Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Cultivate habits of regularity, cleanliness, &c., in all your business, which you will then get through easily and comfortably ; I do not mean the restless spirit of MoHdusta, " the tidy I one," who is anon, anon, sir, frisking about in a wliirliX)ol of bustle and confusion, and is ! always dirty — under pretence of being always cleaning. Lean juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the I basis of broth ; procure those pieces which af- ] ford the richest succulence, and as fresh killed ! Stale meat will make broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat meat is wasted. This only ap- ; plies to those broths which are required to be I perfectly clear. Fat and clarified drippings I may be so combined with vegetable mucilage I as to aft'ord, at the small cost of one penny per I quart, a nourishing and palatable soup, fully I adequate to satisfy appetite and support strength I — this -will open a new source to those benevo- lent housekeepers who are disposed to relieve the poor ; wiU show the industrious classes how I much they have it in their power to assist I themselves, and rescue them from being objects of charity, dependent on the precarious bounty of others, by teaching them how they may ob- tain a cheap, abundant, salubrious, and agree- able aliment for themselves and families. This soup has the advantage of being very easily and very soon made, with no more fuel sou ( 905 ) SOU than is necessary to warm a room ; those who I have not tasted it cannot imagine wliiit a salu- | brious, savoury, and satisfying meal is pro- duced by the judicious combination of cheap homely ingredients. The following are the chief broth-herbs, soup- roots, and seasonings : — Scotch Baiiley Paksley Pearl Bauley Common Thyme Flour Lemon Thyme Oatmeal Orange Thyme Bread Knotted Marjoram Rasping Sage Peas Mint Beans Winter Savory Rice Sweet Basil Vermicelli Bay-leaves ]\Iacaroni Tomato Isinglass Tarragon Potato Mucilage Chervil Mushrooms Burnet Champignons Allspice Parsnips Cinnamon Carrots Ginger Beetroots Nutmeg Turnips Clove Garlic Mace I Shallots Black Pepper | Onions Lemon-peel Leeks White Pepper Cucumber Lemon-juice Celery Seville Orange- Celery Seed juice Cress Seed Essence of Anchovy. The above materials, wine and mushroom ketchup, combined in various proportions, will j make an endless variety of excellent broths and j soups, quite as pleasant to the palate, and as useful and agreeable to the stomach, as con- suming pheasants and partridges, and the long hst of inflammatory, piquant, and rare and costly articles recommended by some people whose elaborately compounded soups are like their made dishes, in which, though variety is aimed at, everything has the same taste, and nothing its own. 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 de legumes, point de cuisiniere," is a favourite culinarj' adage of the French kitchen, and deserves to be so ; a better soup may be made with a couple of pounds of meat and plenty of vegetables than our com- mon cooks will make you with four times that quantity of meat ; all for want of knowing the uses of soup-roots, and sweet and savoury herbs.