“‘Found at last!’ I madly shouted. ‘Gentle
pieman, you astound me!’
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically
round me.”
But this was, on reflection, probably mock turtle soup, no bad thing either, vide Alice’s interview with the Gryphon. It lives, when cold, in a basin, and is set hard and is therefore wavable.
American soups are not to be despised. On the contrary, they make most excellent good eating—or drinking; which is it? do we eat or drink soup? An American book of etiquette says, “Never chew your soup, always swallow it whole.”
Anyhow I have tried, and found good, Clam Chowder, Clam Broth, Chicken Gumbo, Okra, Terrapin, and Vegetable Soups. They are in tins, against which I confess I am prejudiced, but as yet I am totally unpoisoned, and I am told that there is a possibility of their being shortly put up in bottles. Each tin has full instructions, and these are quite applicable to the Chafing Dish, care always being taken not to boil the soup, but to heat it gently and continuously. The Clam Chowder and Clam Broth are both quite excellent, of a distinct individual flavour, cheering, and, I opine, wholesome. They have a peculiar cachet of their own, and lend a certain Transatlantic originality to an otherwise banal Chafing-Dish luncheon.
These and other American provisions I procure from Jackson’s in Piccadilly. They are well “packed,” and adapt themselves excellently to unexpected calls on a limited larder. Their variety is infinite, and their flavour remains good and true. Tinned Broadway in London is a pleasant experience. There are other American delicacies, to which reference will be made in due course, which adapt themselves admirably to Chafing-Dish idiosyncrasies. Columbus’ patent egg is not the only culinary innovation from the New World, but the average British cook is so ignorantly conservative and abhorrently Chauvinistic that she dreads novelty as she dreads the Devil.
Poor Man’s Soup.
Poor Man’s Soup, as the French call it, is a very restorative dish after a bad day on the Stock Exchange, although there is little of the Poor Man about it save the name.
Put a finely-shredded onion and a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish and fry to a light brown colour, then add a heaped teaspoonful of flour and stir well; pour in a pint of stock, add pepper and salt to taste. Peel and slice a potato and scatter it in the soup; let the mixture come to a boil, and then allow it to simmer for ten minutes. Just before serving stir into it the yolk of an egg, well beaten up, and a dozen sippets of dry toast. This is a soothing and easy soup, but it requires the stockpot, unless you make use of one of the many varieties of concentrated bouillon or beef-tea, which certainly save a lot of trouble.
Palestine Soup.