Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

Into a cupful and a half of granulated sugar rub three-quarters of a cupful of butter, add two eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water, and a cupful and a half of buttermilk. Now sift in enough flour to make a tender dough, roll out and fry.

Sunnybank crullers

Rub together four tablespoonfuls of butter and a generous cupful of powdered sugar; add to the cream thus made half a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon and beat it in thoroughly. Now add four well-beaten eggs, and whip long and hard. Last of all, sift in very gradually enough flour to make a stiff dough. Roll this out and, with a fancy cake-cutter, cut it into small ornamental shapes. The bits of dough left over may be gathered up, put together and rolled out again, then cut into strips and small squares. After the crullers are cooked and drained free of fat, spread them upon a platter and sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon in the proportion of a teaspoonful of the spice to half a cupful of sugar.

Date crullers

One cup of butter, one and one-half cups of sugar, three eggs. Beat all to a cream. Add one teaspoonful of cinnamon, one of cloves, a cupful of walnut meat in rather large bits; one pound of seeded dates chopped fine; three and a half cupfuls of flour. Mix well, roll into a sheet and cut into shapes. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in deep fat.

FAMILIAR TALK

A FRIENDLY WORD WITH “OUR MAID”

To begin with—I wish I could devise some method of convincing you that I am really and truly “friendly.”

A newspaper article I have just read says, “It can not be denied that the present attitude of American mistress and maid is, at best, one of armed neutrality.”

Put into everyday English, that means that each is willing, if convenient, to get along comfortably and pleasantly with the other, but that each holds herself ready to fight, if fighting seems to be advisable.

This “attitude” is all wrong, through and through. I should like to change it in your mind before I begin to talk with you.

The best and most wonderful Book ever written tells us that the men who, once upon a time, built the ruined walls and temple of Jerusalem, held a trowel, or spade, or hammer in one hand, and a sword or spear in the other, because their enemies were lying in wait, watching for an opportunity to attack them. We are not surprised to read in the same chapter that these enemies laughed at the sort of work done under such circumstances. They said, “If a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.” Two hands are better for doing work than one; two heads are better for planning work than one; two hearts at peace with each other are the greatest possible help to head and hands.

Take it for granted when you take a place that your employer is friendly to you. Don’t look upon her as a possible enemy. When she trusts you to handle delicate china, take care of handsome furniture or to cook materials for the meals she and her family are to eat, she shows that she has confidence in your ability and your honesty. When she entrusts her little children to your care, she proves this yet more plainly. After inquiring into your character and manner of work, she is so far satisfied that you are just what she wants that she has received you into her house and, in one sense, into her family. She trusts you, then. Trust her, until she gives you very plain proof that she does not deserve your trust.

For the first month, at least, make up your mind to look on the bright side of everything, instead of asking yourself every hour, “I wonder if I can stay?” That same “wondering” unsettles more maids and prejudices more mistresses’ minds against well-meaning domestics than any other one thing. Make allowances for your employer’s awkward ways of giving orders; for her little “tempers,” that may be awkwardness, too, and a sort of bashfulness you do not understand, but which is not uncommon. More than one well-educated, refined woman has confessed to me that she was “awfully afraid of every new maid.” Some of us have reason to be. Bear in mind, if your new “lady” seems stiff, and, maybe, distrustful of you, that she may have had ugly experiences with some maid who went before you, one of the maids “who spoil places for other girls.”

I wish you could make a resolution—and keep it—not to discuss the mistresses you have had, and especially the mistress you have now, with other maids, in and out of the house which is your present home. I am sorry to be obliged to say that the practice of talking of the hardships of her place is our maid’s most common and incorrigible habit. So common is it that I have wondered sometimes if it were not considered a part of the duty she owes to herself and her companions who are making their living in the same way as herself. If you could once determine that your employer is your friend, that her interests are yours, and that you will make your “place” into a real home, where you may spend years, perhaps the rest of your life—you would not be tempted to magnify the work you have to do, the things you have to put up with—the thousand and one complaints that form so large a part of the talk “downstairs.” If you are so unfortunate as to take service with a bad-tempered, bad-mannered, bad-hearted woman, whose only reason for thinking herself better than you is that she has more money, quietly leave when your month is up. That is the only dignified thing to do. Don’t spoil your temper by fighting her, and waste your breath and time by gossiping about her to your acquaintances.

If, on the other hand, you have an employer who honestly tries to treat you well; who likes you and praises your work, pays your wages regularly, is kind to you in sickness, pleasant in speech and willing to grant you every reasonable indulgence—don’t be afraid to say that she is all this, and that you are comfortable and contented in your present position. I know many such mistresses. I wish I could add that they often have justice done them behind their backs by maids to whom they (the mistresses) are so attached that they will not allow their dearest friends to find fault with them.

It is perfectly natural that you should side with those of your own class and business when a question of ill-usage comes up. If you know of a maid whose wages are not paid, who is scolded unjustly, badly fed and made to work beyond her strength, you are right to sympathize with her. It would also be right to despise her if she did not throw up her place and look for a better. It is still more just to despise one who has none of these things to complain of, and has no intention of making a change, yet speaks of her employer as a cruel mistress, and does all she can to cast discredit upon the family. As a sensible girl you ought to know that, in this country, nobody need keep such a place as she makes out hers to be—and no self-respecting person _would_ keep it.

Try, then, to make the best of your place, and the best of yourself while you are in it. Earn your wages fairly and honestly. There is no better business for a woman in America than domestic service, if you and others like you would combine to keep places so long as to make yourselves a part of the household, and so nearly indispensable that not a member of the family could do without you. Frequent changing is an expensive matter. It is the maid who holds one position for years who is well-dressed, respected and beloved by her employers, and who rolls up a snug account in the savings-bank against marriage or a rainy day.

(Sometimes they mean the same thing!)

Never lose sight of the truth that you are as respectable in your position as the president’s wife in hers, while you perform the duties of that position soberly, honestly and in the fear of God—so much more respectable in your safe, honorable home shelter than the flashy, fast shop-girl and unhealthy, underfed and overdressed factory girl in hers, that we, who are sincerely interested in you, can not but wonder that every clear-headed, modest girl does not see this.

As a last word: Don’t keep overstrict account of “work you were not engaged to do.” I know of no business in the world in which a faithful conscientious worker does not do much for which he is not paid—at least, not paid in money. Dozens of unforeseen tasks, big and little, are coming up, all the time, in every trade and profession, and for everybody from the president down to a peanut peddler. The blessed Book we spoke of just now commands us to do whatever is laid to our hand, “as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” One and all, we should find delight in these extra labors if we could, in our hearts, determine to do them “as unto the dear Lord,” whose mercies to us are past counting. Do what you are “engaged” to do, as unto the employer whose wages you receive, and offer the “extras” as a free-will offering to your Heavenly Father.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and _so_ fulfil the law of Christ.”

Read and obey the text in this spirit, and that “_so_” becomes the most important word in this, or in any language.

I hope that you will, in the Father’s good time, become the happy mistress of your own home. In which case you will, I venture to say, keep house and make home the better for the discipline of mind and the adjustment of duties learned in the daily routine of housework. This is your apprenticeship.

DINNER

This, the most important meal of the day, is attended with a certain degree of ceremony in the most modest household. Breakfast may be hurried over in haste that is not unseemly when one considers that the day’s work is all ahead of the family, and luncheon may dwindle down to a “cold bite” eaten standing. Everybody must dine, and dining is always “business.” A dinner party is the most serious of social functions, and even a family dinner follows a prescribed order. There must be a beginning, a middle and an end. Plates must be changed, for even in the backwoods, meat and pudding are not set on the table at the same time.

This is as it should be. If we would have

“_Good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both_,”

we must bring to the discussion of the heavier nourishment set before us orderliness, leisure and tempers free from annoying discomforts. Magnificence is within the reach of a few; modest elegance is attainable by many; cleanliness and good manners are free to the humblest housemother and her brood.

So much for a general view of the wide field indicated by the word set at the head of this chapter. Before entering upon a discussion of the dishes which belong to this section of our book, I would lay stress upon a cardinal duty connected with dinner—eating—a duty the neglect of which is a proverbial national disgrace.

It is a physical impossibility to eat properly—and to digest with any prospect of healthful assimilation—a breakfast of coffee, steak, hot rolls and fried potatoes, in five minutes, or in fifteen. Yet this is what the commuter, the clerk, the collegian—and a host of other men (including an occasional capitalist) try to do six days in the week. They eat, as they live, on the jump. When an especially audacious jump lands them in the grave, intelligent scientists affect to wonder with the rest of mankind at the untimely taking-off.

AN AUTUMN DINNER TABLE DECORATED WITH VINES

A TABLE DECORATED WITH CHRYSANTHEMUMS AND PALMS]

Big mouthfuls and bolting are alike part of the national trick advertised in dead earnest, not satirized, by the raucous shout of the brakeman at the half-way house—“_Five minutes for refreshments!_”

Mr. Gladstone did not consider it undignified to give, as one secret of the sanity of body and mind prolonged through four-score years, his habit of chewing twenty times upon every morsel of meat taken into his mouth. The family physician who attended one of our great men—lately deceased—in his awfully brief final illness, said frankly that certain sharp attacks that had afflicted the statesman for several months before the cruel climax came, were caused by the habit of eating hurriedly such luncheons as he could snatch in the intervals of business. If the truth were told as bravely in thousands of other “mysterious visitations,” business men would be startled and enlightened—if not cured—of like practices.

Dinner—the evening dinner in particular—gives the driven man a chance for his life. He sins against light and opportunity when he carries the bolting habit to the third meal. It may be vulgar to talk of chewing. Our very babies are taught to say “masticate,” instead. It is more vulgar not to do the thing itself.

The cool indifference with which we admit the humiliating truth that our national digestion is chronically out of order, is more culpable even than the shiftless amiability with which we condone municipal and corporation murders. The individual citizen may well draw back from the task of fighting boards and millions. His digestive apparatus is his own, subject to no lien or disability except such as sloth and carelessness put upon it.

If there be a self-evident fact in everyday hygiene it is that food swallowed without chewing, clogs and irritates the stomach. No other health law is so shamelessly and constantly transgressed by the human animal whose _habitat_ is the United States of America. The most stupid lout of a hostler knows that a horse must have time for chewing his oats, or he will go hungry; the scullion will tell you that, while chickens bolt whole corn and gobble down worms, the gizzard stands sentinel over the stomach, doing thoroughly the part of grinders and incisors. The cow sets us the best example of all our sensible dumb teachers. The wondrous-wise air with which she munches cud by the hour is a proverb among sages. The so-called nobler part of creation is not ashamed to seek in the pepsin, which is a memorial to her wisdom, a remedy for the ills brought upon himself by obstinate disregard of the duty her example enforces.

It is not a nice thing to talk or write of, as I have admitted. And this is not because the act of mastication is unseemly. The measured movement of the jaws in the decorous disposition of whatever is committed to them is no more grotesque than the “winking as usual,” enjoined by the photographer. This is emphatically true when food is cut small before it is eaten.

The stomach is long-suffering and kind, but not omnipotent. The salivary glands are her natural and most efficient allies. The “bolter” cuts off supplies from this source. The chunks of solid matter, washed down with scalding liquid or iced water, are more than the other gastric juices can manage. The result is as sure as the addition of two and two, followed by the subtraction of four.

A judicious mother who has made physiology a study for her children’s sake, teaches her little ones to chew the well-cooked cereals that form the staple of their breakfast. Furthermore, she teaches that it is indecent to swallow anything except liquids without chewing it. The rule is not arbitrary. Each child comprehends the office of the saliva, that the motion of chewing excites it, and that to take crude lumps of anything into the stomach is absolutely wrong.

In the chance that other mothers may imitate her example lies the only hope of the American stomach. The adult bolter is joined to his evil practice. He is feeding with egg-coal an engine that was built to be run with pea coal, adding to the mischief done the delicate machinery the outrage of chunking in and packing down the fuel.

SOUPS

It is a progressive age and the average American housewife is slowly coming to some appreciation of the nutritive value of soups as an article of daily food. As a rule of wide application, she does not yet credit how easy it is to prepare them. Some one says that the motto for the would-be soup-maker should be, “strong stock and no grease.” What might be a good soup is unpalatable if globules of grease float on the surface, and it takes a hungry man, without a fastidious taste, to enjoy it under these circumstances. See to it then that all meat-stocks are perfectly skimmed when very cold, that every vestige of fat may be removed.

A good soup stock

Four pounds of beef marrow bones, well cracked; one pound of coarse lean beef chopped as for beef-tea, and the same of lean veal; one large onion, one carrot, one turnip, six refuse stalks of celery, a cabbage leaf; seven quarts of cold water; prepare and salt to taste.

Put the meat and vegetables, the latter cut up small, into a large pot, cover with the water and set at the side of the range where it will not reach the scalding point under an hour. Keep closely covered and let it simmer, always scalding hot, never boiling hard, for six hours. Remove from the fire, season and set in a cool place until next day. Remove the fat, strain out bones and vegetables, pressing hard to extract all the nourishment and set away in the refrigerator until needed.

At least one dozen varieties of soups and broths can be founded upon this stock.

White stock

Put over the fire two pounds of the cheaper part of veal, cut into small pieces, or a well-cracked knuckle of veal, with three quarts of cold water, a sliced onion, a bay-leaf and a couple of stalks of celery cut into pieces. Let it come to a boil slowly, and simmer for five or six hours. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to get cold. Remove the fat, take out the bones and you will have a thick jelly. This can be heated, skimmed and, if desired, strained before it is used. It will be a strong and nutritious stock.

“Left-over” stock

Have a crock in your refrigerator expressly for this. Collect for it the bones of cooked meats from which the meat has been carved; the carcasses of poultry, bits of gristly roasts and steaks, cold vegetables, even a baked apple now and then. Twice a week, put all, cracking the bones well, into the stock-pot; cover deep with cold water and cook slowly until the liquid is reduced to half the original quantity. Season to taste, and strain, rubbing all through the colander that will pass.

By addition of barley, rice, tomatoes or, in fact, almost any vegetable or cereal, you may make excellent broths from this compound of “unconsidered trifles.”

Mock turtle soup

Boil a calf’s head until the meat leaves the bones. Leave it in the seasoned soup until next day, then take it out, scrape off the fat and remove the bones. Put the jellied stock over the fire with the bones, the ears, chopped, one grated carrot, one sliced onion, a bunch of soup herbs, a teaspoonful of allspice, a saltspoonful of paprika and salt to taste. Boil for one hour. Take from the fire, strain, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in as much browned flour, add two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, and, when the soup is thickened, drop in the tongue and parts of the cheek cut into dice. Add a gill of sherry and the juice of a lemon and pour upon forcemeat balls in a hot tureen. Make the forcemeat balls by rubbing the brains to a paste with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a little browned flour and the yolk of a raw egg. Roll them in brown flour and let them stand in a quick oven until lightly crusted over.

Veal and tapioca soup

Crack a knuckle of veal into six pieces and put over the fire with a cracked ham bone, if you have it. If not, use a half-pound of _lean_ salt pork, chopped, or the soaked rind of salt pork or corned ham. Add a few stalks of celery, chopped. Cover with cold water, adding a quart for every pound of meat and bones. Cover, and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer then for five hours, or until the liquor is reduced to one-half the original quantity. Season with pepper, salt and onion juice and set away until next day, when remove the fat.

You have now a thick jelly. Set over the fire to melt. When you can pour it easily, strain out the bones and scraps of meat. Put half a cupful of tapioca to soak in a cupful of cold water for two hours. Measure a quart of your veal stock and put over the fire to heat. When the boil is reached, add the tapioca, a scant tablespoonful of kitchen bouquet, with a tablespoonful of finely minced parsley and cook fifteen minutes longer, boiling briskly.

Veal and sago broth

Make stock as directed in last recipe, adding, when it has been skimmed and strained, half a cupful of pearl sago, previously soaked for three hours in warm water. Simmer for half an hour. Have ready in a saucepan a cupful of hot milk, into which a bit of soda has been dropped; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in half as much flour, and when it has thickened, turn into the sago broth two minutes before removing it from the fire.

Veal and rice broth

To a quart of your veal stock add half a cupful of washed and soaked rice; cook for twenty minutes, _fast_, and mix with hot milk, thickened as directed in last recipe. Cook three minutes and serve.

Ox-tail soup

Cut a cleaned ox-tail at each joint and fry five minutes in butter or good dripping. Take out the meat and put into a warmed soup-kettle while you fry a sliced onion in the dripping left in the frying-pan. Turn this, with the fat, upon the pieces of ox-tail, rinse out the frying-pan with hot water and add this to the soup-kettle. Now cover with two quarts of cold water; slice a carrot thin, mince four stalks of celery and add these to the water. Cover closely and simmer for five hours. Season to taste and set aside until next day, remove the fat and strain the liquor from meat and vegetables. Pick out the best joints and return to the soup. Heat to a fast boil, skim, add kitchen bouquet to taste, and serve. There should be two or three joints in each portion. Some cooks slice two or three very small carrots, parboil them and put into the strained liquor with the joints before giving the last boil.

Clear brown soup

After making, cooling and skimming your stock as directed in the beginning of this chapter, measure out a quart; put over the fire and when lukewarm stir in the white of a raw egg. Bring quickly to a boil, stirring all the time. As soon as it bubbles, take from the fire, pour in a little very cold water and let it stand for three minutes. Then pour slowly off the dregs through a flannel bag, or a double cloth. Let it drip as you would jelly. When all has run through, return to the fire with a little soaked tapioca, or a handful of “manestra”, such as comes in shapes for soups; simmer five minutes, color with kitchen bouquet, or with caramel, and serve.

Clear soup with poached eggs

Make as directed above, but without tapioca or other cereal. Have ready as many neatly poached eggs as there will be people at table, and when the hot soup is in the tureen slip these carefully into it.

Caramel for coloring soups

Put two tablespoonfuls of sugar into a small tin cup and let it melt, then bubble over the fire. When you have a seething brown (not burnt) mass, pour in two tablespoonfuls of boiling water and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Put in enough to color your clear soup, but not enough to make it sweet.

Clear soup á la royale

To cleared soup made according to directions given for making and clearing stock, add minute squares of paste made thus:

Heat half a cupful of milk in a saucepan with a bit of soda. In a frying-pan cook a tablespoonful of butter and stir into it two of flour. Turn the milk gradually upon this, and, when well incorporated, a scant half-cupful of soup stock. In a bowl have ready two whipped eggs and pour upon them, stirring well, the hot mixture. Return to the fire, stir to a thick paste and pour upon a buttered platter to cool. Set on ice to harden for at least six hours before cutting into tiny blocks. The soup must not boil after they go in.

Glasgow broth

One quart of strong mutton stock, from which every particle of fat has been removed. The liquor in which a leg of mutton has been boiled will do well for this purpose. Boil it down for an hour before making the broth, as it should be strong.

One cupful of barley that has been soaked in tepid water for three hours. One large carrot, one turnip, two onions, four stalks of celery, half a cupful of green peas and the same of string-beans, parsley and four or five leek tops.

Cut the vegetables up small and parboil them for ten minutes. Drain and put over the fire in the stock. Simmer slowly for three hours. Have ready a good white roux made by heating a heaping tablespoonful of butter in a pan and stirring into it a tablespoonful of flour. Add a few spoonfuls of the soup to thin it, and stir into the broth. Boil one minute and serve.

This recipe, given to me in rhymes a century old by a distinguished professor in the University of Glasgow, is the genuine Scotch broth dear to the Scottish heart and stomach. It is nowhere as delicious as in the Highlands, but it is good everywhere.

Mulligatawney soup

(An East Indian recipe.)

Joint a large fowl, as for fricassee, and cut into small pieces a pound of lean veal. Slice two onions and fry them in butter; pare, quarter and core two sour apples. Put all these into a saucepan with six quarts of cold water. Add four cloves and four pepper corns, cover closely and let it simmer until the fowl is tender. Remove it and cut the meat from the bones into small pieces. Return the bones to the kettle and add one level tablespoonful of curry powder, one level teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar mixed to a smooth paste with a little water.

Simmer another hour, or until reduced one-half, strain the soup, let it stand all night and remove the fat. Put it on to boil again, add the pieces of fowl and one cupful of boiled rice. This will make a large quantity of soup. Send around with it bananas, chilled by burying them in ice, for those who relish this accompaniment to curry dishes.

Chicken cream soup (No. 1)

Cut up a large fowl and beat with a mallet to crack the bones; pour in five quarts of cold water, cover closely and simmer for four hours more, until the chicken is perfectly tender. Take the meat off the bones, take out the skin. Return the soup to the fire with a part of the meat chopped fine, salt, pepper, a little boiled rice and butter rolled in flour. Just before taking from the fire add a small teacupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and boil for one minute.

You may further enrich this excellent soup by beating up two eggs and stirring them into it just before taking from the fire. A still better way is to pour a little of the soup upon the eggs to avoid curdling, then add to the rest.

Chicken cream soup (No. 2)

(An English recipe)

One cupful of cold roast chicken, chopped as fine as powder; a pint of strong chicken broth; a cupful of sweet cream; half a cupful of bread or cracker-crumbs; three yolks of eggs; one teaspoonful of salt; one-half teaspoonful of pepper.

Soak the crumbs in a little of the cream. Bring the broth to boiling point and add the meat. Break the eggs, separating the yolks and whites. Drop the yolks carefully into boiling water and boil hard; then rub to a powder and add to the soup with the cream and the seasoning. Simmer ten minutes and serve hot.

Beef bouillon

Put together in an agate-lined saucepan two pounds of lean beef, minced; one-half pound of lean veal, also minced, and two pounds, each, of beef and veal bones, well cracked. Cover deep with cold water and bring slowly to a boil, then simmer for four hours. Season with salt, pepper and two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, then remove from the fire. When very cold and like a jelly, skim all fat from the surface of the soup and heat to enable you to strain out the bones and meat. Return to the fire, drop in the white of an egg and a crushed egg-shell, bring to a boil, drop in a bit of ice to check ebullition and, five minutes later, pour carefully, not to disturb the dregs, through a colander lined with white flannel. You may now heat it to scalding, add a glass of sherry and eat it hot, or set on ice when cold until you can have it as “iced-bouillon.” It is good in either way.

Bouillon á la russe

Make as just directed and serve in cups, laying a delicately poached egg upon the surface of the steaming liquid.

Chicken bouillon (No. 1)

Cut a large fowl into pieces; put into a porcelain-lined kettle and cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range and simmer for four hours. Season with celery salt, pepper and onion juice, and set away to cool. When cold skim off the fat and strain out the bones and meat. Return to the fire, and when hot, add a quarter of a box of gelatine that has soaked for an hour in a gill of water. When the gelatine is dissolved, take the soup from the fire, strain through a cheese-cloth bag, and serve it when you have reheated it, or set aside to cool, afterward keeping it in ice, when you may enjoy delicious “iced and jellied chicken bouillon.”

Chicken bouillon (No. 2)

Cut a four-pound fowl into pieces and put it over the fire with four quarts of cold water. Bring very slowly to the boiling point, and simmer gently for three hours, or until the meat is so tender that it slips from the bones. Add half of a sliced onion and three stalks of celery, and simmer for an hour longer. Turn into a bowl and set in a cold place for some hours. When thoroughly chilled remove the fat from the surface of the soup, strain out the bones and skim. If the liquor is jellied after skimming it, set it on the fire long enough to melt the jelly from the bones. Strain through coarse muslin, letting it drip through, but not squeezing the bag. Put over the fire and, when lukewarm, throw in the unbeaten white and broken shell of an egg; stir to a quick boil and again strain through muslin after seasoning to taste.

Gumbo (No. 1)

(A Creole recipe)

Cut a fowl at every joint and fry for five minutes in good dripping or in butter. Remove the meat and put into a soup kettle. Cook two sliced onions in the fat left in the frying-pan. Put into the kettle with the chicken half a pound of lean salt pork, or corned ham, cut into small bits, and the fried onions. Add two quarts of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil, after which you should let it simmer two hours. Add, now, two dozen young okra pods, half a pod of green pepper, chopped, and half a can of tomatoes, or a pint of fresh, cut small, and simmer till the chicken is tender. Remove the larger bones, add salt to taste, and five minutes before serving add one pint of fine, sweet corn pulp, scraped from the cob, or one small can of canned corn, or one pint of oysters. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, boil a few minutes and serve. If fresh okra can not be obtained, use the canned.

Gumbo (No. 2)

This delicious soup may be made with oysters, or shrimps, or chicken. Brown one small onion in a heaping tablespoonful of butter. Add one quart of sliced okra, and fry it well, stirring all the time to prevent burning. Now add half a gallon of hot water and let it cook until simmered down to one quart. Add three ripe tomatoes and the chicken, or oysters, or shrimps. If the chicken is used it must have been previously stewed tender, in which case use the broth instead of the hot water. Season to taste with salt and cayenne, and serve with a tablespoonful of rice for each soup-plate.

Julienne soup

Cut into thin strips, and these into inch lengths, two carrots, one-half of a white turnip, two or three celery stalks, two small onions, a leaf or two of young cabbage, and a good handful of string beans. Put all together, with half a cupful of green peas, into cold salted water, and leave for half an hour. Turn, then, into your soup kettle with sufficient water to cover, and cook for fifteen minutes. Drain off the water, cover the vegetables with a quart of good soup stock or consommé, and cook gently for twenty-five minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper, add chopped parsley and kitchen bouquet to taste, and boil up once before serving. You may add tomatoes or not, as you like.

The stock should be strong.

French onion soup

To a quart of good stock allow six small onions that have been parboiled for ten minutes, and a cupful of fine, dry bread-crumbs. Let them simmer together for half an hour; rub the soup through a colander, pressing through as much of the onion and bread as possible. Put into a saucepan, rub one tablespoonful of butter and two of flour to a cream, and stir into the hot mixture until it thickens. Season with salt and pepper, add one pint of milk heated with a tiny bit of soda, boil up, and serve.

A homely, but a savory soup.

White barley soup

Soak a cupful of barley for several hours in enough water to cover it; then boil in a quart of veal stock until tender and clear. Season with a teaspoonful of onion juice, a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and with celery salt and white pepper to taste. Thicken a pint of scalding milk with a white roux, pour the hot soup slowly upon this and serve.

“Turkey rack” soup

(A Virginia recipe)

Break the carcass of a roast turkey served for yesterday’s dinner into pieces, removing all the stuffing; cover with two quarts of cold water and boil three hours, covered. Set aside until cold; skim and take out all the bones; chop the meat; add to the soup and meat the stuffing rubbed through a colander, a sliced onion and a stalk of celery, cut very small. Simmer for an hour; put a cupful of milk over the fire, not forgetting a pinch of soda; when hot, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour; mix with the soup, and boil one minute.

A white fowl soup

Cut an elderly chicken up as for fricassee, severing every joint. Put into the soup-kettle, allowing a quart of water for every pound. Add a sliced onion and three celery stalks. Set at the side of the range; bring slowly to the boil. Cook until the meat slips from the bones, if it takes all day. Set away with the meat in it until cold. Take off the fat. Warm sufficiently to allow you to strain it; take out the bones; cut the white meat into cubes, and keep hot over boiling water. Bring the soup to a boil, season with salt and white pepper, and throw into it, while boiling hard, half a cupful of rice. Cook fast for twenty-five minutes, or until the rice is very tender. Have ready in a saucepan a cupful of hot milk into which you have put a bit of soda; stir in a white roux made by cooking a tablespoonful of butter with one of flour, and add to the soup with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Now, put in the meat cubes, boil one minute and serve.

A brown fowl soup

Prepare and cook chicken as just directed, and, when you have skimmed the soup and taken out the bones, cut all the meat into neat cubes; dry it between two cloths; pepper and salt, then dredge well with flour. Put into a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of the fat you have taken from the soup and when it bubbles, add the pieces of chicken and toss them about until well browned. Remove the chicken and keep it hot. Into the fat left in the pan put one level tablespoonful of flour and stir until well mixed and slightly browned. Add by degrees sufficient soup to moisten to a smooth gravy, then strain it into the soup. Season to taste, put in the chicken dice, simmer five minutes, and serve. You may improve the color by adding a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet.

Beef juice for invalids

Chop two pounds of lean beef small. Put a layer of this meat in the bottom of a glass jar and sprinkle over it a _little_ salt. Then add another layer and a little more salt, and so on until the meat has been used. Set in a kettle. The water in the kettle should be cold and be heated gradually to the boiling point, after which it should be left to simmer for three or four hours, or until the meat looks like bits of white rags with the juice completely drawn out. Let all get cold together, then skim, and strain out the meat, pressing it hard.

Beef tea

Chop three pounds of lean beef fine and leave in a quart of cold water for two hours. Set water and beef over a slow fire in a covered saucepan and simmer four hours. Set away all night with the meat in it. In the morning remove every bit of grease, and strain through coarse muslin, pressing hard. Season with pepper and salt.

BISQUES

The name is applied to a class of soups thickened into closer consistency than broth by the addition of minced meat and crumbs. When well made, they are popular at family dinners, and some kinds—such as oyster and lobster bisque—are admirable at dinner parties.

Care must be observed to keep the ingredients well together, and to season judiciously. Insipid panada is not a bisque. Still less is a “mess” compounded, not wisely, but so well as to remind one of a poultice.

Oyster bisque

Drain the liquor from a quart of oysters and make of it a quart of liquid by adding cold water. Into this stir the oysters, chopped fine, and put all into a porcelain-lined saucepan over the fire. Cook very gently for twenty minutes. Have heated a quart of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, and half a cupful of cracker-crumbs, soaked. Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour. When they are perfectly blended pour upon them the quart of thickened boiling milk and stir until as smooth and thick as cream. Turn into this the oyster soup and season to taste with salt and pepper. Slowly pour a cupful of the soup upon the beaten yolks of two eggs, stirring constantly. When mixed, return the soup with the blended yolks to the saucepan, stir and pour at once into a heated tureen.

Lobster bisque

Two cupfuls of lobster meat, minced fine; one quart of boiling water and the same of milk; half a cupful of butter and a cupful of fine cracker-crumbs; paprika or cayenne and salt to taste; a teaspoonful of flour.

Rub the coral and a quarter of the meat to a paste; leave this in enough boiling water to cover it for half an hour. Then put the reserved chopped lobster into a saucepan, with the cracker-crumbs and half the butter; stir in the hot water and coral, etc., with the rest of the quart of boiling water. Cook gently half an hour in a double boiler after the water in the outer vessel begins to boil hard. Stir often. In another saucepan heat the milk (with a bit of soda) and the rest of the butter worked up with the flour. Boil one minute. Turn the lobster into the tureen; stir in the hot milk and serve at once.

Crab bisque

Is made in the same way.

Clam bisque

Thirty clams; one cupful of milk and half as much cream, or two cupfuls of milk; two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour; three eggs; a tablespoonful of onion juice; one cupful of boiling water; a pinch of soda in the milk; one cupful of cracker-crumbs.

Chop the clams and put over the fire in the boiling water. Simmer half an hour. Heat milk and cream in another saucepan with the soda and crumbs. Stir in the roux, boil one minute and pour gradually, beating all the time, upon the yolks, previously whipped smooth. Heat in a double boiler for two minutes, or until the water in the outer vessel boils hard, and turn into the tureen. Season the boiling mince of clams with salt, cayenne and minced parsley, add to the milk in tureen and cover the surface with the whites of the eggs beaten to a standing froth.

In serving, dip the ladle deep into the bisque, but see that each plate is mantled by the meringue.

Chicken bisque

Joint the fowl and cover with cold water, a quart for each pound. Put in a large minced onion and three stalks of celery, minced fine. Cover and cook slowly until you can slip the flesh from the bones. Let all get cold together; skim, take out bones and meat, and chop the latter fine. Return the soup to the fire and heat in another vessel a cupful of milk (dropping in a bit of soda). Thicken this with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into a teaspoonful of flour, and add a tablespoonful of minced parsley. When the soup has reached a fast boil, stir into it the chopped chicken with a cupful of cracker-crumbs soaked in warm milk; boil one minute, beat in the milk and butter and pour out.

Corn bisque

Drain the liquor from a can of corn. Chop the corn very fine, put it over the fire in a quart of salted water and simmer gently for an hour. Rub through a colander, return to the fire with the water, add a teaspoonful of sugar, and when this melts, two tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed into two of butter. Stir until smooth and pour slowly upon a pint of heated milk. Season with salt and pour the soup gradually upon two beaten eggs. Send immediately to the table.

Cheese bisque

Into a pint of milk put a pinch of soda, and bring to the scalding point. To this add a cupful of stock (chicken or mutton or lamb) in which an onion has been boiled, and a cupful of water in which rice has been cooked until you can run it through a strainer. Cook together in a good-sized saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour. When they are thoroughly blended and bubble pour on them the white soup and stir until it thickens to the consistency of cream. Now beat in a half cupful of grated cheese. Have ready in a bowl two well-whipped eggs, and on these pour, a little at a time, a cupful of hot soup, beating steadily to prevent curdling. Return the cupful of soup with the eggs to the soup on the fire, beat for half a minute, season with salt and pepper, and serve. Odd, but very good when properly made.

Salmon bisque

Open a can of salmon and turn out the contents several hours before making the soup. With a silver fork pick the fish to pieces and take out all bits of bone and skin. Put the fish into an agate saucepan, put on it enough boiling water to cover it, and let it simmer gently for half an hour. Drain off the water and break the fish to a soft mass.

Dissolve a pinch of soda in a pint of milk and heat in a double boiler with a half cupful of cracker-crumbs. Stir into it a pint of well-seasoned veal stock, and thicken with two tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed into two of butter. When thick and smooth, stir in the minced fish, season with salt and paprika, and serve. This is very good when made of boiled fresh salmon.

Bisque of halibut or cod

Boil a pound of firm fresh fish in two waters, and mince it fine, freeing it from all bits of skin or bone. Have ready a quart of white stock, stir the fish into it and season with salt, pepper and a spoonful of minced parsley. Cook together two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, pour upon this a cupful of milk, stir until it thickens, and put with the fish and stock. Boil up once and put into the tureen. A half cupful of powdered cracker-crumbs should be added just before the soup is mixed with the milk.

Tomato bisque (No. 1)

Two cupfuls of fresh tomatoes, chopped fine; one pint of strong stock or skimmed gravy; one cupful of fine crumbs soaked for half an hour in hot milk; one teaspoonful of white sugar; one tablespoonful of onion juice; pepper and salt to taste; one tablespoonful of butter cooked to a roux with one of flour; chopped parsley; cook together five minutes, run through a vegetable press, stir in the stock and seasoning, and return to the fire. Simmer twenty minutes and add the soaked crumbs and parsley; cook together five minutes, stir in as much baking-soda as will lie upon a dime and send in at once.

You may use canned tomatoes for this recipe if you have not fresh.

Tomato bisque (No. 2)

Stir one quart can of tomatoes with a half-teaspoonful of soda for half an hour. Boil half a gallon of fresh milk; add to it a quarter of a pound of butter, pepper and salt. Mash the tomatoes through a colander and stir them into the boiling milk; add a teacupful of rolled crackers; serve immediately. If the milk is put into the tomatoes it will curdle.

CREAM SOUPS

N. B.—See to it that the milk of which they are made is fresh, and always drop in it before heating a pinch of baking-soda to avoid the danger of curdling. A curdled cream soup is a culinary solecism, and should never be put into delicate stomachs. After the soup is ready for the table do not allow it to stand on the part of the range where it may come to a boil.

Cream of spinach soup

Wash a half peck of spinach and put it into a saucepan with a scant quart of water. Boil until tender, then chop very, _very_ fine, and run through a sieve. It should be like a soft green paste. Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter and pour upon them a quart of hot milk. Stir until smooth, add the spinach, boil up once, season and serve.

Cream of beet soup

Boil the young beets in salted water for an hour. Lay in cold water until cool enough to handle. Scrape off all the skin and chop the beets very fine. Turn the beets and the juice which has exuded from them into a pint of mutton stock, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Rub through a fine colander or a coarse soup-strainer and keep hot at the side of the range. Cook together two teaspoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and pour upon them a pint of milk. Stir until thick and smooth, then add slowly the beet and mutton purée. When very hot, season with salt and white pepper and serve.

Tomato cream soup (No. 1)

Cut up a dozen ripe tomatoes and stew tender in a pint of water. Rub through a strainer and thicken with three teaspoonfuls of corn-starch rubbed to a paste with a tablespoonful of butter. Season with salt, pepper and sugar, and pour slowly upon the mixture a quart of scalding milk, to which a pinch of soda has been added.

Tomato cream soup (No. 2)

Cook a quart of tomatoes soft and rub them through a colander, or drain the liquid from a can of tomatoes. Heat it over the fire, cooking with it a pinch of soda and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Cook together in another saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble, and then pour upon them a pint of hot milk. Stir until it thickens, salt and pepper the tomato to taste, and mix with it the thickened milk. Add half a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and serve at once.

Cream of celery soup

Cut a bunch of celery into small bits and put it over the fire in enough water to cover it. Stew until very tender; rub through a colander, and stir into it a pint of hot veal or other white stock. Cook together two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same of flour, and pour slowly upon them a pint of hot milk in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. When thick and smooth, add gradually, stirring constantly, the celery and stock. Season with pepper and celery salt, and serve.

Onion cream soup

Into a quart of mutton stock slice six large onions and simmer for an hour. Rub through a colander, return to the fire, and thicken with two tablespoonfuls of flour, rubbed to a paste with two of butter. Bring a half pint of milk to the boiling point and stir it into the soup. Season with salt, white pepper and a tablespoonful of minced parsley.

Potato cream soup (No. 1)

Mash ten large boiled potatoes, beat them to a soft mass with a half pint of cream, and season to taste with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Heat a pint of milk to scalding, stir it into a quart of heated veal stock and thicken with a white roux. Now beat in the mashed potato, boil up once, stirring constantly, add a handful of chopped parsley, and serve.

Potato cream soup (No. 2)

Boil and mash six good-sized potatoes. Heat a pint of milk to the boiling point and stir into it a tablespoonful of butter, rubbed into the same quantity of flour. When the milk is smooth and thick beat into it slowly the mashed potatoes and stir to a cream-like soup. Season to taste with pepper, salt and onion juice, and just before removing from the fire add a teaspoonful of finely minced parsley.

Cream of corn soup

Grate the corn from a dozen ears and put over the fire in a quart of water. Simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Now add salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoonful of granulated sugar. Rub to a paste two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour and thicken the corn soup with this. Have ready heated a quart of milk, pour this gradually upon a beaten egg, turn into a heated tureen and stir in the corn purée.

Cream of asparagus soup