Okra Soup

Fry one chicken, when cut up, to a light brown, and also two slices of bacon. Pour on to them three quarts of boiling water. Add one onion and some sweet herbs, tied in a rag. Simmer them gently three hours and a half. Strain off the liquor, take off the fat, and then put the ham and chicken, cut into small pieces, into the liquor. Add half a teacupfulof okra, cut up; if dry, the same quantity; also half a teacupful of rice. Boil all half an hour, and just before serving add a dozen oysters, with their juice. Okra is a fine vegetable, especially for soups, and is easily cultivated. It is sliced and dried for soups in winter.

Noodle Soup

Take two chickens (old ones are best) and prepare them as you would for roasting, filling them with a bread dressing, and put them in a pot with boiling water to cover them. Simmer them slowly till they are tender enough to run a fork through easily, then you can put them in the oven and brown them for the table. Take the water the chickens have been boiled in and stir in a pint of prepared noodles. Season with pepper and salt.

Italian Soup

Put into three pints of boiling water the remains of a cold fowl, or a piece of cold roast beef, or a ham bone; add one handful of Lima beans; one quart of tomatoes with their skins off; one tea-cupful of rice, and two onions sliced and fried a good brown; one large spoonful of butter; pepper and salt to taste. Let the soup boil about twenty minutes; then cut off the corn from three cobs and add to the soup. This soup requires about three-fourths of an hour to make, and is very nice. The fried onion is absolutely necessary. A few sliced Irish potatoes can be added.

Macaroni Soup

Take six pounds of beef, and put it into four quarts of water, with two onions, one carrot, one turnip, and a head of celery. Boil it down three or four hours slowly, till there are about two quarts of water, and let it cool. Next day take off the grease, without shaking the sediment, and pour it off into the kettle, half an hour before dinner (leaving the sediment out), and add salt to suit the taste, a pint of macaroni, broken into inch pieces, and a tablespoonful and a half of tomato catsup.

Bouillon

Six pounds beef, six quarts of water, pepper and salt to taste. Take a piece of round or next to the neck, wash clean and put it into the kettle with the water. Simmer it all day till there are about two quarts of soup, and let it cool. Next day take off the grease and pour the soup into a clean kettle, leaving the sediment out; add salt and pepper to suit the taste. Let it come to a boil, and serve in cups.

Ox-Tail Soup

Two ox-tails, one onion, two carrots, one stock of celery, a little parsley, and a small cut of pork. Cut the ox-tails at the joints, slice the vegetables, and mince the pork. Put the pork into a stew-pan. When hot, add first the onions; when they begin to color, add the ox-tails. Let them fry a short time. Cut them to the bone, that the juice may run out in boiling. Put both the ox-tails and fried onions into a soup-kettle, with four quarts or cold water. Let them simmer for about four hours; then add the other vegetables with three cloves stuck in a little piece of onion, and pepper and salt. As soon as the vegetables are well cooked, the soup is done. Strain it. Select some of the joints (one for each plate), trim them, and serve them with the soup; or, if preferred, the joints may be left out.

Gtblet Soup

Take the feet, neck, pinions, and giblets of two fowls, and add a pound and a half of veal, and a slice of lean ham. Pour on three quarts of cold water, and boil gently till the meat is very soft. Strain off the liquor, and when cold, take off the fat. Cut the giblets and meat into half-inch pieces; add a tablespoonful of flour with one of butter, and some of the soup to thin it. Then put into the soup the butter and meat, with some sweet herbs tied in a bag, with salt to your taste. Boil it half an hour and serve.

Venison Soup

Three pounds of venison. "What are considered the inferior pieces will do. One pound of ham or salt pork, one onion, one head of celery. Cut up the meat; chop up the vegetables, and put on with just enough water to cover them, keeping on the lid of the pot all the while, and stew slowly for one hour. Then add two quarts of boiling water, with a few blades of mace and a dozen whole peppers. Or, should you prefer, a little cayenne. Boil two hours longer; salt and strain. Return the liquor to the pot; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour wet into a smooth thin paste, with cold water; add a tablespoonful of Worcestershire or other pungent sauce.

Hare Or Babbit Soup

Dissect the rabbit, crack the bones, and prepare precisely as you would the venison soup, only putting in three small onions instead of one, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Hare which are too tough to be cooked in any other way, make excellent game soup. Also the large gray squirrel of the Middle and Southern States.

Rich Veal Soup

Take three pounds of the neck of veal, cut it in pieces and put it with the bones (which must be broken up), into a kettle with two quarts of water. Stew it till the meat is done to rags, and skim it well; strain it and return to the kettle. Blanch and pound to a smooth paste a quarter of a pound of sweet almonds, and mix them with the yolks of six hard boiled eggs mashed smooth, and a pint of cream, which must first have been boiled or it will curdle the soup, and let it boil afterwards about three minutes, stirring all the time. Lay in the bottom of the tureen some slices of toast, pour the soup on it and send it to the table.