Soups, Recipes for
Directions for making the following, appear under their respective headings :- A Good Family.
A la Cantatrice.
A la Crecy.
A la Flamande.
Another Mode.
A la Reine.
A la Solferino.
Almond.
Artichoke.
Asparagus.
Baked.
Barley.
Brilla.
Cabbage.
Calf's-foot Broth.
Carrot. وو Another Mode.
Celery.
Chicken Broth.
Cock-a-leekie.
Crayfish.
Cucumber.
Desiccated.
Soup, Useful for Benevolent Eel.
Purposes. INGREDIENTS. An ox-cheek, Egg. any pieces of trimmings of beef, which may Giblet. be bought very cheaply (say 4 lbs.), a few bones, any pot-liquor the larder may furnish, 1/4 peck of onions, 6 leeks, a large bunch of herbs, 1/2 lb. of celery (the outside pieces, or green tops, do very well) ; 1/2 lb. of carrots, lb. of turnips, lb. of coarse brown sugar, pint of beer, 4 lbs. of common rice, or pearl barley; lb. of salt, 1 oz. of black pepper, a few raspings or bread-crusts, 10 gallons of water. AVERAGE COST, 1½d. per quart.
THE BAY.
Divide the meat in small pieces, break the bones, and put them in a copper, with the 10 gallons of water, and stew for half an hour. Cut up the vegetables, put them in, with the sugar and beer, and boil for 4 hours. Two hours before the soup is wanted, add the rice and raspings, and keep stirring till they are well mixed in the soup, which simmer gently. If the liquor boils away a little, fill up with water.
TIME.-6 hours.
SEASONABLE in winter.
Game.
Gravy.
Hare.
Another Mode.
Hessian.
Hodge-podge.
Another Mode.
Julienne.
Kale Brose.
Leek.
Lentil.
Lobster.
Macaroni.
Maigre.
Milk.
Mock Turtle.
Another Mode.
Mulligatawny. دو From Tinned Meat.
Mutton.
Mutton Broth.
Onion. وو Cheap.
Ox-cheek.
Ox-tail.
Oyster. دو Another Mode.
Pan Kail.
Parsnip.
Partridge.
Pea (inexpensive). دو دو Green.
Winter Yellow.
Pheasant.
Pomeranian.
Portable.
Potato. دو دو Another Mode.
Cheap.
Pot-au-feu.
Prawn, Prince of Wales'.
Rabbit.
Regency.
Rice. وو Sago.
Another Mode.
Semolina.
Sheep's Head.
Spinach.
Spring.
Stew. دو وو Another Mode. of Salt Meat.
Tapioca.
Turkey.
Turnip.
Useful.
Vegetable. وو وو Another Mode. without Meat.
Vegetable-marrow.
Vermicelli.
White.
Spanish Sauce, Brown; or
Buried in this index of soups is a complete working recipe for charity soup, built to fill a copper with roughly forty quarts at a farthing and a half a pint. Almost nothing about it translates directly to a home kitchen, but the method scales down cleanly if you treat it as a ratio rather than a quantity.
- The scaleTen gallons of water yields something near 40 quarts, which is why the costing is given per quart. To cook it domestically, divide everything by eight or ten and use a stockpot; the largest ordinary pot holds about 12 quarts.
- A copperNot a pan but a fixed laundry boiler, commonly of tinned copper, set over its own fire in the scullery or wash-house. In houses that had one it was usually the only vessel large enough to hold ten gallons.
- Ox-cheekThe muscle of the jaw, very sinewy and rich in collagen, sold cheaply because it demands long wet cooking. Butchers still sell it as beef cheek, though it is no longer a poor cut. Six hours of simmering is not excessive for it.
- A quarter peck of onionsA peck is two gallons dry measure, so a quarter peck is about two dry quarts, perhaps 2-3 lb of onions. The celery and carrots are given by weight rather than by count.
- Missing quantitiesSeveral amounts in this text have lost their fractions: the turnips, sugar, salt and the beer are all given as bare units. Judge them by proportion against the vegetables that are stated, and salt at the end rather than the beginning.
- RaspingsDried crusts grated to crumbs, kept in a jar as a standing kitchen economy. They thicken the soup and, with the rice or barley, turn broth into something that will actually feed a person.
- Rice at the endThe rice or pearl barley goes in only two hours before serving, and the soup must be stirred and kept at a bare simmer afterwards. Starch that thick will catch and scorch on the bottom of the pot the moment it is left alone.
- The beerThe recipe specifies only 'beer'; in a household economy soup of this date that would most likely mean small beer or table ale, weak and slightly sour, working with the brown sugar for colour and body. A dark mild or brown ale is the nearest modern equivalent; avoid anything strongly hopped, which will turn bitter over a long boil.
This is soup-kitchen cookery, written for the household that distributed food rather than ate it. Nineteenth-century parish relief, charitable committees and individual gentlewomen ran subscription soup kitchens through the winter months, and cookery books of the period routinely carried a recipe of this kind under headings like "useful" or "benevolent" -- the seasonable note "in winter" is the whole point, since demand rose when outdoor work stopped. The economics are the argument: ox-cheek, bone, pot-liquor, outside celery stalks, stale crusts and coarse brown sugar, costed at three halfpence a quart. Rumford's cheap soups of the 1790s, built on barley, peas and bread, are generally credited as the model for this whole genre, and the reliance on grain to bulk out a thin meat broth descends directly from them. The surrounding list shows how much of Beeton's soup chapter was organised by ingredient and by household budget at once, running from crayfish and pheasant down to potato, cheap.