Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book – Part 6
With the low temperatures in the southern hemisphere at the moment I thought it apt to share a portion of the Soups chapter.
The chapter starts:
“The Mock Turtle sang for Alice a song that makes sense, as well as famous nonsense:
‘Beautiful soup, so rich and green!
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the Evenin, beautiful Soup!’
Beautiful soup indeed, whether it’s romantic consommé, transparent and sparkling, or a bisque swimming with cream and the riches of the sea. We might extend the praise to include not only soup of the evening, but soup at noon, although few Americans will follow the lead of the French premier who liked onion soup for breakfast.
Soup is a cosmopolitan dish with a long history. Many centuries ago European peasants were living on one-dish meals of meat and vegetables cooked together; resourceful fishermen’s wives made chowder and bouillabaisse from that share of the catch spared for home consumption and gypsy cooks threw into the soup pot whatever the passing countryside had to offer. These hearty soups of peasant origin – minestrone, oxtail, petite marmite are, like stews, a meal in themselves.
Thin clear soups, so light and savoury that they give edge to appetite, were devised to precede elaborate formal meals. They have come into common use only with the wider extension of luxuries in modern times. Jellied consommé, since it requires refrigeration, is an even more recent addition to the popular menu. Cold fruit soups are, so far, foreign novelties not yet at home in all sections of this country.
Since their purpose is different, thin soups can never replace chowders, stew and other soups of substance. Thick or thin, each in its own time and place is a beautiful soup.”
The chapter has 26 pages of recipes for all kinds of soup including rhubarb and fruit juice soup.
No soup should be served naked so there was a comprehensive list of garnishes.
“The thin clear soups take to dressing up better than the thick hearty ones, but a dash of paprika or some finely chopped parsley will improve almost any soup.
Clear Soup Garnishes: A thin slice of lemon sprinkled with parsley; a few slices of stuffed olive or slivers of cucumber pickle; cooked vegetables such as thinly sliced mushrooms, tiny slivers of carrots, asparagus tips; shredded salted almonds; macaroni or noodles in fancy shapes.
Jellied Soup Garnishes: Chopped olives; slivers of pickle or relish; sieved hard-cooked egg; chopped water cress, mint or parsley; slices of lemon.
Cream Soup Garnishes: Croutons; cereal croutons; egg dumplings; diced cooked vegetables; pimiento strips; shredded salted almonds; crisp cooked diced bacon; grated cheese; butteed popcorn; salted whipped cream or rosy cream.
Hearty Soups: Buttered popcorn; slices of smoked sausage or frankfurters; crisp cooked diced bacon.”
There are also recipes for Clear Soup Garnishes – choux puffs, cracker-crumb dumplings, egg dumplings, forcemeat balls, marrow balls, royal custard, threaded egg as well as whipped cream and rosy cream.
I love how that chapter begins! So cute! When was the cookbook printed? What a great chapter. I always think I should make more soups. There are some soups I really don’t like, but then I have come across others that I love. So I need to remember that there are lots of options out there and get trying them!
It’s incredible how may varieties of soup there are out there and I must admit, there are some I am not too keen on trying myself but the ones I do enjoy and want to try out way the ones I don’t by far. 🙂
So sorry Kristy, I never answered your question! The book was first copyrighted and printing in 1942!
So cool! I love older cookbooks. I think it’s fun to go back and find recipes that have been “lost” through the years. Thanks Mandy! Have a great day!
Glad you enjoying reading it with my Ktristy. You never know, given the chance, Mr N and Miss A might chose a recipe or 2 from it. 🙂
I have a soup pot on the go the entire winter – it gets left overs and bit and pieces and topped up with a soup pack every couple of weeks!
What a brilliant idea – think I will have to implement this when I get home. Have a happy day. 🙂
I love this post because I love soup. And yes, sometimes I do eat it for breakfast! It made me run to get a well loved, well thumbed soup cookbook I have “New Covent Garden Soup Company´s Book of Soups – New, Old and Odd Recipes”. It has some amusing and interesting quotes at the start of the various sections. One of my favourites is:
Economical Soup, from a Wartime Recipe book – Take one bean (haricot or butter), 7 pints of water, simmer for three weeks; then take out the bean and season to taste. If thick soup is preferred, leave the bean in.
Still makes me giggle!
Your Soup book sounds fabulous – I am intrigued by the bit on Odd Recipes and I love that each chapter starts with a quote and the one you shared is so funny. 🙂
I love soup, even in the peak of summer – it is so satisfying…Love the style of writing in that book and I absolutely love the idea of having buttered popcorn over a hearty bowl of soup…much nicer than having bread…I will have to have this for my soup topping…
-Shilpa
Glad you enjoyed the read Shilpa. I have been thoroughly enjoying sharing the book with everybody. 🙂
Rhubarb and fruit juice? I think I’d like to try that one. My soups are almost always naked…poor things.
Sadly my soups are also always naked – oh dear! 🙂
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I clicked over to your blog and saw this cookbook. This was my mother’s one and only cookbook. It’s a real classic and mine is in about the same shape as yours. I’m guessing the book is from the early forties during the war, which is when my mother married.
We love soup and make it often all year long. I like to serve soup in demitasse cups for sipping as an appetizer.
Sam
Hi Sam, welcome and thanks for stopping by. How fun to be united by an old cookbook and how special that this was your Mom’s only one that she used. 🙂 The book was first copyrighted and printed in 1942. Here is a link to my first post in the series on the book http://wp.me/pT5Tj-Ct – I have just popped over to your blog and subscribed for your updates. Looking forward to sharing. 🙂
I need to get my hands on that cookbook- I love reading about food, not just recipes, but food. Thanks so much for sharing. Those soups sound amazing and if it wasn’t a blazing 100 degrees here in Texas I would be making them pronto. Will save for the fall for sure though!
I am thoroughly enjoying paging through this 1.5kg weighted book, especially knowing that it belonged to my Nana. 🙂
Yes, this great southern land is very wet and cold at the moment! Absolutely the right time for soup lovers, we indulged in another hearty pot of pumpkin soup last night! I must admit there are some great garnishing ideas in that very special recipe book of yours, and ones I wouldn’t have thought of, always enjoy reading excerpts from that book. x
Hi Yvette, so glad you are enjoying reading the treasures from the book. 🙂
Looking at old cookbooks is so fascinating. Even though it’s warm here, I could go for soup now. Hey, the AC is on!
Not sure why we only eat soup in winter – a nice flavourful soup with some crusty bread makes for a perfect lunch. Enjoy the warm weather. 🙂
Quite excited by the idea of buttered popcorn as a soup garnish ;o)
Hi Jeanne, welcome and thanks for stopping by. Can’t say I would have thought of the popcorn. 🙂
~~Simmering chicken soup on the stove w/ dumplings. I can smell it now…like my childhood calling, Like something joyful 😉
Kim, I too associate smells with my childhood – such happy memories. 🙂 xo
Years ago I did a great deal of cooking from this book :-).I’m so glad to hear you enjoy the recipes you find in it. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary
Welcome back Mary. So pleased your computers are sorted out. I am sure that I have eaten many a meal as a youngster from recipes in this book – just wish my Nana was still around to ask. 🙂
What an awesome cookbook and chapter for that matter, with endless recipes for unique soups. Rhubarb and fruit? Now you’ve got me curious!
We will see how brave I am – not sure I will try all of the recipes. 😉
My mother has this cookbook as well and it looks just about as tattered as the one in the photo. It has an amazing chocolate pancake recipe as well!
I get very excited when I hear that somebody else has the book. Seems it was a very popular book. 🙂
Wow. I love the introduction of Soup page, and 26 pages of soup recipe means one page per soup or more than that? Wow…. It’s sunny but still windy and cold here. Soup sounds very tempting tonight….
Hi Nami. There are on average 3 recipes per page so there are loads of different ones to try. 🙂
Well, with the temperature at -1C here this morning, it is certainly soup weather but I’m not sure about garnishing soup with popcorn!
Eek, -1C! Wish I could wrap some warm Mauritius weather to send to you. Somehow I always seem to leave my soups ungarnished. 🙂
Popcorn??? Seriously?
I know, strange. 🙂
Wow., rhubarb & fruit…., interesting concept Mandy, there is SO much to learn from these old books & this winter I’ve found some of my old soup recipes I copied from other chefs while I was working in London & have been so enjoying them too.
It’s incredible to think how things have changed over the years hey Anna. Enjoy all the soups. I will start experimenting with new variations when we get home. 🙂
I read this lovely post while eating my lunchtime bowl of soup! YUM. I love all the suggestions for toppings, Mandy – I never top my soups with anything 🙂
I am so pleased you enjoyed the read with your soup. 😉 Must say the toppings is something I never do either – just been thinking so myself all these years I have served my guests “undressed” soups – will have to rectify going forward. 🙂