When, heroically, you have forsworn the ensnaring tin and the insinuating bottle, the horizon widens before you. "Thick and clear": the phrase suggests but narrow compass; broad beyond measure is the sphere it really opens.
Of all the Doges of Bobbio, but one—if tradition be true—sickened of his hundred soups. Three hundred and sixty-five might have been their number with results no more disastrous. Given a cook of good instincts and gay imagination, and from one year's end to the other never need the same soup be served a second time.
A word, first, as to its proper place on the menu. The conservative Briton might think this a subject upon which the last word long since had been spoken. If soup at all, then must it appear between hors d'œuvre and fish: as well for Catholic to question the doctrine of infallibility as for self-respecting man to doubt the propriety of this arrangement. But they don't know everything down in Great Britain, and other men there be of other minds. Order a dinner in the American West, and a procession of smiling, white-robed blacks—talking, alas! no more the good old darkey, but pure American—swoop down upon you, bringing at once, in disheartening medley, your blue-points, your gumbo, your terrapin, your reed birds, and your apple pie. What sacrilege! In the pleasantest little restaurant in all Rome, close to the Piazza Colonna, within sound of the Corso, was once to be seen any evening in the week—may be still, for that matter—a bemedalled major finishing his dinner with his minestra instead of his dolce. But if a fat, little grey-haired man once consent to wear a coat scarce longer than an Eton jacket, may not, in reason, worse enormities be expected of him? Truth to tell, the British convention, borrowed from France, is the best. If, in good earnest, you would profit by your potage, give it place of honour at the top of the menu. Leave light and frivolous sweets to lighter, more frivolous moments, when, hunger appeased, man may unbend to trifles.
What the great Alexandre calls the grand consommé is the basis of all soup—and sauce making. Study his very word with reverence; carry out his every suggestion with devotion. Among the ingredients of this consummate bouillon his mighty mind runs riot. Not even the adventures of the immortal Musketeers stimulated his fancy to wilder flights. His directions, large and lavish as himself, would the economical housewife read with awe and something of terror. Veal and beef and fowl—a venerable cock will answer—and rabbit and partridges of yester-year; these be no more than the foundation. Thrown into the marmite in fair and fitting proportions, then must they be watched, anxiously and intelligently, as they boil; spoonfuls of the common bouillon should be poured upon them from time to time; there must be added onions and carrots, and celery and parsley, and whatever aromatic herbs may be handy, and oil, if you have it; and after four hours of boiling slowly and demurely over a gentle fire, and, next, straining through coarse linen, you may really begin to prepare your soup.
If to these heights the ordinary man—or woman—may not soar, then will the good, substantial, everyday bouillon, or pot-au-feu—made of beef alone, but ever flavoured with vegetables—fulfil the same purpose, not so deliciously, but still fairly well. In households where soup is, as it should be, a daily necessity, stock may be made and kept for convenience. But if you would have your pot-au-feu in perfection, let the saucepan, or marmite—the English word is commonplace, the French term charms—be not of iron, but of earthenware: rich tawny brown or golden green in colour, as you see it in many a French market-place, if the least feeling for artistic fitness dwells within your soul. Seven hours are needed pour faire sourire le pot-au-feu—the expression is not to be translated. Where soups are concerned the English language is poor, and cold, and halting; the speech of France alone can honour them aright.
With good bouillon there is naught the genius may not do. Into it the French chef puts a few small slices of bread, and, as you eat, you wonder if terrapin or turtle ever tasted better. With the addition of neatly-chopped carrots and onions, and turnips and celery, you have Julienne; or, with dainty asparagus tops, sweet fresh peas, tiny stinging radishes, delicate young onions, printanier, with its suggestions of spring and blossoms in every mouthful. This last, surely, is the lyric among soups. Decide upon cheese instead, and you will set a Daudet singing you a poem in prose: "Oh! la bonne odeur de soupe au fromage!" Pâtes d'Italie, vermicelli, macaroni, each will prove a separate ecstasy, if you but remember the grated Parmesan that must be sprinkled over it without stint—as in Italy. Days there be when nothing seems so in keeping as rice: others, when cabbage hath charm, that is, if first in your simmering bouillon a piece of ham—whether of York, of Strasbourg, or of Virginia—be left for three hours or more; again, to thicken the golden liquid with tapioca may seem of all devices the most adorable. And so may you ring the changes day after day, week after week, month after month.
If of these lighter soups you tire, then turn with new hope and longing to the stimulating list of purées and crèmes. Let tomatoes, or peas, or beans, or lentils, as you will, be the keynote, always you may count upon a harmony inspiriting and divine; a rapture tenfold greater if it be enjoyed in some favourite corner at Marguery's or Voisin's, where the masterpiece awaits the chosen few. Or if, when London fogs are heavy and life proves burdensome, comfort is in the very name of broth, then put it to the test in its mutton, Scotch, chicken, or dozen and more varieties, and may it give you new courage to face the worst!
But if for pleasure solely you eat your soup, as you should, unless illness or the blue devils have you firm in their grasp, a few varieties there be which to all the rest are even as is the rose to lesser flowers, as is the onion to vegetables of more prosaic virtue. Clams are a joy if you add to them but salt and pepper—cayenne by preference—and a dash of lemon juice: as a chowder, they are a substantial dream to linger over; but made into soup they reach the very topmost bent of their being: it is the end for which they were created. Of oysters this is no less true. Veal stock or mutton broth may pass as prosaic basis of the delicacy; but better depend upon milk and cream, and of the latter be not sparing. Mace, in discreet measure, left flowing in the liquid will give the finishing, the indispensable touch. Oh, the inexhaustible resources of the sea! With these delights rank bisque, that priceless purée, made of crayfish—in this case a pinch of allspice instead of mace—and if in its fullest glory you would know it, go eat it at the Lapérouse on the Quai des Grands Augustins; eat it, as from the window of the low room in the entresol, you look over toward the towers of Notre Dame.
Be a good Catholic on Fridays, that, with potages maigres—their name, too, is legion—your soups may be increased and multiplied, and thus infinity become your portion.