I AM amused and yet made thoughtful by the fact that so many young housekeepers write to me of their pleasure in cake-making and their desire to learn how to compound what are usually known as “fancy-dishes,” some sending excellent receipts for loaf-cake, cookies and doughnuts, while few express the least interest in soups, meats and vegetables. The drift of the dear creatures’ thoughts reminds me of a rhymed—“If I had!” which I read years ago, setting forth how a little boy would have if he could, a house built of pastry, floored with taffy, ceiled with sugar-plums, and roofed with frosted gingerbread. In engaging a cook one does not ask, first of all, “Can you get up handsome desserts?” but, “Do you understand bread-making and baking, and the management of meats, soups, and other branches of plain cookery?”

The same “plain cookery” is the pivot on which the family health and comfort rest and turn. If you would qualify yourselves to become thorough housewives, it is as essential that you should master the principles of this, as that a musician should be able to read the notes on the staff. Some people do play tolerably by ear, but they are never ranked as students, much less as professors of music. “Fancy” cookery is to the real thing what embroidery is to the art of the seamstress. She who has learned how to use her needle deftly upon “seam, gusset and band,” will find the acquisition of ornamental stitches an easy matter. Skill in Kensington and satin stitch is of little value in fitting one to do “fine,” which is also useful sewing.

I am sorry to add that my observation goes to prove that more American housekeepers can make delicate and rich cake than excellent soups.

Soup Stock.

Meat and bones should be raw, but if you have bones left from underdone beef or mutton, you may crack and add them. Put all the ingredients (no salt or pepper) in a large clean pot, cover it closely and set at one side of the range where it will not get really hot under two hours. This gives the water time to draw out the juices of the meat. Then remove to a warmer place, stir up well from the bottom, and cook slowly five hours longer.

It should never boil hard, but “bubble-bubble” softly and steadily all the while. Fast boiling toughens the fibres and keeps in the juice of the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up, lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your “stock-pot.” This should be a stout stone crock or jar, with a cover, and be used for nothing else.

See that it is free from grease, dust and all smell, scald out with hot water and soda, then with clean boiling water just before pouring in the soup, or the hot liquid may crack it.

Put on the cover and set in a cold place until next day.

Then take off every particle of the caked fat from the top. You can use this as dripping for frying. Soup that has globules of grease floating on the surface is unwholesome and slovenly.

Strain the skimmed liquid through a colander, squeezing the meat hard to extract every drop of nutriment. Throw away the tasteless fibres and bones when you have wrung them dry.

This process should give you about three quarts of strong “stock.”

Rinse your jar well and pour back the strained stock into it to be used as the foundation of several days’ soups. Season it highly and keep in a cold place—in warm weather on the ice.

I hope you will not fail to set up a “stock-pot.” Every family should have one. It makes the matter of really good soups simple and easy.

Clear Soup with Sago or Tapioca.

Soak half a cup of German sago or pearl tapioca four hours in a large cup of cold water. An hour before dinner put a quart of your soup-stock on the stove and bring quickly almost to a boil. When it is hot, stir in the raw white and the shell of an egg, and, stirring frequently to prevent the egg from catching on the bottom of the pot, boil fast ten minutes.

Take off and strain through a clean thick cloth, wrung out in hot water and laid like a lining in your colander. Do not squeeze the cloth, or you will muddy the soup.

Return the liquid, when strained, to the saucepan, which must be perfectly clean; stir in the soaked tapioca and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, and simmer half an hour on the side of the range.

If necessary, add a little more seasoning.

When you have made nice clear soup once, you may, if you like, color the second supply with a little “caramel-water.”

This is made by putting a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup and setting it over the fire until it breaks up into brown bubbles, then pouring a few tablespoonfuls of boiling water on it and stirring it until dissolved. A tablespoonful of this in a quart of clear soup will give a fine amber color and not injure the flavor. Send all soups in to table very hot.

Julienne Soup.

Use a sharp knife for this work and bruise the vegetables as little as possible.

When all are prepared, put them in hot water enough to cover them, throw in a teaspoonful of salt and cook gently half an hour.

Clear a quart of soup-stock as directed in the last receipt, and color it with a teaspoonful of Halford sauce, or walnut catsup.

When the vegetables are tender, turn them into a colander to drain, taking care not to mash or break them. Throw away the water in which they were boiled, and add the vegetables to the clear hot soup.

Taste, to determine if it needs more pepper or salt, and simmer all together gently twenty minutes before turning into the tureen.

White Chicken Soup (Delicious).

A tough fowl can be converted into very delicious dishes by boiling it first for soup and mincing it, when cold, for croquettes.

In boiling it, allow a quart of cold water for each pound of chicken, and set it where it will heat very slowly.

If the fowl be quite old do not let it reach a boil under two hours, then boil very gently four hours longer.

Throw in a tablespoonful of salt when you take it from the fire, turn chicken and liquor into a bowl and set in a cold place all night.

Next day skim off the fat, strain the broth from the chicken, shaking the colander to do this well, and put aside the meat for croquettes or a scallop.

Set three pints of the broth over the fire with a teaspoonful of chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and let it boil half an hour. Line a colander with a thick cloth, and strain the liquid, squeezing the cloth to get the flavor of the onion.

Return the strained soup to the saucepan, with a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, scald in a farina kettle a cupful of milk, dropping into it a bit of soda the size of a pea.

Stir into this when hot, a tablespoonful of cornstarch wet up with cold milk. When it thickens scrape it out into a bowl in which you have two eggs whipped light. Beat all together well, and stir in, spoonful by spoonful, a cupful of the boiling soup.

Draw the soup pot to one side of the range, stir in the contents of the bowl, and let it stand—but not boil—three minutes before pouring into the tureen.

Chicken and Rice Soup

Is made as white chicken soup, but with the addition of four tablespoonfuls of rice, boiled soft, and added to the chicken liquor at the same time with the parsley. Then proceed as directed, with milk, eggs, etc.

Tomato Soup.

Bean Soup.

Soak one pint of dried beans all night in lukewarm water. In the morning add three quarts of cold water, half a pound of nice salt pork, cut into strips, half an onion chopped, and three stalks of celery, cut small. Set at one side of the fire until it is very hot, then where it will cook slowly, and let it boil four hours. Stir up often from the bottom, as bean-soup is apt to scorch.

An hour before dinner, set a colander over another pot and rub the bean porridge through the holes with a stout wooden spoon, leaving the skins in the colander.

Return the soup to the fire, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a tablespoonful of flour, and simmer gently fifteen minutes longer.

Have ready in the tureen a double handful of strips or squares of stale bread, fried like doughnuts in dripping, and drained dry. Also, half a lemon, peeled and sliced very thin.

Pour the soup on these and serve.

A Soup Maigre (without Meat).

Parboil the sliced potatoes fifteen minutes in enough hot water to cover them well. Drain this off and throw it away. Put potatoes, tomatoes, onion, celery and parsley on in three quarts of cold water, and cook gently two hours.

Then rub them all through a colander, return the soup to the pot, drop in the sugar, season to taste with pepper and salt, boil up once and take off the scum before adding the floured butter, and when this is dissolved, the cornstarch.

Stir two minutes over the fire, and your soup is ready for the table. Very good it will prove, too, if the directions be exactly followed.

When celery is out of season, you can use instead of it, a little essence of celery, or, what is better, celery salt.