1840 - Directions for Cookery

Bean Soup

DDV CULINARY

PUT two quarts of dried white beans into soak the night before you make the soup,
which should be put on as early in the day as possible.

Take five pounds of the lean of fresh beef--the coarse pieces will do.
Cut them up, and put them into your soup-pot with the bones belonging to them,
(which should be broken to pieces,) and a pound of bacon cut very small.
If you have the remains of a piece of beef that has been roasted the day before,
and so much under-done that the juices remain in it, you may put it into the pot,
and its bones along with it. Season the meat with pepper and salt, and pour on it
six quarts of water. As soon as it boils take off the scum, and put in the beans
(having first drained them) and a head of celery cut small, or a table-spoonful of
pounded celery-seed. Boil it slowly till the meat is done to shreds, and the beans
all dissolved. Then strain it through a cullender into the tureen, and put into it
small squares of toasted bread with the crust cut off.

Some prefer it with the beans boiled soft, but not quite dissolved. In this case, do
not strain it; but take out the meat and bones with a fork before you send it to table.