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Tomato Soup
Mrs. Whitehead.
Boil chicken or beef four hours; then strain; add to the soup one can of tomatoes and boil one hour. This will make four quarts of soup.
A two-line stock-and-tomato soup of the kind that assumed a stockpot was already at the back of the range. The instructions omit water, salt and quantity of meat, so treat them as read.
- Quantities implied, not statedThe recipe gives no water or meat quantity at all. To finish with four quarts after five hours' evaporation you would need something in the region of five quarts of water and a few pounds of beef shin or a whole stewing fowl, but that is reconstruction, not instruction.
- A can of tomatoesPeriod cans of tomatoes were commonly packed whole in their own liquor, and the larger trade sizes ran to about a quart, so the intended volume may well be greater than a modern tin. A 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, is a reasonable match; two 14.5 oz cans will do.
- Four hours is for stock, not meatBeef shin or a fowl simmered four hours gives good body from the collagen, but the meat itself is spent by hour two. Lift out anything you intend to eat and return the bones to the pot.
- Simmer, never boil"Boil" in books of this period often covers no more than the gentle shiver of a pot at the side of the range, and that is probably what is meant here. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and turns the broth cloudy and greasy.
- Skim and degreaseThe recipe does not mention it, but skim the grey foam in the first twenty minutes, then chill the strained stock and lift the fat cap before adding the tomatoes.
- An hour with the tomatoes is longCanned tomatoes are already cooked; twenty to thirty minutes is enough to marry them with the broth. Why the full hour was specified is not stated.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed, which was standard shorthand. Salt only after the stock is reduced, and a pinch of sugar will offset the acidity of the tomatoes.
- YieldFour quarts serves twelve to sixteen as a first course. It freezes well and reduces further into a base for other soups.
Tomato soup built on a meat broth rather than milk was common in American and Canadian household books of the 1870s; cream-thickened versions also circulated, and the smooth cream-of-tomato style became far more widely known once commercial canners took it up around the turn of the century. The casual "one can of tomatoes" reflects the fact that canned tomatoes had become cheap and widely available in the decades after the Civil War, so a mid-winter tomato soup needed no explanation. The Home Cook Book was compiled from contributions by named local women, and the terseness here is typical of the genre.