though the shells and their cooking liquor are part of what gave the original its depth.
• Stale bread crumbsCrumbs from a day-old white loaf, torn or grated rather than the dry sandy commercial kind. Here they are a thickener working alongside the flour, and dried packaged crumbs will absorb far more liquid than the recipe allows for.
• The roux and the creamTwo tablespoons each of butter and flour to about four cups of liquid (the 3 cups of stock plus the cup of cream) makes a lightly bound soup rather than a thick one, with the crumbs adding what body there is. If the cream goes in at the end, as was usual, hold the pot below a simmer: hard boiling risks curdling and toughens the crab.
• Onion and parsleyOne slice of onion and a single sprig of parsley, presumably steeped in the stock and then lifted out rather than chopped in. The intent reads as a background note rather than a vegetable presence.
• SeasoningNo salt, pepper, or cayenne is listed. Season at the end, after the cream, and taste before adding much salt if you are using pasteurised crabmeat, which may already be salted.
• YieldAbout four cups of liquid plus the crab, so four modest first-course servings or two as a main dish.