Early American Soups and Stews

Some colonial Americans eschewed soup, but evidence indicates that soup was an important culinary component in the diet of the upper class. Even before cookbooks were published in America, newspapers, magazines, and travel accounts mentioned broths and soups. William Parks, a colonial printer in Williamsburg, Virginia, published the first cookbook in America in 1742. It is based on the fifth edition of Eliza Smith’s The Compleat Housewife; or, Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion and includes the recipes Soop Sante, Pease Soop, Craw Fish Soop, Brooth, Soop with Teel, and Green Peas Soop, as well as recipes for several bisques. Susannah Carter’s The Frugal Housewife (1772) contains an entire chapter on soup with nineteen recipes. In addition to British cookbooks published in colonial America, surviving cookery manuscripts attest to the importance of potage, broth, and soup in America—at least among the upper class.