Boil whatever sized piece of rump of beef you prefer. Cover with cold water, after placing in a soup kettle on top of the stove. Boil very slowly four hours. Skim when it boils. The second hour add salt to taste, and pepper very carefully. Scrape three carrots, wash them, and split down the centre. Add two onions cut in half. Boil until very tender. When done set in an earthen dish in a cold place to stand overnight. In the morning skim off all the fat Take out the meat, rinse it off in the liquor, cut off all fat and gristle and throw aside, and cut the meat in large pieces. Save the carrot, but not the onion. Strain the soup in a large saucepan, add the meat and carrot, and, if liked, a little chopped parsley. Set on the stove and heat. Have ready hot boiled rice. Place one tablespoon of rice in the centre of a soup plate, on one side place a piece or two of meat, on the other a carrot. With a ladle pour over this some of the soup and serve hot

CornedBeef Soup

Slice an onion into a quart of the liquor in which you have boiled cornedbeef. Set it over the fire, and when it begins to boil drop in the still wet broken shell of an egg. Boil for a moment and pour through a sieve or coarse cloth strainer. Set the soup again on the fire, add a pint of milk, into which you have stirred and dissolved smooth two tablespoons of flour, boil a moment till the flour cooks, stir in a beaten egg and serve.

Clear Soup

Take two pounds of lean beef, cut in pieces as big as the end of your thumb, free it from all fat, and pour over it two quarts of cold water. Let it slowly come to boil, set it back to simmer a few minutes, and again let it come to boil. Cool and boil up once more. Each time skim thoroughly. Have scraped a small carrot and two small onions. Stick eight cloves in the onions, and with the carrot drop in the soup. Let boil slowly, and add a teaspoon of celery seed, two blades of mace, and a few bits of parsley. When the onions are tender clear through, strain the soup through a bag. Put back in the kettle and stir in the wellbeaten whites of two eggs. Boil until the eggs gather, stir in a teaspoon of burned sugar to give a delicate brown color, and strain till the soup is clear. Serve hot.

Oxtail Soup

Separate the tail at the joints and soak in cold water an hour. In three tablespoons of butter or drippings fry three small sliced onions. When the onions are brown drop in the beef pieces, first rolling them lightly in flour. When the meat fries brown add two quarts of cold water, cover tight, set over a slow fire, or on the back of the stove and cook slowly four hours. An hour before serving skim off the fat, add the seasoning your taste directs, whether of mixed herbs in a bouquet, or merely salt, and simmer, tightly covered, till needed. Serve with bread sticks or with sippets.

Oyster Bouillon

Drain from their own liquor and chop fine two dozen large oysters. Put them to heat slowly in a doubleboiler. When they have become hot put through a sieve and press from them all their juice. The liquor you get under the sieve add to the liquor you get by first draining the oysters, and set on the fire in an earthen saucepan. Stir in the beaten white of an egg and let come to boil. Then strain through a cheeseSloth bag, add salt and pepper, and the same quantity of hot creamy milk as you have oyster liquor. Serve hot with Croutons or bread fingers.

Oyster Gumbo

A New Orleans Dish have a deep soup pot very hot. Put in a large tablespoon of beef drippings and two tablespoons of flour. Stir constantly until brown. Add one large minced onion, a good pinch of thyme, and one goodsized minced sweet pepper without its seed. When these become quite brown add two tablespoons of canned tomatoes. Stir continually till the whole is well cooked, adding a little tomatojuice to keep from burning. Add one quart of juice from which you have drained the oysters that go with the juice. Also one clove of minced garlic, one teaspoon of minced parsley, salt to taste, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Allow the soup to boil five minutes. Add the drained oysters, letting them boil three minutes. Last of all, while the soup boils add a teaspoon of file powder, stirring thoroughly. Remove at once from the fire, and serve with hot boiled rice, a tablespoon to each soup plate, and the soup poured over the rice.

Oyster Stew

Take one quart of nice oysters. Pour them into a colander and set over a pan to drain. Look over the oysters to see that there are no shells with them. Put into a mediumsized granite preserving kettle one pint of milk and one pint and a quarter of water. To this add five soda crackers rolled very fine, one rather heaping teaspoon of salt, and a dash of pepper. Now add the liquor that was drained from the oysters. Set the kettle on the stove. Stir occasionally, and as soon as the milk boils up pour in the oysters, which will cool the milk. The moment it boils up again take at once from the fire, and set where it will keep hot without boiling. Add one tablespoon of butter and stir when melted. Let stand ten minutes before serving. The flavor improves by standing a short time. Have the soup plates hot, and break one soda cracker into each plate separately. Ladle the oysters over the crackers and serve.