English Soups

‘We hope,’ says Dr Kitchiner in 1817, after sundry awful warnings about the dangers of dirty earthenware soup pots and badly tinned copper pans, some rather sharp comments on over-spicing, and some very sensible recommendations as to the length of time soups need to boil, ‘we have now put the common Cook into possession of the whole arcana of Soup making – without much trouble to herself, or expense to her employers, it need not be said in future that an Englishman only knows how to make Soup in his Stomach, by swilling down a large quantity of Ale or Porter, to quench the thirst occasioned by the meat he eats. John Bull may now make his soup “secundum artem” and save his principal viscera a great deal of trouble.’