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Okra, Richmond
Cut into small dice-pieces one and a half ounces raw, lean veal; cut in same way, but a little smaller, two leeks, one medium onion, one green pepper and one ounce raw, lean ham; place these articles in a saucepan with one and a half tablespoons melted butter and gently brown for ten minutes, lightly stirring once in a while. Moisten with five pints water and half pint pure tomato juice. Season with a tablespoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper, adding about a pound of raw veal bones; let gently boil for thirty minutes. Trim and wash twelve fresh okras, cut them into pieces a quarter-inch thick and add to the soup; let boil for twenty-five minutes more. Add two tablespoons canned sweet corn and two tablespoons canned lima beans; boil for five minutes longer. Remove the bones, skim the fat from the surface, pour into a hot soup tureen and serve.
A hotel-style okra soup built on a small quantity of meat and a large quantity of water. It scales down easily and rewards restraint with the salt.
- YieldFive pints of water plus half a pint of tomato juice gives roughly eight to ten first-course servings. Halve everything for a family pot.
- The salt is too muchA full tablespoon of salt for five pints of water is heavy by modern habit, and the ham will add more of its own. Start with a teaspoon and a half, and correct at the end once the ham has given up its seasoning.
- Do not boil hardCut okra releases mucilage, and a rolling boil disperses it through the broth and turns the soup slick. Keep it at a bare simmer once the okra goes in. The acid in the tomato juice also helps keep the texture clean.
- Okra timingTwenty-five minutes at a simmer leaves quarter-inch slices very soft, which is the intention here — this is a soup, not a side of tender-crisp okra. If you want the rings to hold shape, add them for the last twelve to fifteen minutes.
- Veal bonesA pound of raw veal bones is what gives this thin soup body. Ask a butcher for knuckle or neck bones; roasting them for twenty minutes first deepens the flavor, though the original does not. Beef marrow bones substitute acceptably.
- Green pepperHere this means an unripe bell pepper, not a chile. Use half a large green bell pepper.
- The browning stepTen minutes over gentle heat in butter is meant to color the veal, ham and vegetables without scorching the milk solids in the butter. Use a heavy pan and pull the aromatics along slowly; the fond contributes much of the soup's depth.
- Canned corn and lima beansBoth are added already cooked, which is why they need only five minutes. Frozen will need somewhat longer, especially the limas. Drain the canned ones first — the packing liquid will muddy the broth.
- FinishingSkimming the fat matters more than it sounds: the butter and ham fat will pool visibly on a broth this thin. Chill briefly and lift the fat, or blot with paper, before it goes to the table.
Okra soup is one of the clearest culinary traces of West Africa in the American South; the plant itself came with the transatlantic slave trade, and its Igbo name ọ́kwụ̀rụ̀ is generally traced as the source of the English word. By the nineteenth century okra soup was a fixture of Virginia and Carolina kitchens, usually built on beef or veal shin, tomato, and whatever else the garden offered. Professional kitchens of the period routinely labeled soups and garnishes after cities and patrons, so "Richmond" may be no more than such a label; what it was meant to signal is not recorded. The tiny weights of veal and ham, an ounce or two apiece, are also a professional habit: they season five pints of broth rather than making a meal of themselves, and they let a kitchen produce many small first courses from scraps.