Soups - Not sufficiently esteemed - Better understood in France - Pot-au-feu - The "stock-pot" - Bouillon - Consomme - Endless varieties produced from these - Three distinct classes of soup - 1. The clear : of meat, fowl, and game; and vegetables or maigre - 2. The thick or purees: of the same - Various illustrations of these - 3. More substantial soups : turtle, ox - tail, and other examples - Bouillabaisse - Soups, gras and maigre - Receipts for vegetable soup - Practical hints in making the above.

I think it may be said that soups, whether clear (that is, prepared from the juices of meat and vegetables only) or thick (that is, purees of animal or vegetable matters), are far too lightly esteemed by most classes in England, while they are almost unknown to the working man. For the latter they might furnish an important cheap and savoury dish; by the former they are too often regarded as the mere prelude to a meal, to be swallowed hastily, or disregarded altogether as mostly unworthy of attention. The great variety of vegetable puriees which can be easily made and blended with light animal broths, admits of daily change in the matter of soup to a remarkable extent, and affords scope for taste in the selection and combination of flavours. The use of fresh vegetables in abundance - such as carrots, turnips, parsnips, artichokes, celery, cabbage, sorrel, leeks, and onions - renders such soups wholesome and appetizing. The supply of garden produce ought in this country to be singularly plentiful; and, owing to the unrivalled means of transport, all common vegetables ought to be obtained fresh in every part of London. The contrary, however, is unhappily the fact. It is a matter of extreme regret that vegetables, dried and compressed after a modern method, should be so much used as they are for soup by hotel - keepers and other caterers for the public. Unquestionably useful as these dried products are on board ship, and to travellers camping out, to employ them at home, when fresh can be had, is the result of sheer indolence or of gross ignorance. All the finest qualities of scent and flavour, with some of the fresh juices, are lost in the drying process; and the infusions of preserved vegetables no more resemble a freshly made odoriferous soup, than a cup of that thick brown, odourless, insipid mixture, consisting of some bottled "essence" dissolved in hot water, and now supplied as coffee at most railway stations and hotels in this country, resembles the recently made infusion of the freshly roasted berry. It says little for the taste of our countrymen that such imperfect imitations are so generally tolerated without complaint.

Soups neglected by many; an important form of diet for all.

Utilizing vegetables advantageously.

These should be fresh.

How different is the result of intelligent cookery, as we find it exemplified in the simple national soup of France. Here the appetizing odours of fresh meat and vegetables are discerned with pleasure, the moment a pot-au-feu enters the room. Relative to this dish so much has of late appeared in public prints, failing to explain what is understood in France by it, that I think an accurate description of what it really is may prove acceptable here.

The pot-au-feu is a composite dish which produces, first, a simple, but not strong, beef broth {bouillon), well flavoured by fresh vegetables; secondly, a somewhat over-cooked and exhausted piece of beef (bouilli), which is served after the soup; and, lastly, the vegetables themselves. This is a different thing from the common "stock-pot" of the French peasant, so frequently termed a pot-au-feu, and confounded with it. The primary object of a "stockpot" is to make a decoction or basis for soup - of animal food, if possible - and every morsel of flesh, poultry, trimmings from joints, bones well bruised, etc., which are available for the purpose, are reserved for it. To the pot of the "paysanne," who wastes nothing whatever, all things are welcome; and every atom of nutritive material - solid or liquid - goes into it, to which are always added herbs and vegetables,together with the liquor in which any of the latter may chance to have been boiled. But sometimes it is a pot maigre, no meat of any kind having been procurable; and very good vegetable soups, moreover, are educible therefrom, of which more hereafter. Then again, besides, or instead of the slices of bread which are usually put into the broth when served, the good wife now and then cleans a fresh cabbage, boils it in water, as much as possible of which she removes by pressure in a cloth, then puts the cabbage for a few minutes into her pot, and finally serves it as a welcome addition to the dish. But in none of these forms can the true pot-au-feu be recognized; and no Frenchman who has the least acquaintance with the national cookery will allow it to rank as one.

Example: the national French soup.

"Pot-au-feu" differs from the "stock- pot,"