SOUP.

A few points are essential in making good soup. Beef is the best meat for the purpose, as it contains the most nourishment. A shank bone should be well cracked (that the marrow may be extracted), put on to cook in cold water, allowing a full quart for every pound of beef, and by very gradual heat come to a slow simmer, which should be kept up five or six hours. Soup, on no account, should be allowed to boil, except for the last fifteen minutes, to cook the vegetables in finishing. For the first hour of simmering it should be frequently skimmed. Salt, pepper and savory should be cooked in it from the first; rice, tapioca, macaroni or dumplings added at the last, to thicken. If vegetables are desired, they should be nicely sliced. Soup is much better to be made and allowed to cool, and used the second day, as then all grease can be removed. It should be strained before putting away.

Mrs. John G. Lowe.Put on a shin of beef early in the morning. An hour before dinner put in the vegetables--corn, tomatoes, potatoes, or any other the season affords. Half an hour before dinner add pearl barley, vermicelli, or dumplings, as you prefer. Season with salt, pepper and catsup, to taste.

Mrs. Axie Green.To a quart of beans a teaspoonful of soda. Cover well with water, and set them on to boil until the hulls will easily slip off; throw them into cold water; rub well with the hands; the hulls will rise to the top. Drain carefully and repeat until the hulls are wholly removed. To a quart of beans, two quarts of water. Boil until the beans mash perfectly smooth. It seasons the soup to boil a piece of meat (mutton, beef or pork) with it.
If you have not meat, add butter and flour rubbed together. Break into tureen well toasted bread, pour over it the soup, and add plenty of salt and pepper.

Mrs. S. B. Smith.Clean and scrape twelve ears of corn. Boil the cobs for fifteen or twenty minutes in one quart of water; remove them and put in the corn. Let it boil a short time, then add two quarts of rich milk. Season with pepper, salt, and butter that has been melted enough to rub flour into it (two tablespoonsful of flour). Let the whole boil ten minutes, and then turn the soup into a tureen into which the yolks of three eggs have been beaten.

Mrs. Simon Gebhart.One quart of tomatoes, one quart of milk and one quart of water. Boil the water and tomatoes together about twenty minutes, and then add the milk; then one teaspoonful of soda. Let it just boil up. Season as you do oyster soup, with butter, pepper and salt; add crackers if desired.

Mrs. S. Craighead.Cut up one chicken (an old one is preferable); wash and dry it; flour it well; salt and pepper; have ready in a skillet a lump of lard as large as an egg; let it get hot; put in your chicken; fry very brown all over, but do not let it burn. Put it in your vessel in which you make soup; pour on it five quarts of water; let it boil two hours; then cut up about two dozen okra pods and add to it; be sure they are tender and pretty well grown; then let it boil another hour. When you first put on your soup, cut up an onion in it; salt and pepper to taste. To be served with rice, either boiled or steamed dry.
Dried okra can be used by being put to soak the night previous; pour off most of the water.

Take a piece of ham half the size of your hand, and a knuckle of veal; put them in a pot with two quarts of cold water, simmer slowly two or three hours, then add two quarts of boiling water. Twenty minutes before serving, put in one small can of okra and as many oysters as you please. Season to taste.

Mrs. S. Craighead.Take a calf's head well cleaned, and a knuckle of veal; put them into a large porcelain vessel; put a large tablespoonful of sweet marjoram, and one of sweet basil, in a clean rag; also a large onion cut up in a cloth; take at least four quarts of water (it must be started as early as eight o'clock, if you wish it for a one o'clock dinner); let it boil steadily but not too rapidly; salt and pepper well. About twelve o'clock, take off the soup, pour it through a cullender, pick out all the meat carefully, chop very fine and return it to the soup, placing again upon the fire. Boil four eggs very hard; chop them fine, and slice one lemon very thin, and at last add a wine glass of wine.

Mrs. S. Craighead.Take a good soup bone; wash it nicely; pour over it sufficient water to cover it well; cut up an onion in it; salt and pepper; cut down about one dozen ears of corn and as many tomatoes in it, and let it boil slowly for at least three hours. For dumplings, take one egg and beat it a little; one coffee-cup sour milk; small teaspoonful of soda; a little salt; and flour enough to make a stiff batter; drop it into the boiling soup, from a spoon, twenty minutes before serving.
These dumplings are good in bean soup also.

Mrs. Eliza Pierce.One peck green peas; four tablespoonsful of lard heated in the kettle; put in the peas and stir them till perfectly green; add pepper and salt, and pour in as much water as you want soup; boil three-fourths of an hour, then add one teacupful of milk thickened with a tablespoonful of flour; put in the soup three or four young onions cut fine and fried a light brown in butter. Just as you take it up, add yolks of two eggs, beaten in a little cream.

Mrs. Robert Buchanan.Boil the hulls with a chicken or knuckle of veal, then strain the liquid; throw in a handful of peas, and boil to thicken the soup; when done, put in some peas cooked separately, pepper and salt, cream and butter to taste.

Take six pounds of beef, and put 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 is about two quarts of water; then let it cool. Next day, half an hour before dinner, take off the grease and pour the soup into the kettle (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.

Beat up one egg; add a pinch of salt and flour enough to make a stiff dough; roll out in a very thin sheet; dredge with flour to keep from sticking; then roll up tightly; begin at one end and shave down fine like cabbage for slaw.

Half a pound of lean veal and a pound of fat beef chopped fine; a tablespoonful of thyme, one of parsley, a little less marjoram and a little more onion, a pinch of mace, cloves and nutmeg, the yolks of two eggs, a little crumbled bread, pepper and salt; mix with the hand in a large bowl; mould into balls the size of a walnut,and fry in lard. After frying the balls, make a browning of the lard they are fried in (put flour in and stir until well cooked) and brown the soup with it; put the balls in the soup whole.

Take a small teacupful of flour, a pinch of salt, and butter the size of a walnut; rub well with the flour; sprinkle in a little pepper; add sweet milk enough to form a stiff dough; flour the board and roll very thin; cut in small squares; drop into the soup, and let them boil ten minutes.

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