ny of which it is a much better basis than melted butter.

The soup of mock turtle, and the other thickened soups, (No. 247), will
supply you with a thick gravy sauce for _poultry_, _fish_, _ragouts_,
&c.; and by a little management of this sort, you may generally contrive
to have plenty of good gravies and good sauces with very little trouble
or expense. See also _Portable Soup_ (No. 252).

If soup is too thin or too weak, take off the cover of your soup-pot,
and let it boil till some of the watery part of it has evaporated, or
else add some of the thickening materials we have before mentioned; and
have at hand some plain browning: see No. 322, and the _obs._ thereon.
This simple preparation is much better than any of the compounds bearing
that name; as it colours sauce or soup without much interfering with its
flavour, and is a much better way of colouring them than burning the
surface of the meat.

When soups and gravies are kept from day to day, _in hot weather_, they
should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh-scalded tureens or
pans, and placed in a cool cellar; in temperate weather every other day
may be enough.

We hope 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.

*.* In the following receipts we have directed the spices[99-*] and
flavouring to be added at the usual time; but it would greatly diminish
the expense, and improve the soups, if the agents employed to give them
a zest were not put in above fifteen minutes before the finish, and half
the quantity of spice, &c. would do. A strong heat soon dissipates the
spirit of the wine, and evaporates the aroma and flavour of the spices
and herbs, which are volatile in the heat of boiling water.

In ordering the proportions of meat, butter, wine, &c. the proper
quantity is set down, and less will not do: we have carried economy
quite as far as possible without "spoiling the broth for a halfpenny
worth of salt."

I conclude these remarks with observing, that some persons imagine that
soup tends to relax the stomach. So far from being prejudicial, we
c