Virginia Cookery-book

Black Mexican Bean Soup. To one pint of black beans put four quarts of water, two slices of nice lean bacon, or the hock which is cut off when the ham is boiled ; one small chicken or half a large one, or a small piece of any fresh meat. After the meat or chicken has boiled until it is done take it out and make force - meat balls of it ; fry them, and put them in the soup. Boil four eggs hard, slice them up into rings, and drop them into the tureen when about to be served. Flavor also with a broken pod of red pepper and a teaspoonful of bruised celery-seed. Some persons also add a small wineglassf ul of catsup, either walnut or tomato. Others, again, use a seasoning of a little mace or cloves. The soup should be strained clear of the hulls of the beans. For common use the force-meat balls may be omitted, and the soup be very nourishing still. Force-meat Balls for Bean Soup Are made by chopping fine a pound of cooked meat, adding a table-spoonful of fresh suet also cut up fine, half a pint of bread-crumbs, and one egg. Make up into little balls with your hands, moistening them with a little of the soup taken from the pot ; add pepper, salt, and a very little nutmeg or allspice. Drop them into hot lard and fry till brown, then put them into the bottom of your tureen, and pour the soup boiling hot over them. Corn Soup. Cut the corn from the cob, and boil the cobs in water for at least an hour, then add the grains, and boil until they are thoroughly done ; put one dozen ears of corn to a gallon of water, which will be reduced to three quarts by the time the soup is done; then pour on a pint of new milk, two well-beaten eggs, salt and pepper to your taste; continue the boiling a while longer, and stir in, to season and thicken it a little, a tablespoonful of good butter rubbed up with two tablespoonfuls of flour. Corn soup may also be made nicely with water in which a pair of grown fowls have been boiled or parboiled, instead of having plain water for the foundation. Calf's-head Soup. The calf's head is cleaned thus : wash it well, and sprinkle some pounded rosin all over the hairs, then dip them in boiling water and take them instantly out. The rosin will dry immediately, and the skin may be scraped clean with ease. Having so done, put the head in a pot with about two gallons of water, and boil it until tender. Take it out and cut the meat into small pieces. Return half of it to the soup, after straining the liquor, and let all boil together for several hours. Flavor with a table-spoonful of allspice, a teaspoonful of black pepper, and just before dishing up a teacupful of Madeira or sherry wine. Slice also four hard-boiled eggs into rings and put them into the tureen. Add salt also, but sparingly, to taste. Half of the meat is enough for one tureen of soup, so that the rest may be put away in a cool place, to be used next day. If you prefer to do so, make the meat up into forcemeat balls, as they are considered rather elegant. The harslet should be boiled with the head and strained out, if you do not choose to have meat in the tureen, although to most palates the finely chopped harslet and other meat, if not in too great excess, is an acceptable addition to the dish. It is a rather troublesome soup in the preparation, but is one of the best made, and not inaptly has it been called " mock-turtle soup." Gumbo.