Soak two quarts of dried or split peas overnight. In the morning take three pounds of the lean of fresh beef, and a pound of bacon or pickled pork. Cut them into pieces, and put them into a large soup-pot with the peas, (which must first be well drained,) and a table-spoonful of dried mint rubbed to powder. Add five quarts of water, and boil the soup gently for three hours, skimming it well, and then put in four heads of celery cut small, or two table-spoonfuls of pounded celery seed.
It must be boiled till the peas are entirely dissolved, so as to be no longer distinguishable, and the celery quite soft. Then strain it into a tureen, and serve it up with toasted bread cut in dice. Omit the crust of the bread.
Stir it up immediately before it goes to table, as it is apt to settle, and be thick at the bottom and thin at the top.
Take four pounds of knuckle of veal, and a pound of bacon. Cut them to pieces, and put them into a soup kettle with a sprig of mint and four quarts of water. Boil it moderately fast, and skim it well. When the meat is boiled to rags, strain it out, and put to the liquor a quart of young green peas. Boil them till they are entirely dissolved, and till they have thickened the soup, and given it a green colour. [Footnote: You may greatly improve the colour by pounding a handful of spinach in a mortar, straining the juice, and adding it to the soup about a quarter of an hour before it has done boiling.]
Have ready two quarts of green peas that have been boiled in another pot with a sprig of mint, and two or three lumps of loaf sugar, (which will greatly improve the taste.) After they have boiled in this pot twenty minutes, take out the mint, put the whole peas into the pot of soup, and boil all together about ten minutes. Then put it into a tureen, and send it to table.
Never use hard old green peas for this soup, or for any other purpose. When they begin to turn yellow, it is time to leave them off for the season.
Lima bean soup may be made in the same manner.
Asparagus soup may be made in a similar manner to that of green peas. You must have four or five bunches of asparagus. Cut off the green tops, and put half of them into the soup, after the meat has been boiled to pieces and strained out. The asparagus must be boiled till quite dissolved, and till it has given a green colour to the soup. Then take the remainder of the asparagus tops (which must all this time have been lying in cold water) and put them into the soup, and let them boil about twenty minutes. Serve it up with small squares of toast in the tureen.