Tomato Soup
One can tomatoes; one bay leaf; one small onion; one pint of water; one tablespoon of butter; two tablespoons cornstarch; one-fourth teaspoon soda; one teaspoon sugar; little parsley; salt and pepper to taste. Put the tomatoes, bay leaf, parsley, onion and water on to boil for a few minutes, then strain through a colander; rub the cornstarch and butter together and when smooth, stir into the boiling soup. When smooth, add soda, salt, pepper and sugar.
SPLIT PEA SOUP (Without Stock) -Soak a large cup of split peas all night, then put them over the fire with two quarts of water and bring to a boil. Cook slowly, until the peas are soft. Rub through a sieve, heat and thicken with a tablespoon of flour rubbed into two of butter. Season with pepper, celery salt and onion juice. Stir to a smooth purée, and serve with dice of fried bread.
Two stock-free soups printed as one entry: a quick strained tomato purée thickened with cornstarch, and an overnight split pea. Both are sound, but the measurements assume a 1911 pantry.
- "One can tomatoes"Period cans of tomatoes ran from about 20 oz (a No. 2, roughly 2 1/2 cups with juice) up to a quart-sized No. 3, and the recipe does not say which. A modern 14.5 oz can plus a little extra water, or a 28 oz can with the water cut back by about a cup, will both be in range.
- The quarter teaspoon of sodaThis is the hinge of the tomato soup. Baking soda neutralises tomato acid, a habit carried over from cream-of-tomato recipes where acid curdled the milk. There is no milk here, so the soda only flattens the flavour and can foam over the pan. It can be left out entirely; if you use it, add it off the boil.
- Cornstarch and butterTwo parts cornstarch to one of butter, rubbed cold and stirred into boiling liquid, is a paste rather than a cooked roux, and it thickens almost instantly. Two tablespoons of cornstarch in roughly a quart gives a distinctly thick, glossy soup; one tablespoon is closer to modern taste.
- StrainingA colander will hold back skin and seeds only if you press the pulp through with a ladle. A food mill or coarse sieve does the job better, and gives the body the recipe assumes.
- Split peas overnightModern split peas are cleaned and do not strictly need soaking, but soaking still cuts the simmer. Unsoaked, allow 60 to 90 minutes at a bare simmer; soaked, 40 to 50.
- "A tablespoon of flour rubbed into two of butter"That is a beurre manié, worked cold and whisked into the hot purée. Split peas thicken themselves as they cool, so add it gradually and stop when the soup coats a spoon.
- Onion juice and celery saltOnion juice was grated onion pressed through cloth; a teaspoon of finely grated onion does the same work. Celery salt is still sold, but season with it before adding any further salt.
- YieldThe tomato soup should make roughly a quart, about four small servings. The pea soup, from a cup of dry peas and two quarts of water, will give something like five or six bowls depending on how far it reduces.
The split pea recipe carries the "(Without Stock)" tag, and that phrase is the point of the page: Butterick was writing for households cooking without a permanent stock pot on the range, using canned tomatoes and dried peas to get a soup on the table in an afternoon. Canned tomatoes were among the first commercially canned goods to become genuinely cheap in America, and by the 1900s cookbooks generally seem to treat a can of them as an ordinary staple rather than a luxury. The pinch of soda is the period's fingerprint: nineteenth-century cooks are often said to have alkalised tomatoes before combining them with milk or cream, and the habit outlived its reason, persisting in recipes like this one where there is no dairy to curdle. Split pea soup finished with fried bread dice is older and plainer still, needing only water, a cheap dried pulse and long slow heat.