Bean Soup
Boil a small soup-bone in about two quarts water until the meat can be separated from the bone, remove bone, add a coffee-cup white beans soaked for two hours, boil for an hour and a half, add three potatoes, half a turnip and a parsnip, all sliced fine, boil half an hour longer, and just before serving sprinkle in a few dry breadcrumbs; season with salt and pepper, and serve with raw onions sliced very fine for those who like them.--Mrs. A. B. Morey.
A plain boiled-bone soup of the sort that ran on the back of the stove all afternoon. Two things need attention: the bean soak is far too short, and the pot will need topping up.
- The soak is the hingeTwo hours is a short soak for dried white beans, and depending on how old the beans are they may still be firm after the hour and a half of boiling. To be safe, soak them overnight in cold water, or bring them to a boil, cover, and stand an hour off the heat before draining.
- A coffee-cupIn American books of this period a coffee-cup runs about three-quarters of a cup to a full cup. Use one cup of dried navy or great northern beans, which will yield roughly two and a half cups cooked.
- The soup-boneA "small soup-bone" of this period would most often have been a meaty beef shank or marrow bone. A single cross-cut beef shank is a close equivalent; expect two to three hours at a bare simmer, not a boil, before the meat pulls free.
- Water levelTwo quarts will not survive four hours of open boiling. Keep the pot at a lazy simmer with the lid ajar and add hot water as needed to hold about two quarts.
- Salt lateThe recipe seasons at the end. The old rule that early salt keeps beans hard is often repeated but poorly supported; acid and the age of the beans matter more. Either way, seasoning once the beans are tender lets you judge the broth after it has reduced.
- Vegetable timingHalf an hour will leave finely sliced potato, turnip and parsnip very soft, and some will break down into the broth. If you want them to hold their shape, cut them larger and give them twenty minutes.
- The breadcrumbsThe recipe calls for only "a few" dry crumbs sprinkled in at the last minute; they will lightly body the broth rather than sit on top as a garnish. Add them off the boil and let the soup stand a few minutes.
- YieldAbout two quarts, serving four as a main course with bread. The raw sliced onion at the table is worth doing -- it cuts the sweetness of the parsnip and turnip.
Bean soup built on a butcher's soup-bone was the standard economy of nineteenth-century American kitchens: the bone was cheap or free, and beans and root vegetables kept well. The Dixie Cook Book, in the manner often associated with compiled community cookbooks, credits contributors by name, and Mrs. Morey's version is typical of the genre o o, no timing more precise than "until the meat can be separated from the bone," because the cook was assumed to be standing there anyway. The dry breadcrumbs stirred in at the end are an old thickening habit, and a reminder that stale bread was never thrown out. Offering raw sliced onion at the table rather than cooking it into the pot is a frugal touch that also flags the dish's place: this is dinner for a household, not a course in a served meal.