SOUP (A.-S. step-an, to sip or sup) is a well known form of food, obtained either from flesh and vegetables, or from vegetables alone. Before noticing the most important varie tics of soup, it is expedient that we should have a clear idea of what soup really is, or, in other words, what relation soup bears to the solid ingredients which enter into its com position. The researches of Liebig have thrown much light upon this point. When finely chopped muscular flesh (or butcher-meat) is lixiviated with cold water, and exposed to pressure, there is left a white fibrous residue consisting of muscular fibers, of connec tive or areolar tissue, and of vessels and nerves. This lixiviated flesh is of precisely the same quality from whatever animal it is obtained, communicates no flavor to water in which it is boiled, cannot be masticated, and as Liebig observes, "even dogs reject it." When the cold water has taken up all that it is capable of extracting, it is found that it has dissolved from 16 to 24 per cent of the dry chopped flesh. This watery infusion contains all the savory and much of the nutrient matter of the flesh, and is usually of a reddish tint, from the preSence of a little of the coloring matter of the blood. On grad ually heating it to the boiling-point, it is observed that the albumen of the flesh (varying in amount from 2 to 14 per cent, according as the animal was old or young) separates in nearly colorless flakes when the temperature has risen to 133°, while the coloring-matter of the blood does not coagulate till the temperature rises to 158°. The liquid is now clear, and of a pale yellowish tint; and as it reddens litmus-paper, it must contain a free acid. The infusion of flesh thus prepared has the aromatic taste and all the properties of a soup made by boiling the flesh. When evaporated it becomes dark-colored, and finally brown; and on ceasing to lose weight, there is obtained a brown, somewhat soft mass of "extract of flesh," or "portable soup," amounting to about 12 percent of the weight of the ofiginal flesh, supposed to be dried. "This extract," says Liebig, "is easily soluble in cold water, and when dissolved in about 32 parts of hot water, with the addition of some salt, gives to this water the taste and all the peculiar properties of an excellent soup. The intensity of the flavor of the dry extract of flesh is very great; none of the means employed in the kitchen is comparable to it in point of flavoring power." The soup thus made of the flesh of different animals (as, for example, the ox and the fowl) possesses, along with the general flavor common to all soups, a peculiar taste, which distinctly recalls the smell or taste of the roasted flesh of the animal employed. In order to obtain the strongest and best-flavored soup, chopped flesh should be slowly heated to boiling with an equal weight of water; the boiling should only be continued for a few minutes (for prolonged boiling only gives rise to the formation of gelatine, a substance of no nutrient value, from the connective tissue of the flesh), and the soup should be then strained off from the solid residue. As a matter of economy, it is often desirable that the meat should be left in an
eatable state, which is not the ease with soup made according to the preceding directions. To attain this end, the joint or mass of flesh should he sct on the fire with cold water, which should be gently heated to boiling; the flesh thus undergoes a loss of soluble and savory matter, while the soup becomes richer in them. The thinner the piece of flesh is, the greater is the loss which it experiences. Bence the method of boiling which yields the best soup, gives the dryest, toughest, and most tasteless meat. " The juice of flesh," says Liebig, "contains the food of the muscles; the muscular system is the source of all the manifestations of forcein the animal body; and in this sense we may regard the juice of flesh as the proximate condition of the production of force. Soup is the medicine of the convalescent, and as a means of restoring the exhausted strength, it cannot be replaced by any article of the pharmacopoeia. Its vivifying and restoring action on the appetite, on the digestive organs, the color, and the general appearances of the sick, is most striking." Most soups contain an admixture of meat and vegetables in their preparation; but many good soups can be made either entirely without the use of flesh, or with fish in place of flesh. In the former class may be placed pea-soup (which is, however, much improved if a piece of bacon enters into its composition), green-pea soup, car rot-soup, potato-soup, asparagus-soup: while for fish-soup, pike, tench, and eels are specially used. A collection of excellent recipes for such soups will be found in A Handbook of Brreign Cookery, published by Murray in 1845. The basis of all good soups, excepting those in the preceding category, is clock, or broth made from all sorts of meat, bones, remains of poultry or game, etc., put together, and stewed in the stock-pot.
Public attention was sonic time ago called to Liebig's soups for children. This prep aration, which is hardly entitled lo be called a soup, as the word is generally understood in this country, is made as follows: Take 1 oz. (one large table-spoonful) of seconds flour, and mix it very slowly and carefully with 10 oz. of cold skimmed milk, until the whole is smooth; add grains of bicarbonate of potash, dissolved in a tea-spoonful of water ,(if 60 grains of the potash be dissolved in 1 oz. of water, I tea-spoonful must be used at a time), and then heat it gently to the boiling point, and keep it boiling for pre minutes. Stir it well while it is heated; add to the whole fluid 1 oz. (1 large dessert-spoonful) of malt flour (malt ground in a coffee•mill and sieved), mixed with 2 oz. of water, and stir it well. Cover the pan, and let it stand for half an hour in water which is nearly boiling, so as to keep the fluid warm; then strain through a fine sieve, and bottle it. This quantity is sufficient for a day's supply for: a child Under two years of age, and a quart of milk should be i.dded to it.