Soupe à la Graisse

The vegetable soups following are part of a farm life that precludes unnecessary work; you make the most of what you have in the house. They are not thickened by sieving or even by putting everything through the vegetable mill, but by bread. In some bakeries you can buy very light, deep-brown loaves that are crisp right through, ‘biscuits a soupe’; in other words twice-cooked like ‘biscottes’, (1 cm (½-inch) slices of brioche, baked crisply) which make a reasonable substitute for biscuits à