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Tomato Bisque Soup
2 tablespoons chopped onion 1/4 cup flour 4 cup butter 1½ teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon chopped parsley 1 teaspoon soda 6 cloves cayenne and celery salt Melt butter, add onion, cook five minutes; add flour, milk, and seasonings, cook in double boiler twenty minutes. Cook tomatoes, press through a sieve, add soda. Combine mixtures and strain. Serve immediately. If tomato is very acid, it may be necessary to add more soda to neutralize. 1 can tomatoes
A cream-of-tomato soup built on the old trick of neutralizing tomato acid with baking soda so the milk will not curdle. The method is sound; the ingredient column has lost some of its quantities, so a few amounts have to be judged.
- The hinge: soda before combiningThe soda goes into the sieved tomato, not into the milk, and the two are combined only at the last moment before serving. Adding acid tomato directly to hot milk curdles it; the soda raises the pH enough to prevent that. Expect vigorous foaming when the soda hits the tomato, so use a pan with headroom.
- Do not hold it"Serve immediately" is the operative instruction. Even neutralized, the combined soup can separate and may take on a flat, faintly soapy taste if it sits over heat. Have the bowls ready.
- Soda is easy to overdoA full teaspoon to one can of tomatoes is generous by modern taste. Start with half, taste, and add more only if the soup still tastes sharp. Excess soda gives a slippery mouthfeel and a metallic finish; the recipe's own advice to add more should be followed cautiously.
- The missing milkNo quantity of milk is given, though the method calls for it. A white sauce made with 1/4 cup each butter and flour carries about 4 cups of milk, which balances a standard 28 oz can of tomatoes and yields roughly six servings.
- Butter measure"4 cup butter" is almost certainly a printer's slip for 1/4 cup, which is half a stick and the correct proportion for 1/4 cup flour.
- ClovesThe six cloves are whole spice; the recipe lists them with the seasonings and strains the combined soup, so they come out at that point. They are assertive; four is plenty for most palates.
- Double boilerTwenty minutes over water cooks out the raw flour taste without scorching the milk. A heavy saucepan over low heat with regular whisking does the same in about ten minutes.
- Canned tomatoes then and nowPeriod canned tomatoes were whole, packed in their own thin juice, and their acidity varied, which is why the recipe allows for adding more soda. Whole peeled tomatoes in juice are the closest match; if you want to keep the soda to a minimum, avoid tins with added citric acid or sugar.
Tomato bisque was a fixture of American home cookery once canned tomatoes became cheap and reliable in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Strictly, a bisque is a shellfish soup thickened and enriched with cream; American usage stretched the word to mean any smooth, cream-finished soup, and the tomato version became by far the best known. The baking-soda step, which recurs across cookbooks of this era, was the standard household answer to the chemistry of acid meeting milk, and it faded from recipes over time. Lowney's book, published by a Boston chocolate firm, is a full general cookbook rather than a confectionery pamphlet, which is why a plain soup like this sits alongside the cocoa recipes.