Lean, juicy meat, mutton, and veal, form the basis of all good soups ; thus it’s a smart move to gain those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and like are fresh-killed.  Rancid beef renders them bad, and fat isn’t so well changed for making them.  The principal art in composing good rich soup, is so to proportion the many ingredients that the flavor of one shall not predominate over another, and that all the articles of which it is composed, shall form an agreeable entire.  To do this, care must be taken the roots and herbs are perfectly well cleaned, and the water is proportioned to the amount of beef and other ingredients.  Sometimes a quart of water could be permitted to a pound of meat for soups, and 1/2 of the quantity for gravies.  In making soups or gravies, delicate stewing or simmering is incomparably the best.  It may be remarked {, however ,} that a actually good soup can’t ever be made but in a well-closed vessel, although, perhaps, greater wholesomeness is got by an occasional exposure to the air.  Soups will, generally, take from three to six hours doing, and are miles better prepared the day before they are wanted.  When the soup is cold, the fat could be much more easily and completely removed ; and when it is poured off, care must be taken not to bug the settlings at the base of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a separate.  A tamis is the best sieve, and if the soup is strained while it is hot, let the tamis or material be formerly dunked in cold water.  Clear soups must be perfectly clear, and thickened soups about the consistence of cream.  To thicken and give body to soups and gravies, potato-mucilage, arrow-root, bread-raspings, isinglass, flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well together, are used.  A piece of boiled beef battered to a pulp, with a bit of butter and flour, and rubbed through a separate, and steadily incorporated with the soup, will be found a superb addition.  When the soup seems to be too thin or too weak, the cover of the boiler should be taken off, and the contents permitted to boil till some of the watery parts have evaporated ; or some of the thickening materials, above mentioned, should be added.  When soups and gravies are kept from day by day in hot weather, they should be heated up each day, and put into fresh burned pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar.  In temperate weather, each other day may be sufficient. 

Varied herbs and veggies are needed for the purpose of making soups and gravies.  Of these the principal are, Scotch barley, pearl barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, bread-raspings, pease, beans, rice, vermicelli, macaroni, isinglass, potato-mucilage, mushroom or mushroom ketchup, champignons, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, turnips, garlic, shalots and onions.  Chopped onions, fried with butter and flour until they are browned, and then rubbed through a sift, are excellent to increase the color and flavor of brown soups and sauces, and form the foundation of many of the fine relishes furnished by the cook.  The older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour.  Leeks, cucumber, or burnet vinegar ; celery or celery-seed pounded.  The second, though equally strong, does not impart the delicate sweetness of the fresh plant ; 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 tasty, and basil.  As fresh green basil is infrequently to be acquired, and its fine flavour is shortly lost, the best way of protecting the extract is by pouring wine on the fresh leaves. 

For the seasoning of soups, bay-leaves, tomato, tarragon, chervil, burnet, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, mace, black and white pepper, essence of anchovy, lemon-peel, and juice, and Seville orange-juice, are all taken.  The second provides a finer flavor than the lemon, and the acid is much milder.  These materials, with wine, mushroom ketchup, Harvey’s sauce, tomato sauce, combined in diverse proportions, are, with other ingredients, manipulated into a virtually unlimited variety of glorious soups and gravies.  Soups, which are meant to constitute the principal part of a meal, actually ought not to be flavoured like sauces, which are only designed to give a relish to some particular dish.

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