"Bouillabaisse."

Thackeray's description.

Distinctions in soups for "fasting."

Vegetable soups, both clear and thickened, may be made extremely palatable; the former being agreeable and wholesome, especially in the warm season when fresh vegetable growth is abundant, and full of juice and fragrance. And the latter, or thick soup, may be made nutritious also, as already shown, since they contain a considerable quantity of barley, peas, beans, haricots, Indian corn, rice, etc.

The following is a good receipt for a clear, purely vegetable stock: Slice two carrots, two turnips, a head of celery, two onions; put into a frying-pan with a few sweet herbs and half a pound of butter. Fry until well browned, then put them with three or four cloves, some salt and black pepper, into six pints of cold water in a saucepan; bring to the boil and gently simmer for two or three hours, reducing to four pints, not less; strain off into a vessel, letting it stand for use. When required, pour off the clear liquor, leaving the deposit, and you will have a fair vegetable stock. If it is to be used as a clear vegetable soup, heat, adding at the close two tablespoonfuls of "cornflour" previously mixed smooth in some of the liquor, and letting the whole boil; if any scum arises remove it. The cornflour gives to the decoction an agreeable body. Or, five or six ounces of tapioca may be added at the outset, which will thicken without interfering with the transparency of the decoction. The soup may be garnished with vegetables freshly cooked for the purpose, in slices or other forms (see Gouffe's receipt in the Appendix). To convert this into a meat consomme' add after boiling, and just before serving, two full teaspoonfuls of the Liebig Company's Extract of Meat. Another mode of giving body when a soup maigre is not required, is to make a decoction of beef-bones without meat, which have been thoroughly broken and allowed to simmer gently at least six hours; then cooled, and skimmed from fat. The result, which is a strong jelly, can be warmed, strained clear through flannel, and used instead of water with which to make the vegetable soup as above directed; it adds substance and quality, but of animal matter in place of the cornflour employed for the preceding.

Vegetable soups.

Clear vegetable soup.

Thickened vegetable soups may be made with these stocks, or with a weak meat stock, by rubbing in smooth, well-made purees of almost any vegetable matter. Those most commonly used are from green peas, potato, spinach, carrot, turnip, artichoke, tomato, salsify, etc, or from dried vegetable products, as split peas, lentils, haricots, rice, arrowroot, semolina, etc. A potato puree, garnished with well-boiled leeks cut in sections, is a very palatable dish, and worthy of the esteem it has long enjoyed among our Dutch and Flemish neighbours.

How to make a meat soup.

A gelatine body.

Vegetable puree.

Importance of Consomme.

I may conclude this brief sketch of soups by observing that the ability to make a good, fragrant, and clear consomme, yet fine in colour with a certain softness and smoothness of body - and nothing is easier, granted a moderate intelligence and the power of executing simple details with care - affords the key to almost all. The preparation of vegetables and the making of purees are merely mechanical processes, easily attained. The judgment necessary to add and combine spices, essences, and other sources of flavour, for soups, sauces, and sweet entremets, is the one element which when possessed, in addition to the character of an attentive, dexterous, and painstaking workman, essential to success in every profession, constitutes a finished cook, and denotes his or her rank. And thus it is that the department of sauces especially gives opportunity to develop and illustrate these qualities; and here it is that the artist's skill is most clearly manifested.

The title of "cook" does not belong to one who cannot make a good consomme.