Grape Soup

A one-line variation on the fruit soup that precedes it, so the method has to be read off that recipe rather than this one. What this entry does fix is the flavouring: grapes, sugar to taste, and the juice of a whole lemon.

• Quantities are not given hereNo weight of grapes, volume of liquid, or thickener is stated in this entry; all of it is carried over from the cherry soup it refers to. Read that recipe first and treat this as a substitution note.
• Which grapesThe entry says only 'seedless' and does not name a variety. Modern seedless red or black grapes give a better colour; if you use a slip-skin variety such as Concord the skins should be strained out.
• The lemon is structuralCultivated table grapes are low in acid and a grape soup without lemon tastes flat and syrupy. The recipe gives no yield, so add the juice in stages at the end and judge it cold.
• Sugar to taste, judged coldChilling flattens perceived sweetness. Sweeten a little past what tastes right while warm, or hold back and correct after the soup has been in the refrigerator.
• Halve or crush the grapesWhole grapes hold their juice and simply bob in the liquid. Halving them, or crushing part of the fruit and leaving the rest whole for texture, is what makes the soup taste of grape.
• ServingCold fruit soups of this kind were served cold, as a first course or as a hot-weather dessert; sour cream, whipped cream or a plain dry biscuit are common accompaniments.