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Hot Tomato Bouillon
Take ½ to 1 teaspoonful of beef extract, or about 1 ounce of good liquid beef extract and ½ ounce of tomato ketchup, with enough hot water to fill an 8-ounce mug. Season to taste. Another tomato beef bouillon is made by taking ½ ounce of beef extract, ¼ ounce of tomato ketchup and ½ ounce cream. Stir while filling with hot water and serve with spices.
A fountain drink rather than a soup: hot water, meat extract and ketchup built to order in an 8-ounce mug. The whole thing takes under a minute once you have hot water.
- Beef extractThis means a concentrated meat paste or syrup of the Bovril / Liebig type; the modern equivalent is Bovril, Marmite's beef cousins, or a spoonable base such as Better Than Bouillon. Bouillon cubes work but are saltier and more assertively vegetal. Note the recipe's own split: ½ to 1 teaspoon of the stiff paste, but a full ounce if you are using the thin liquid form.
- Ounces are fluid ouncesOunces are probably fluid ounces -- a counter measure rather than a weighed one, given the liquid ingredients. On that reading, ½ ounce is one tablespoon and ¼ ounce roughly one and a half teaspoons.
- Water temperatureThe recipe asks only for hot water, not boiling water. Water straight off the boil is harsher on the extract and the tomato, so letting a kettle stand a minute first is worth doing.
- The ketchupEarly-century ketchup was thinner, sharper with vinegar and more heavily spiced with clove and allspice than the sweet modern product. If using a supermarket ketchup, start with half the stated amount and expect to want a dash of vinegar and less added spice.
- Season lastMeat extract is intensely salty and its saltiness varies by brand. Taste after the water goes in, then adjust. The recipe specifies only 'spices'; celery salt, white pepper and a little cayenne suit the style, and a squeeze of lemon sharpens it.
- The cream versionCream plus tomato acid plus near-boiling water is a curdling risk. Stir the cream into the extract and ketchup first to make a smooth paste, then add the hot water in a slow stream while stirring, and serve immediately rather than holding it.
- YieldOne 8-ounce mug, one serving. It scales linearly if you are making a pitcher, though it is better built individually.
Soda fountains were year-round businesses, and cold carbonated drinks do poor trade in January, so by the 1900s and 1910s many fountains ran a hot-water tap and a winter list of beef tea, clam bouillon, hot chocolate and malted milk. This bouillon belongs to that list: a savory, restorative cup sold across the same marble counter as the ice cream soda, and leaning on the era's faith in concentrated meat extracts, which were widely promoted as strengthening food for invalids after Liebig's extract of meat was commercialized in the 1860s. Tomato ketchup was the cheap, shelf-stable way to add acid, sweetness and spice at a counter that had no stockpot; the drink is essentially a fountain jerry-rig of tomato consomme, assembled from two bottles in under a minute.