The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

SNAILS. These are a species of slugs covered with shell, and which are very destructive to wall fruit. To prevent their ascending the standard trees, tie a coarse horse-hair rope about them, two or three feet from the ground; and to secure the wall trees, nail a narrow slip of horse-hair cloth against the wall, about half an inch from the ground, underneath the branches of the tree. In the winter time the snails may be found in the holes of walls, under thorns, behind old trees or close hedges, and might be taken and destroyed. When they attack vegetables, a few sliced turnips laid on the borders will attract them in the evening, when they may easily be gathered up. Lime and ashes strewed on the ground, will also prevent their depredations.

SNIPES. These birds will keep several days, and should be roasted without drawing, and then served on toast. Butter only should be eaten with them, as gravy takes off from the fine flavour. The thigh and back are most esteemed.

SNIPES IN RAGOUT. Slit them down the backs, but do not take out the insides; toss them up with a little melted bacon fat, seasoned with pepper and salt, and a little mushroom ketchup; when they are enough, squeeze in a little juice of lemon, and serve them up.

SNIPES IN SURTOUT. Half roast your snipes, and save the trail; then make a forcemeat with veal, and as much beef suet chopped, and beat in a mortar; add an equal quantity of bread crumbs: season it with beaten mace, pepper, salt, parsley, and sweet herbs shred fine; mix all together, and moisten it with the yolks of eggs: lay a rim of this forcemeat round the dish, then put in your snipes. Take strong gravy, according to your dish, with morels and truffles, a few mushrooms, a sweetbread cut in pieces, and an artichoke bottom cut small: let all stew together, then beat up the yolks of two or three eggs with a little white wine; pour this into your gravy, and keep it stirring till it is of a proper thickness, then let it stand to cool; work up the remainder of your forcemeat, and roll it out as you do paste; pour your sauce over the birds, and lay on your forcemeat; close the edges, and wash it over with the yolks of eggs, and strew bread crumbs over that; send it to the oven about half an hour, and then to table as hot as you can.

SNOW BALLS. Swell some rice in milk, and strain it off. Having pared and cored some apples, put the rice round them, and tie up each in a cloth. Add to each a bit of lemon peel, a clove, or cinnamon, and boil them well.

SNOW CREAM. Put to a quart of cream the whites of three eggs well beaten, four spoonfuls of sweet wine, sugar to sweeten, and a bit of lemon peel. Whip it to a froth, remove the peel, and serve the cream in a dish.

SOLDERING. Put into a crucible two ounces of lead, and when it is melted, throw in an ounce of tin. This alloy is that generally known by the name of solder. When heated by a hot iron, and applied to tinned iron, with powdered rosin, it acts as a cement or solder. It is also used to join leaden pipes, and other articles.

SOLES. A fine thick sole is almost as good eating as turbot, and may be boiled in the same way. Wash the fish and clean it nicely, put it into a fish-kettle with a handful of salt, and as much cold water as will cover it. Set it on the side of the fire, take off the scum as it rises, and let it boil gently about five minutes, or longer if it be very large. Send it up on a fish-drainer, garnished with slices of lemon and sprigs of curled parsley, or nicely fried smelts, or oysters. Slices of lemon for garnish are universally approved, either with fried or boiled fish. Parsley and butter, or fennel and butter, make an excellent sauce; chervil sauce, or anchovies, are also approved. Boiled soles are very good warmed up like eels, or covered with white wine sauce. When soles are very large, the best way is to take off the fillets, trim them neatly, and press them dry in a soft cloth. Egg them over, strew on fine bread crumbs, and fry them. Or skin and wash a pair of large soles very clean, dry them in a cloth, wash them with the yolk of an egg on both sides, and strew over them a little flour, and a few bread crumbs; fry them of a fine gold colour, in Florence oil, enough to cover them; when done, drain them, and lay them into an earthen dish that will hold them at length, and set them by to cool; then make the marinate with a pint of the best vinegar, half a pint of sherry, some salt, pepper, nutmeg, two cloves, and a blade of mace; boil all together for about ten minutes, then pour it over the fish hot, the next day they will be fit for use. When you dish them up, put some of the liquor over them; garnish the dish with fennel, sliced lemon, barberries, and horseradish. If you have any fried fish cold, you may put it into this marinate. – To fricassee soles white. Clean your soles very well, bone them nicely, and if large, cut them in eight pieces, if small, only in four; take off the heads; put the heads and bones, an anchovy, a faggot of sweet herbs, a blade or two of mace, some whole pepper, salt, an onion, and a crust of bread, all into a clean saucepan, with a pint of water, cover it close, and let it boil till a third is wasted; strain it through a fine sieve into a stew-pan; put in your soles with a gill of white wine, a little parsley chopped fine, a few mushrooms cut in two, a piece of butter rolled in flour, enough to thicken your sauce; set it over your stove, shake your pan frequently, till they are enough, and of a good thickness; take the scum off very clean, dish them up, and garnish with lemon and barberries. – Another way. Strip off the black skin of the fish, but not the white; then take out the bones, and cut the flesh into slices about two inches long; dip the slices in the yolks of eggs, and strew over them raspings of bread; then fry them in clarified butter, and when they are fried enough, take them out on a plate, and set them by the fire till you have made the following sauce. Take the bones of the fish, boil them up with water, and put in some anchovy and sweet herbs, such as thyme and parsley, and add a little pepper, cloves and mace. When these have boiled together some time, take the butter in which the fish was fried, put it into a pan over the fire, shake flour into it, and keep it stirring while the flour is shaking in; then strain the liquor into it, in which the fish bones, herbs, and spice were boiled, and boil it together, till it is very thick, adding lemon juice to your taste. Put your fish into a dish, and pour the sauce over it; serve it up, garnished with slices of lemon and fried parsley. This dish may take place on any part of the table, either in the first or second course. – Another way. Take a pair of large soles, skin and clean them well, pour a little vinegar, and strew some salt over them; let them lay in this till they are to be used. When you want to boil them, take a clean stew-pan, put in a pint of white wine, and a little water, a faggot of sweet herbs, an onion stuck with three or four cloves, a blade of mace, a little whole pepper, and a little salt. When your soles are enough, take them up, and lay them into a dish, strain off the liquor, put it into the stew-pan, with a good piece of butter rolled in flour, and half a pint of white shrimps clean picked; toss all up together, till it is of a proper thickness; take care to skim it very clean, pour it over the fish. Garnish the dish with scraped horseradish, and sliced lemon; or you may send them to table plain, and for sauce, chop the meat of a lobster, bruise the body very smooth with a spoon, mix it with your liquor, and send it to table in a boat or bason. This is much the best way to dress a small turbot.

SOLE PIE. Split some soles from the bone, and cut the fins close. Season with a mixture of salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and pounded mace, and put them in layers, with oysters. A pair of middling-sized soles will be sufficient, and half a hundred oysters. Put in the dish the oyster liquor, two or three spoonfuls of broth, and some butter. When the pie comes from the oven, pour in a cupful of thick cream, and it will eat excellently. – Another way. Clean and bone a pair of large soles; boil about two pounds of eels tender; take off all the meat, put the bones into the water they were boiled in, with the bones of the soles, a blade of mace, whole pepper, and a little salt; let this boil till you have about half a pint of strong broth. Take the flesh off the eels, and chop it very fine, with a little lemon peel, an anchovy, parsley, and bread crumbs: season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten mace; melt a quarter of a pound of butter, and work all up to a paste. Sheet the dish with a good puff-paste; lay the forcemeat on the paste, and then lay in the soles; strain off the broth, scum it clean, pour over the fish a sufficient quantity, and lay on the lid. When it comes from the oven, if you have any of the broth left, you may warm it, and pour it into the pie.

SOLID SYLLABUBS. Mix a quart of thick raw cream, one pound of refined sugar, a pint and a half of fine raisin wine, in a deep pan; and add the grated peel and the juice of three lemons. Beat or whisk it one way, half an hour; then put it on a sieve, with a piece of thin muslin laid smooth in the shallow end, till the next day. Put it in glasses: it will keep good in a cool place ten days.

SOMERSETSHIRE SYLLABUB. Put into a large china bowl a pint of port, a pint of sherry, or other white wine, and sugar to taste. Milk the bowl full. In twenty minutes' time, cover it pretty high with clouted cream. Grate nutmeg over it, add pounded cinnamon, and nonpareil comfits.

SORE BREASTS. Sore breasts in females, during the time of suckling, are often occasioned by the improper practice of drawing the breasts, which is both painful and dangerous. If they get too full and hard before the infant can be applied, it is better to let them remain a few hours in that state, than to use any unnatural means, or else to present the breast to a child that is a few months old. It is the application of too great force in drawing them, placing a child to suck at improper times, the use of stimulating liquors and heated rooms, which frequently occasion milk fevers and abscesses in the breast. The nipple is sometimes so sore, that the mother is sometimes obliged to refuse the breast, and a stagnation takes place, which is accompanied with ulcerations and fever. To prevent these dangerous affections, the young mother should carefully protrude the nipple between her fingers to make it more prominent, and cover it with a hollow nutmeg several weeks previous to her delivery. But if the parts be already in a diseased state, it will be proper to bathe them with lime water, or diluted port wine. After this the breast should be dressed with a little spermaceti ointment, or a composition of white wax and olive oil, which is mild and gentle. If this do not answer the purpose, take four ounces of diachylon, two ounces of olive oil, and one ounce of vinegar. Boil them together over a gentle fire, keep stirring them till reduced to an ointment, and apply a little of it to the nipple on a fine linen rag. If accompanied with fever, take the bark in electuary three or four times a day, the size of a nutmeg, and persevere in it two or three weeks if necessary.

SORE EYES. Pound together in a mortar, an ounce of bole-ammoniac, and a quarter of an ounce of white copperas. Shred fine an ounce of camphor, and mix the ingredients well together. Pour on them a quart of boiling water, stir the mixture till it is cold, and apply a drop or two to the eye, to remove humours or inflammation. A cooling eye-water may be made of a dram of lapis calaminaris finely powdered, mixed with half a pint of white wine, and the same of plantain water.

SORE THROAT. An easy remedy for this disorder is to dip a piece of broad black ribband into hartshorn, and wear it round the throat two or three days. If this be not sufficient, make a gargle in the following manner. Boil a little green sage in water, strain it, and mix it with vinegar and honey. Or pour a pint of boiling verjuice on a handful of rosemary tops in a basin, put a tin funnel over it with the pipe upwards, and let the fume go to the throat as hot as it can be borne. A common drink for a sore throat may be made of two ounces of Turkey figs, the same quantity of sun raisins cut small, and two ounces of pearl barley, boiled in three pints of water till reduced to a quart. Boil it gently, then strain it, and take it warm. Sometimes a handful of salt heated in an earthen pan, then put into a flannel bag, and applied as hot as possible round the throat, will answer the purpose. A fumigation for a sore throat may be made in the following manner. Boil together a pint of vinegar, and an ounce of myrrh, for half an hour, and pour the liquor into a basin. Place over it the large part of a funnel that fits the basin, and let the patient inhale the vapour by putting the pipe of the funnel into his mouth. The fumigation must be applied as hot as possible, and renewed every quarter of an hour, till the patient is relieved. For an inflammation or putrid sore throat, or a quinsey, this will be found of singular use if persisted in.

SORREL SAUCE. Wash and clean a quantity of sorrel, put it into a stewpan that will just hold it, with a piece of butter, and cover it close. Set it over a slow fire for a quarter of an hour, pass the sorrel with the back of a wooden spoon through a hair sieve, season it with pepper and salt, and a dust of powdered sugar. Make it hot, and serve it up under lamb, veal, or sweetbreads. Cayenne, nutmeg, and lemon juice, are sometimes added.

SORREL SOUP. Make a good gravy with part of a knuckle of veal, and the scrag end of a neck or a chump end of a loin of mutton. Season it with a bunch of sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, and two or three cloves. When the meat is quite stewed down, strain it off, and let it stand till cold. Clear it well from the fat, put it into a stewpan with a young fowl nicely trussed, and set it over a slow fire. Wash three or four large handfuls of sorrel, chop it a little, fry it in butter, put it into the soup, and let the whole stew till the fowl is well done. Skim it very clean, and serve it up with the fowl in the soup.

SOUPS. It has generally been considered as good economy to use the cheapest and most inferior kind of meat for broths and soups, and to boil it down till it is entirely destroyed, and hardly worth giving to the pigs. But this is a false frugality; and it is far better to buy good pieces of meat, and only stew them till they are tender enough to be eaten. Lean juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the basis of good broth; and it is therefore advisable to procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and such as is fresh slain. Stale meat will make the broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat is not so well adapted to the purpose. The following herbs, roots, and seasonings, are proper for making and giving a relish to broths and soups, according as the taste may suit. Scotch barley, pearl barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, bread, raspings, peas, beans, rice, vermicelli, maccaroni, isinglass, potatoe mucilage, mushroom, or mushroom ketchup, champignons, parsnips, carrots, beet root, turnips, garlic, shalots, and onions. Sliced onions fried with butter and flour till they are browned, and then rubbed through a sieve, are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of most of the fine relishes furnished by the cook. The older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour, and the quantity must be regulated accordingly. Leeks, cucumber, or burnet vinegar; celery, or celery seed pounded. The latter, though equally strong, does not impart the delicate sweetness of the fresh vegetable; and when used as a substitute, its flavour should be corrected by the addition of a bit of sugar. Cress seed, parsley, common thyme, lemon thyme, orange thyme, knotted marjoram, sage, mint, winter savoury, and basil. As fresh green basil is seldom to be procured, and its fine flavour is soon lost, the best way of preserving the extract is by pouring wine on the fresh leaves. Bay leaves, tomata, tarragon, chervil, burnet, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, mace, black pepper, white pepper, essence of anchovy, lemon peel, lemon juice, and Seville orange juice. The latter imparts a finer flavour than the lemon, and the acid is much milder. The above materials, with wine and mushroom ketchup, combined in various proportions, will make an endless variety of excellent broths and soups. The general fault of English soups seems to be the employment of an excess of spice, and too small a proportion of roots and herbs. This is especially the case with tavern soups, where cayenne and garlic are often used instead of black pepper and onion, for the purpose of obtaining a higher relish. Soups, which are intended to constitute the principal part of a meal, certainly ought not to be flavoured like sauces, which are only designed to give a relish to some particular dish. The principal art in composing a good rich soup, is so to proportion the several ingredients one to another, that no particular taste be stronger than the rest; but to produce such a fine harmonious relish, that the whole becomes delightful. In order to this, care must be taken that the roots and herbs be perfectly well cleaned, and that the water be proportioned to the quantity of meat, and other ingredients. In general a quart of water may be allowed to a pound of meat for soups; and half the quantity for gravies. If they stew gently, little more water need be put in at first, than is expected at the end; for when the pot is covered quite close, and the fire gentle, very little is wasted. Gentle stewing is incomparably the best; the meat is more tender, and the soup better flavoured. The cover of a soup kettle should fit very close, or the most essential parts of the broth will soon evaporate, as will also be the case with quick boiling. It is not merely the fibres of the meat that afford nourishment, but chiefly the juices they contain; and these are not only extracted but exhaled, if it be boiled fast in an open vessel. A succulent soup can never be made but in a well closed vessel, which preserves the nutritive parts by preventing their dissipation, yet the flavour is perhaps more wholesome by an exposure to the air. Place the soup kettle over a moderate fire, sufficient to make the water hot, without causing it to boil; for if the water boils immediately, it will not penetrate the meat, and cleanse it from the clotted blood and other matters, which ought to go off in scum. The meat will be hardened all over by violent heat, will shrink up as if it were scorched, and afford very little gravy. On the contrary, by keeping the water heating about half an hour without boiling, the meat swells, becomes tender, and its fibres are dilated. By this process, it yields a quantity of scum, which must be taken off as soon as it appears. After the meat has had a good infusion for half an hour, the fire may be improved to make the pot boil, and the vegetables be put in with a little salt. These will cause more scum to rise, which must be taken off immediately. Then cover the boiler very closely, and place it at a proper distance from the fire, where it is to boil very gently and equally, but not fast. Soups will generally take from three to six hours doing. The better way is to prepare them the evening before, as that will give more time to attend to the dinner the next day. When the soup is cold, the fat may much more easily and completely be removed; and when it is decanted, take care not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve. A tammis is the best strainer, the soup appears smoother and finer, and the cloth is easier cleaned than any sieve. If you strain it while it is hot, let the tammis or napkin be previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of the strainer will tend to coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure broth to pass through. The full flavour of the ingredients can only be extracted by long and slow simmering, during which the boiler must be kept close covered, to prevent evaporation. Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, thickened soups about the consistence of cream; the latter will require nearly double the quantity of seasoning, but too much spice makes it unwholesome. To thicken and give body to soups and sauces, the following materials are used. Bread raspings, potatoe mucilage, isinglass, flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal and water rubbed well together. Any of these are to be mixed gradually with the soup, till thoroughly incorporated, and it should afterwards have at least half an hour's gentle simmering. If it appears lumpy, it must be passed through a tammis or fine sieve. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit of butter and flour, and rubbed through a sieve, and gradually incorporated with the soup, will be found an excellent addition. If the soup is too thin or too weak, take off the cover of the boiler, and let it boil till some of the watery part of it has evaporated; or add some of the thickening materials before mentioned. When soups and gravies are kept from day to day, in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh scalded pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar. In temperate weather, every other day may be sufficient. – It has been imagined that soups tend to relax the stomach; but so far from being prejudicial in this way, the moderate use of such kind of liquid food may rather be considered as salutary, and affording a good degree of nourishment. Soup of a good quality, if not eaten too hot, or in too great a quantity, is attended with great advantages, especially to those who drink but little. Warm fluids in the form of soup, unite with our juices much sooner and better, than those which are cold and raw. On this account, what is called Restorative Soup is the best food for those who are enfeebled by disease or dissipation, and for old people, whose teeth and digestive organs are impaired. After taking cold, or in nervous headachs, cholics, indigestions, and different kinds of cramps and spasms in the stomach, warm broth or soup is of excellent service. After intemperate eating, to give the stomach a holiday for a day or two, by a diet on mutton broth, is the best way to restore its tone. The stretching of any power to its utmost extent, weakens it; and if the stomach be obliged every day to do as much as it can, it will every day be able to do less. It is therefore a point of wisdom to be temperate in all things, frequently to indulge in soup diet, and occasionally in almost total abstinence, in order to preserve the stomach in its full tone and vigour. – Cheap soups for charitable purposes are best made of fat meat, well boiled with vegetables. Much unreasonable prejudice has prevailed on this subject, as if fat was unsuitable for such a purpose, when it is well known that the nutritious parts of animal and vegetable diet depend on the oil, jelly, mucilage, and sweetness which they contain. The farina of grain, and the seeds of vegetables, contain more of the nutritious and essential parts of the plant than any other, as is evident from the use of celery seed, the eighth part of an ounce of which will give more relish to a gallon of soup, than a large quantity of the root or stalk. On the same principle, the fat is the essence of meat, nearly so as the seeds of plants are of their respective species. To establish this fact, a simple experiment will be sufficient. Boil from two to four ounces of the lean part of butcher's meat in six quarts of water, till reduced to a gallon. Thicken it with oatmeal, and the result of the decoction will be found to be water gruel, or something like it. But dissolve the same quantity of the fat of meat in a gallon of water, thicken it over the fire with oatmeal, and the result will be a very pleasant broth, possessing the identical taste of the meat in a considerable degree, whether of beef or mutton. If some of the gelatinous parts of meat be added, the broth is then of a rich and nutritious quality, and can be made very cheap. For example: take from four to six ounces of barley, oatmeal two ounces, onions or leeks a small quantity; beef fat, suet, or drippings, from two to four ounces; celery seed half a spoonful, pepper and salt to give the soup a relish, and water sufficient to make a gallon. Boil the barley, previously washed, in six quarts of water, which when boiled sufficiently soft will be reduced to a gallon. It will be necessary to skim it clean in the course of the boiling, and to stir it well from the bottom of the boiler. The celery seed should be bruised, and added with the leeks and onions, towards the end of the process. The oatmeal is to be mixed in a little cold water, and put in about an hour before the soup is done. In the last place add the fat, melted before the fire, if not in a state of drippings, and season with pepper and salt. A few grains of cayenne would give the soup a higher relish. Wheat flour may be used instead of oatmeal, but in a smaller proportion. The addition of turnips, carrots, and cabbages, will be a considerable improvement. The intention of the oatmeal or flour is, by the mucilage they contain, assisted with barley broth, to unite the fat with the liquid, so as to form one uniform mass. Where the fat is suspended in the soup, and not seen floating on the top, by which it is rendered easier of digestion, and more readily convertible into good chyle, it is evident that it must be more palatable, as well as abundantly more nutritious. Some may think this kind of soup unwholesome, from the quantity of fat it contains; but a little reflection will shew the contrary. Suet puddings and dumplins are not unwholesome, neither are mutton drippings with potatoes or other vegetables. In short, fat is eaten daily by all ranks of people, in some way or other, in much larger quantities than is prescribed for soup. A labouring man would find no difficulty in eating as much suet at one meal, in a flour pudding, or as much drippings as is necessary for a gallon of soup, in a mass of potatoes or cabbages; while at the same time a quart of soup with a slice of bread, would be a very hearty meal. In no other way could meat drippings be applied to so good a purpose, as in the manufacture of a gallon of soup, sufficient to give a dinner to a whole family. The quantity of fat or drippings necessary for the soup is so small, that it may easily be spared from a joint of roast meat, while enough will remain for other purposes. When mutton dripping is made into soup, wheat flour is better than oatmeal; but the mucilage of potatoe is better still, requiring only one ounce to the gallon. When pork is roasted, peas should be used in preference to boiled barley, and the soup will be very superior in flavour to any that is made with the bones of meat, or combined with bacon. Fat pork is eaten daily in large quantities, in most of the counties of England; and in some parts, hog's lard is spread on bread instead of butter, besides the abundance of lard that is used by all ranks of people, in puddings, cakes, and pasties. Fat enters so much into the composition of our diet, that we could scarcely subsist without it; and the application of it to soups is only a different mode of using it, and certainly more frugal and economical than any other. It may readily be perceived how soups made from lean meat might be improved by the addition of a little fat, mixed up and incorporated with a mucilage of potatoes, of wheat flour, oatmeal, peas, and barley. But where a quantity of fat swims on the surface of the broth, made from a fat joint of meat, and it cannot from its superabundance be united with the liquid, by means of any mucilage, it had better be skimmed off, and preserved for future use; otherwise the soup will not be agreeable, for it is the due proportion of animal and vegetable substance that makes soup pleasant and wholesome. To make good soup of a leg of beef or an ox cheek, which is generally called stew, a pretty large quantity of the vegetable class ought to be added; and none seems better adapted than Scotch barley, by which double and treble the quantity of soup may be made from the same given weight of meat. One pint of well prepared leg of beef, or ox cheek soup, together with the fat, will make a gallon of good soup at the trifling expense of four-pence. In the same way soups may be made from the stew of beef, mutton, veal, or pork, choosing those parts where mucilage, jelly, and fat abound. Bacon is allowed to be a considerable improvement to the taste of veal, whether roasted or boiled; and it is the same in soup. When therefore veal broth is made for family use, two ounces of fat bacon should be added to every gallon, melted before the fire or in a fryingpan. The soup should then be thickened with flour, potatoe starch, and barley. The last article should seldom be omitted in any soup, it being so very cheap and pleasant, as well as wholesome and nutritious. Soup made of tripe is another cheap article. Boil a pound of well cleaned tripe in a gallon of barley broth, with onions and parsley, adding two ounces of bacon fat, with salt and pepper. This produces an extremely nutritious soup, from the gelatinous principle with which the tripe abounds. Cow heels, calves and sheep's feet, are also well adapted to the purpose. Excellent soups may be made from fried meat, where the fat and gravy are added to the boiled barley; and for that purpose, fat beef steaks, pork and mutton chops, should be preferred, as containing more of the nutritious principle. Towards the latter end of frying the steaks, add a little water to produce a gravy, which is to be put to the barley broth. A little flour should also be dredged in, which will take up all the fat left in the fryingpan. A quantity of onions should previously be shred, and fried with the fat, which gives the soup a fine flavour, with the addition of pepper, salt, and other seasoning. There would be no end to the variety of soups that might be made from a number of cheap articles differently combined; but perhaps the distribution of soup gratis does not answer so well as teaching people how to make it, and to improve their comforts at home. The time lost in waiting for the boon, and fetching it home, might by an industrious occupation, however poorly paid for labour, be turned to a better account than the mere obtaining of a quart of soup. But it unfortunately happens, that the best and cheapest method of making a nourishing soup, is least known to those who have most need of it. The labouring classes seldom purchase what are called the coarser pieces of meat, because they do not know how to dress them, but lay out their money in pieces for roasting, which are far less profitable, and more expensive in the purchase. To save time, trouble, and firing, these are generally sent to the oven to be baked, the nourishing parts are evaporated and dried up, the weight is diminished nearly one third, and what is purchased with a week's earnings is only sufficient for a day or two's consumption. If instead of this improvident proceeding, a cheap and wholesome soup were at least occasionally substituted, it would banish the still more pernicious custom of drinking tea two or three times a day, for want of something more supporting and substantial. In addition then to the directions already given, the following may be considered as one of the cheapest and easiest methods of making a wholesome soup, suited to a numerous family among the labouring classes. Put four ounces of Scotch barley washed clean, and four ounces of sliced onions, into five quarts of water. Boil it gently for one hour, and pour it into a pan. Put into a saucepan nearly two ounces of beef or mutton drippings, or melted suet, or two or three ounces of minced bacon; and when melted, stir into it four ounces of oatmeal. Rub these together into a paste, and if properly managed, the whole of the fat will combine with the barley broth, and not a particle, appear on the surface to offend the most delicate stomach. Now add the barley broth, at first a spoonful at a time, then the rest by degrees, stirring it well together till it boils. Put into a teacup a dram of finely pounded cress or celery seed, and a quarter of a dram of finely pounded cayenne, or a dram and a half of ground black pepper or allspice, and mix it up with a little of the soup. Put this seasoning into the whole quantity, stir up the soup thoroughly, let it simmer gently a quarter of an hour, and add a little salt. The flavour may be varied by doubling the portion of onions, or adding a clove of garlic or shalot, and leaving out the celery seed. Change of food is absolutely necessary, not only as a matter of pleasure and comfort, but also of health. It may likewise be much improved, if instead of water, it be made of the liquor that meat has been boiled in. This soup has the advantage of being very soon made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room. Those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a savoury and satisfying meal is produced by the combination of these cheap and homely ingredients.