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Bread-Dice for Soups
Take slices of stale bread, cut in small squares, throw in hot lard and fry till brown, skim out, drain, and put in the soup-tureen before serving the soup. Crackers crisped in the oven are nice to serve with oyster soup. - Mrs. V. G. H.
These are croutons, fried rather than baked, and the whole thing turns on the fat being hot enough to seal the bread before it soaks.
- Fat temperatureLard should be at roughly 350-375F, deep enough that the cubes float and turn. Cooler fat gives you greasy, sodden bread rather than a crisp shell.
- Lard substitutionsRendered lard fries clean and has little flavour of its own; clarified butter browns faster and can scorch, and neutral oil works but tastes flatter. All three will do the job if the heat is right, though butter needs closer watching.
- Stale bread mattersA day-or-two-old open-crumb loaf holds its shape; fresh bread collapses and absorbs fat. Cut in half-inch dice so the interior dries out in the time the outside takes to colour.
- DrainingSkim onto a rack or absorbent paper the moment they are brown, and salt while still hot. Left in a heap they steam themselves soft.
- Timing against the soupAdd them to the tureen at the table, not into the pot. Two or three minutes in hot liquid is all they survive before going to mush.
- The crisped crackersOyster crackers or plain soda crackers, spread on a sheet and dried out for eight to ten minutes, hold up well in oyster soup. The recipe gives no oven temperature; around 300F suits a modern oven.
- YieldTwo thick slices of bread give roughly a cup and a half of dice, enough garnish for four to six bowls. Fried croutons keep a day in a tin but lose their edge; they revive in a 300F oven.
Fried bread in soup is far older than this book — the medieval sop, a slice of bread laid in the bowl and drowned in broth, is often cited as a forerunner, and the French word croûton simply means a small crust. What changed by the late nineteenth century is that the bread stopped being the substance of the dish and became a garnish, cut small and served separately so the diner controlled how soggy it got. The instruction to use stale bread is also a piece of household economy speaking. Community books collected these small contributed notes — this one signed only with initials, as many such notes were — alongside full recipes, because a hostess needed the trimmings as much as the soup.