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Tomato Soup Without Meat
C. O. Van Cline.
One quart of tomatoes, one quart of water, one quart of milk. Butter, salt and pepper to taste. Cook the tomatoes thoroughly in the water, have the milk scalding, (over water to prevent scorching.) When the tomatoes are done add a large teaspoonful of salaratus, which will cause a violent effervescence. It is best to set the vessel in a pan before adding it to prevent waste.
When the commotion has ceased add the milk and seasoning. When it is possible it is best to use more milk than water, and cream instead of butter. The soup is eaten with crackers and is by some preferred to oyster soup. This recipe is very valuable for those who keep abstinence days.
A meatless tomato soup built on the old trick of neutralizing the tomatoes with alkali so the milk will not curdle. It works, but the quantity of soda given is far more than needed.
- Saleratus is baking sodaSaleratus is the period name for the alkali sold to cooks as a leavener — earlier saleratus was often potassium bicarbonate, later sodium bicarbonate, the baking soda we buy now. "Salaratus" is a period spelling. A large teaspoonful for three quarts of soup is heavy-handed; a quarter teaspoon, added a pinch at a time, is enough to stop the curdling, and more than that leaves a soapy, flattened taste.
- Why the effervescence happensThe soda reacts with the acid in the tomatoes and foams up violently. Setting the pot in a pan, as the recipe says, is sound advice — the volume can double for a few seconds. Wait until the fizzing stops entirely before the milk goes in, or the foam will carry over the sides.
- The hinge: temperatureAdd scalded milk to the tomato base off the direct heat and do not let the finished soup boil. Even with the soda, a hard boil will break the milk into curds.
- A quart of tomatoesMost likely home-canned tomatoes with their liquid, or fresh ones peeled and stewed in season. Roughly two standard 14.5 oz cans, or about 2 lb of fresh tomatoes peeled and stewed down with their juice.
- Scalding over water"Over water" means a double boiler, or a bowl set over simmering water. Milk scorches easily on a bare pan bottom and the burnt flavor carries through the whole pot.
- Cream instead of butterFollow the author's own preference where you can: more milk than water and a splash of cream in place of the butter gives a rounder soup.
- StrainingNothing here removes skins or seeds. Passing the cooked tomatoes through a sieve or food mill before the milk goes in gives a smoother result without changing the recipe's character.
- YieldAbout three quarts, serving six to eight as a first course with crackers.
The closing line explains the recipe's presence in the book: "those who keep abstinence days" were households observing the Fridays and Lenten fast days on which meat was forbidden, and a soup that tasted rich without stock was genuinely useful. The comparison to oyster soup is the giveaway he standard American company soup, and a cook who could produce something in its register from canned tomatoes and milk had done well. The soda trick belongs to the same domestic world: saleratus, a long-familiar household article, was put to all sorts of uses beyond baking, including sweetening sour milk and, as here, taming acid so dairy would not break. Modern cream of tomato soups often achieve the same end with a flour-thickened white sauce instead, which may be why the fizzing pot is now an unfamiliar sight in the American kitchen.