Soups are thickened with flour, corn starch or rice flour, 1 tablespoon for each qt. of soup, heaping, if flour is used; scant, if rice flour or corn starch. Mix flour with cold water to a smooth paste, then add liquid until it is easily poured into soup. Let it boil 20 minutes. If butter is used, put in a saucepan, and when bubbling stir in flour quickly until smooth; then add gradually 1 cup of hot soup; it should be thin enough to pour. In vegetable soups or purees, as soon as butter and flour are blended it can be added to the soup. If a brown thickening is desired, melt the butter and let it become brown, then add the flour at once, and stir quickly. Add water or soup gradually. Flour that is browned while dry colors, but does not thicken. Thickened soups should be of the consistency of good cream. Purees are thicker. - Mabel Sturtevant, 105 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, 111.