Culinary Chemistry / The Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy, with Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food.

by Friedrich Christian Accum

[26] The Cook’s Oracle, p. 103.

SOUP.

Soups are decoctions of meat which differ from broth, in being more concentrated, and usually also more complex in their composition. They are in fact strong broths, containing either farinaceous roots and seeds, or other parts of vegetable substances.

The erudite editor of the “Almanach des Gourmands”[27] tells us, that ten folio volumes would not contain the receipts of all the soups that have been invented in that grand school of good eating, the Parisian kitchen. The author of Apicius Redivivus[28] says “the general fault of our English soups seems to be the employment of an excess of spice, and too small a portion of roots and herbs.” “Point des Legumes, point de Cuisiniere,” is deservedly the common adage of the French kitchen. A better soup may be made with a couple of pounds of meat, and plenty of vegetables, than our common cooks will make with four times that quantity of meat. The great art of composing a rich soup consists in so proportioning the several flavouring ingredients, that no particular taste predominates.”—One pound and a half of meat at least ought to be allowed for making a quart of soup. The full flavour can only be obtained by long and slow simmering the meat, during which time the vessel should be kept covered to prevent the evaporation of the fluid as much as possible.

[27] Vol. II. page 30.

[28] Or the Cook’s Oracle, 2d edit. Vol. 97.

The flavouring ingredients should not be added till ten or fifteen minutes before the soup is finished. Clear soups should be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups, should be of the consistence of cream.

The soup, says a writer, on Cookery, might be called the portal of the edifice of a French dinner, either plain or sumptuous. It is a sine qua non article. It leads to the several courses constituting the essence of the repast, and lays the unsophisticated foundation upon which the whole is to rest, as upon a solid basis, in the stomach. It is, perhaps, the most wholesome food that can be used; and the gaunt, yet strong frame of the French soldiery, has long experienced the benefit of it. They vulgarly say, “C’est la soupe qui fait le Soldat.” ‘It is the soup that makes the soldier.’ Partial to this mess, they have it daily in barracks, in their marches, and in the camp; and they often swallow a large bowl of broth and bread, in the morning a few minutes before the trumpets calls them to the field of battle.

PIES

Are those dishes which consist either of meat, or of fruit, covered with a farinaceous crust, enriched with butter or other fat, and rendered fit for eating by baking.