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M. a. T (Boil five or six potatoes)
Boil five or six potatoes with a small piece of salt pork and a little celery; pass through a colander and add milk or cream (if milk, a little butter,) to make the consistency of thick cream; chop a little parsley fine and throw in ; let boil five minutes; cut some dry bread in small dice , fry brown in hot lard; drain them and place in the bottom of soup tureen, and pour the soup over; chop two onions and boil with the soup, if liked.
A potato purée soup with salt pork and fried bread, given in the shorthand a nineteenth-century cook expected: no quantities for liquid, no salt, no yield. The one thing to get right is the texture, since the soup is thickened by the potato alone.
- Yield and scaleFive or six medium potatoes with milk to the consistency of thick cream makes roughly two quarts, or six servings. Figure about 2 lb of potatoes and 1 to 1 1/2 quarts of liquid total, added gradually.
- The salt pork does the seasoningA "small piece" is probably on the order of 2 to 3 oz, simmered with the potatoes for salt and fat. Taste before adding any salt of your own, and remove the pork before the potatoes go through the colander.
- Passing through a colanderThis is the period method for a purée: the cooked potato is pushed through the perforations with a wooden spoon or pestle. A food mill or ricer does the same work. Avoid a blender or food processor, which turns potato starch gluey.
- Celery means the stalk"A little celery" is one or two ribs, chopped and cooked with the potatoes, not celery seed or celery salt. It is aromatic background rather than a visible ingredient, and can be lifted out or passed through with the potato.
- Do not boil the soup hard after the dairy goes inThe five minutes with the parsley is a brief simmer to marry the flavours. A rolling boil after cream is added risks scorching the starch on the bottom of the pan and curdling; keep it just below a simmer and stir.
- Frying the croutonsThe recipe says only "hot lard"; fat at roughly 350-360F will brown small bread dice in a minute or two. Butter or a neutral oil works as well. Drain on paper before they go in the tureen.
- Assemble at the last minuteThe croutons are put in the tureen and the soup poured over so they stay crisp through serving. Bread sitting in the pot will dissolve into the purée.
- The optional onionsTwo chopped onions boiled with the soup are a real change of character, closer to a potato-and-onion potage. Sweat them in the pork fat first if you want sweetness rather than a raw onion edge.
This is the plainest kind of nineteenth-century North American soup: potato, a scrap of salt pork for fat and savour, milk to stretch it, and fried bread to give it substance. Salt pork was a common standing meat before reliable refrigeration, kept in a barrel and cut from as needed, and it appears in this book as a seasoning more often than as a dish in its own right. Passing vegetables through a colander was a everyday route to a smooth soup in kitchens without sieves fine enough for a chef's purée, and the technique survives in the ricer. The heading "M. a. T" is a contributor's initials: The Home Cook Book was compiled from recipes donated by named and initialled local women, and stands as one of the earliest and most successful examples of the community fundraising cookbook.