Family Tomato Soup

Take four pounds of the lean of a good piece of fresh beef. The fat is of no use for soup, as it must be skimmed off when boiling. Cut the meat in pieces, season them with a little salt and pepper, and put them into a pot with three quarts of water. The tomatos will supply abundance of liquid. Of these you should have a large quarter of a peck. They should be full-grown, and quite ripe. Cut each tomato into four pieces, and put them into the soup; after it has come to a boil and been skimmed. It will be greatly improved by adding a quarter of a peck of ochras cut into thin round slices. Both tomatos and ochras require long and steady boiling with the meat. To lessen the extreme acid of the tomatos, stir in a heaped table-spoonful of sugar. Add also one large onion, peeled and minced small; and add two or three bits of fresh butter rolled in flour. The soup must boil till the meat is all to rags and the tomatos and ochras entirely dissolved, and their forms undistinguishable. Pour it off carefully from the sediment into the tureen, in the bottom of which have ready some toasted bread, cut into small squares.

Fine Tomato Soup

Take some nice fresh beef, and divest it of the bone and fat. Sprinkle it with a little salt and pepper, and pour on water, allowing to each pound of meat a pint and a half (not more) of water, and boil and skim it till it is very thick and clear, and all the essence seems to be drawn out of the meat. Scald and peel a large portion of ripe tomatos - cut them in quarters, and laying them in a stew-pan, let them cook in their own juice till they are entirely dissolved. When quite done, strain the tomato liquid, and stir into it a little sugar. In a third pan stew an equal quantity of sliced ochras with a very little water; they must be stewed till their shape can no longer be discerned. Strain separately the meat liquor, the tomatos, and the ochras. Mix butter and flour together into a lump; knead it a little, and when all the liquids are done and strained put them into a clean soup-pan, stir in the flour and butter, and give the soup one boil up. Transfer it to your tureen, and stir altogether. The soup made precisely as above will be perfectly smooth and nice. Have little rolls or milk biscuits to eat with it.

This is a tomato soup for dinner company.

Green Pea Soup

Make a nice soup, in the usual way, of beef, mutton, or knuckle of veal, cutting off all the fat, and using only the lean and the bones, allowing a quart of water to each pound of meat. If the meat is veal, add four or six calf's feet, which will greatly improve the soup. Boil it slowly, (having slightly seasoned it with pepper and salt,) and when it has boiled, and been well skimmed, and no more scum appears, then put in a quart or more of freshly-shelled green peas, with none among them that are old, hard, and yellow; and also a sprig or two of green mint, and a little loaf sugar. Boil the peas till they are entirely dissolved. Then (having removed all the meat and bones) strain the soup through a sieve, and return it to the soup-pot, (which, in the mean time, should have been washed clean,) and stir into it a tea-cupful of green spinach juice, (obtained by pounding some spinach.) Have ready (boiled, or rather stewed in another pot) a quart of young fresh peas, enriched with a piece of fresh butter. These last peas should be boiled tender, but not to a mash. After they are in, give the soup another boil up, and then pour it off into a tureen, in the bottom of which has been laid some toast cut into square bits, with the crust removed. This soup should be of a fine green color, and very thick.