To reduce stock is to make it smaller in quantity, but stronger, by boiling and letting the steam escape. This is a process often required, especially in the preparation of white soups, an economical form of nourishment too much neglected. In making No. 3 Stock (see Stock) I stated that extract of meat should be added to the stock for all coloured soup. For white soups we don't want any colour, and the extract of meat would spoil the appearance of the soup. Take that admirable soup for children, vegetable marrow soup; the cost of the vegetable marrow, say, one penny; one quart of milk, fivepence, and a quart of No. 3 Stock, made from bones, say, twopence.

Boil the vegetable marrow, after peeling and taking out the pips, in the stock. When it is tender, take out the vegetable marrow and rub it through a wire sieve into a basin. Now, boil away the stock in which the vegetable marrow has boiled till the quart has been reduced to half a pint. You must let it boil freely without any lid on the saucepan. When it is reduced to this quantity, add it to a quart of milk that has been boiled separately. Add the pulp of the vegetable marrow, and thicken the whole, if necessary, to the consistency of cream, with a little white thickening. (See No. 12.) Fried bread or toast may be served with this soup plentifully. It is an admirable beginning to a dinner for children, who often eat more meat than is good for them. In this soup the only flavouring should be pepper and salt, with the exception, perhaps, of boiling a bay-leaf in the milk.