soups

Base of minced white meat, cream and ground almonds.

Pureed apple with stock "white pepper, 6 cloves, cayenne or ginger to taste" (Mrs.B, Hartley 1954, etc)

Sliced Jerusalem artichoke in a ham, cream and root vegetable base (Mrs.B)

Asparagus is always a pureed cream soup, often made with onion. Sometimes served cold.

Very heavy soup, almost a stew, made with chunks of bacon, commonly with pearl barley, carrots and vegetables.

Most usually meat trimmings with root vegetables, cooked in a pot in the oven (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B)

Chicken or veal stock boiled with pearl barley and either creamed or with cream added.

Barley boiled in water and wine with currants, raisins and spices (Glasse 1747).

Soup based on stock with pearl barley. Mrs.B adds parsley, onion and potatoes.

Given in 'A Taste of the East Midlands' (Frith, 2005) as 'a locally inspired dish', but otherwise known only from North America

Made with haricot beans and vegetables.

Broth from beef and bacon with ale, pounded beet leaves, spinach, cabbage lettuce, mint, sorrel and chopped asparagus-tops (Mrs.B)

Hot water poured on toast, to make a soft mush, with salt and pepper. Said in 'Britain's Food Supplies' by KG Fenelon to be a product of the 'hungry forties' of...

Broken bones, boiled. Drained, skimmed and vegetables added with thickener such as barley or peasmeal (Francatelli 1852, etc)

Bread crusts boiled in water or stock with butter and seasonings (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc).

A simple soup or broth of sodden bread scraps, seasoned with whatever is available. There is also a thicker sauce form of a brewis, see: Brewis Sauce

Gobbets of beef, carrots, turnips and celery in broth with thyme (Mrs.B)

Chunks of fish, as available, in a cream base.

Broad beans with peas and onions cooked, about half pureed and added to the remainder, with milk, stock and shredded bacon. (British Food Trust)

A creamed soup, with onions.

Rabbit pieces fried with onions and carrot (Acton 1845, etc)

A creamed soup, sometimes now with a little sugar to counter the bitterness of the sprouts. See: Sprouts

A broth including green leaf vegetables.

Calves' head meat in broth with herbs, spices and vegetables. Mrs.B, following Acton 1845, thickens the broth with rice flour.

A pulped and creamed soup, almost all receipts include a strong spice such as cumin, ginger or aniseed.

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Carrots pureed in stock. Described by Eliza Acton as "this favourite English soup" there are dozens of receipts for it throughout the 19th Century and variants ...

A pulped and creamed soup.

A pulped and creamed soup with blue Stilton. Usually served with a sprinkling of the cheese.

Celery soup is now usually a white creamed soup made with milk and onions, see: Cream of Celery Soup. But earlier versions are celery pieces in stock (Eaton 182...

(Soupes Jamberlayne) Wine and ale stewed with ginger, cinnamon and sugar, thickened with grated toasted bread (Austin 1440)

A white creamed soup based on white onions and cheddar cheese.

White stock (veal, chicken, pork etc.) with diced potato, leek carrot and oatmeal. Served with a sprinkling of Cheshire cheese.

Calf's tail soup with vegetables and sherry or Madeira. White 1932 adds mushrooms.

Peeled pureed chestnuts, very lightly boiled with apple and cream.

Creamed soup, with meat stock and cream.

Now chicken stock with vegetable pieces and, usually, barley.

Carrots cut to match-like shreds, cooked in butter then added to clear stock with sugar.

General term for any completely clear meat soup (Acton 1845, etc)

Cockle soup is now usually cockles in a creamed base, commonly with celery, onions, parsley, and very often with mushroom. There is a tradition that the soup sh...

Peas, young peas, mint, celery, Cos lettuce, part pureed, in stock (White 1932)

Consomme with artichoke hearts and lettuce, named after Princess Alice (1883-1981), one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters.

Cowheel with herbs and rice (Francatelli 1852)

Cream soup based on light meat stock, with crab meat. Sometimes coloured with saffron.

A cream soup, often with a stock made from the pounded shells (Mrs.B, etc)

Original Receipt from Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery, 1891

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The original source of this receipt isn't known. Can you help? raise an issue on GitHub

Original Receipt from Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery, 1891

Original Receipt from Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery, 1891

In England, lentil soup is boiled with other vegetables until the, usually red, lentils fall.

Original Receipt from Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery, 1891

Original Receipt from Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery, 1891

Original Receipt in 'The Cook and Housekeeper's Dictionary' by Mary Eaton (Eaton 1822);

A very rich tomato soup, free from visible pips or flesh, with milk or cream, now usually slightly sweetened with sugar.

Creamed soup of broccoli florets, usually in a chicken stock base. Stilton cheese is often added, either to the cream, or as a garnish

Creamed soup of cucumber, usually with herbs such as chervil, sorrel or dill, served chilled (Eaton 1822, Acton 1845, etc)

Old term for strong meat broth (Evelyn 1699)

A widely variable name. Francatelli 1867 has a consomme with poultry or game pieces thickened with arrowroot, other versions have vegetable pieces in chicken st...

Whole eggs beaten into hot stock or water. Mrs.B adds mace, Glasse 1747 adds a large proportion of butter.

Unlike the French version, English onion is now almost always a white soup. It has the onions less toasted, or not at all, in a creamed base (Mrs.B, etc)

Although 'pottage' just means soup or stew, 'English Pottage' has come to mean a clear dark meat-stock soup, though the Digby 1669 receipt includes oatmeal (Bri...

A creamed soup made using whole young peas - both pulse and pod.

A stew-like soup of vegetable chunks such as potato, onion, turnip, parsnip, carrot, peas, leeks, sweetcorn, celery in a cream base. When produced commercially ...

Now almost always fish pieces in a creamed stock, often with potato chunks.

Game soups are commonly made with carrot, onion and celery plus game trimmings.

Goose or duck giblets, boiled (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc)

Clear pheasant stock with sherry, tiny pheasant forcemeat balls and celery

Soup with vegetables such as carrot, celery and onion cut very small, boiled in stock, thickened and very slightly coloured with turmeric or saffron.

A creamed soup, based on chicken stock (British Food Trust, etc)

Mixed fish pieces (rather than the single fish of ordinary souchy) stewed with finely split parsley roots, and parsley leaf. "Much served at the regular fish-di...

A stock-based soup with ground elder leaves, and, in most versions, bacon.

Commonly includes a small admixture of a contrasting flavour such as brown sugar, anchovy, wine or vinegar (Moxon 1764, Soyer 1845, Mrs.B)

Chervil, spinach, celery, leeks, beet etc., boiled with breadcrumbs (Bradley 1728)

A horrible soup. The sort which we were all forced to consume in the past, according to any number of food writers. Why 'we' didn't just stop serving it, or put...

Toasted bread in a bowl with boiling water poured over and any available seasonings, salt and pepper.

Milk-based cream soup with pieces of kipper.

Sea turtle meat with cream, curry powder and sherry. Now occasionally reproduced using mussels instead of the, endangered, turtles.

Described in 'Good Things in England' by Florence White (White 1932) as; "This is nothing more than the water in which young cabbage has been boiled. It is extr...

Leek, cabbage onion and parsley in stock. Claimed (J.Salmon) to be a Shropshire specialty.

A base of creamed potato in stock.

This may be either a fully creamed soup, or with some of the the leeks and potato remaining in substantial chunks.

Now usually red lentils in vegetable stock, boiled until fallen.

Now often a cream soup with onion.

Soup of split peas (green, or green and yellow) with smoked bacon, chopped onion, carrot, leek, diced boiled in chicken stock. Pureed, flavoured with salt, pepp...

Broth of pig's feet and ears with herbs, thickened, with sherry (Acton 1845).

Old term for meat-free soups for Lent.

Milk boiled with salt, cinnamon, sugar, poured over bread sops (Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc).

Leek and cabbage soup, sometimes with cheese topping.

Soup made in imitation of the, prized but impossibly expensive, turtle-meat soup. Known since the mid-18th Century and popular in the 19th. Usually made from ca...

A bright red thick soup, sometimes with meat flakes. Coloured with mulberries, or 'sanders' food colouring (Cury 1390, Murrell 1638, etc)

A soup so thick that you can literally 'stand a spoon up in it'.

Barley boiled with mace, bread, lemon and white wine (Glasse 1747)

Any soup made hot with curry spices. (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc.)

Usually a partly-creamed soup with some whole pieces of both vegetables.

Mushroom is always now a cream soup in England.

Cream and cider base with celery and onions.

Made with mutton chunks with onion and pearl barley (Soyer 1845, Francatelli 1852, etc)

Meat stewed and skimmed of fat. Chunks in broth with root vegetables and onion (Mrs.B, etc)

Nettle soup is presumably very ancient, but is known by name only since the early 19th century. Like lots of everyday lower-class dishes, receipts showing how t...

Milk and eggs, cooked with sops of bread, sugar and salt (Noble Boke 1480) There is no oil here, the name may be from the Spanish ola.

A form of Brewis of lost composition, but known from local tradition and a number of recorded sayings.

A simple onion soup, of variable composition. Repeatedly mentioned throughout the 19th Century as a food of the poor.

Oxtails, boiled until well fallen, skimmed free of fat, with onion and vegetables. Pureed (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc). This is quite unlike the Indonesian or Germa...

Seasoned mutton broth with oysters. Known only in Eaton 1822.

Made with veal stock, thickened with egg and breadcrumb (Mollard 1802, Eaton 1822, etc).

Usually a creamed vegetable broth with chopped parsley.

Usually a creamed soup in milk.

Usually a creamed soup in milk, often highly flavoured with curry spices.

Parsnips boiled in stock, creamed (Kitchiner 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

With celery and onion (Eaton 1822, Acton 1845)

Thick pureed pea soup made with ham bone stock, often with flaked ham added.

Very thick soup of large marrowfat peas boiled until fallen, usually with a meat flavouring from, for instance, stock or bone or with ham flecks.

A very substantial stew of game and root vegetables.

A white cream soup of potato and white onions.

A creamed soup, often made with the addition of leek.

Potato boiled until fallen, often with a little lard or butter "A few sprigs of parsley, or the flowers of four marigolds, is an improvement, and, at the same t...

Slightly sweetened clear veal stock with small turnip balls served poured over bread discs.

Clear chicken stock with garlic, mint and herbs.

Barley Cream soup with "Almond-Milk, and, if you will, some Melon seeds. You may put some juyce of Limon or Orange to it. Also season it with Cinnamon" (Digby 1...

Creamed soup of carrots with onion and milk (Soyer 1845)

A cream soup of bone stock from game with game meat, carrot, onion, celery, turnip, egg yolks (Mrs.B)

A pureed soup with vegetables, cream, etc.

Version of chicken and leek soup, thickened with flour and egg.

Shredded crab meat with onions in a highly-flavoured cream base.

Shredded seakale leaves in a cream base.

Usually a soup of dressed shellfish pieces in a cream base with onions.

A highly enriched pureed soup of fresh garden peas with mint and cream. (J.Salmon)

Creamed soup of summer vegetables (potato, cucumber, lettuce, spinach, peas etc.) with lemon.

Coarsely chopped sorrel leaves in a thick soup base, eg. potato (Family Guide 1747, Eaton 1822, etc)

Toasted bread soaked in a broth, sweetened and coloured with saffron.

Tomato and onion stewed in vegetable stock and thickened with oatmeal.

A broth with raisins. Known from dialect glossaries. Possibly similar to Fig-Sue.

A ham-and-rhubarb soup, described by our correspondent Alex Bray as "really good"...

A soup of sliced spring green vegetables, most usually with potato.

A creamed soup in a milk base.

A white cream soup flavoured with Stilton cheese, most commonly based on onion and cauliflower.

Cream soup of spinach and root vegetables with very tiny flour dumplings (Eaton 1822)

Typically a soup of garden peas in a light stock, sometimes with cream and often with mint. Served hot or cold.

Broth of tapioca boiled in stock (Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc)

Creamed leek and potato soup strongly flavoured with herbs such as parsley and tarragon. 'Teddy' is dialect for 'potato'.

Veal, cloves, mace, pepper and rice (White 1932)

Image: Unknown

Pulped turnip and apple, often with cream.

A creamed soup with onion (Acton 1845), or made using veal stock (Mollard 1802, Eaton 1822, etc).

Any soup made of the meat, and especially the fat, of the green turtle, long considered a great delicacy in England. Usually pieces of stewed meat and fat in a ...

Mixed vegetables (Francatelli 1852 suggests carrot, turnip, onion, celery, parsnip with butter, parsley, chervil and thyme) boiled until fallen.

Usually a soup of vegetable chunks in light broth. Eaton 1822 adds cucumbers, cos-lettuces, mint, onions, peas, and a little parsley.

Whole river fish (perch etc) stewed with herbs, especially parsley leaves and root, onion and served in the stewing water (Bradley 1728, Mrs.B, etc).

English watercress soup is a creamed soup in a light stock and potato base with onion. This is identical to the French 'soupe cresson'

Veal knuckle broth with onion, cream, pepper, mace, cayenne, almonds and vermicelli.

Onion and celery stewed in white sauce with garlic and mace. Beaten egg-white folded into a little of the soup and served on, or in, the remainder.

Coarse-cut white onions in thickened cream. See: English Onion Soup

Any white soup. Mrs.B has it with cream, almonds, lemon and mace and veal or poultry in veal stock.

Windsor Soup (Potage á la Windsor), or White Windsor Soup, is based on a light stock thickened and made white with, in different versions, rice, potato, sago or...