An eXcellent Cheape Soup, Xavier Suppe: Vintage Recipes

Learn more about two vintage soup recipes loaded with veggies, herbs and made with rich meat stocks.

I began considering recipes for iceboX cakes, MeXican cookies, and the like. My husband scoured the internet to help me, and lucky for me he came across two intriguing recipes. I knew they would be fun to share here.

The first recipe is for Xavier Suppe. It consists of cooked dumplings flavored with Parmesan and herbs, served in chicken broth. This is a traditional Italian recipe, and was named for St. Francis Xavier. He lived from 1506-1552, and was canonized in 1622. The Feast Day of St. Francis Xavier is held on December 3rd, with this soup often prepared in honor of that day. It is the first recipe listed below.

We discovered the second recipe on a very interesting and unique website, Cooking In The Archives: Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen. It is a food history project that launched in 2014. The two women running the project, Marissa Nicosia and Alyssa Connell have pored through the rare books collections at University of Pennsylvania to find these centuries-old recipes. They share the originals on their site, translate them to fit modern-day cooking methods and ingredients, and then cook them up. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I love reading old recipe books and handwritten recipes for the glimpse at favorite foods of the past, the writing style and the notations. I have not however had the privilege of reading recipes this old! And to translate them, research the recipes and the people who wrote them, adapt them for preservation, for preparation today… well THAT is just extraordinary.

The recipe I am sharing from Nicosia and Connell’s website is for “An Excellent Cheape Soup“, from “Grandmama Lady Frankland’s Receipt Book” and they estimate the date of it to be between 1750 and 1825. This recipe is listed just after the one for Xavier Suppe.

Xavier Suppe

(from Cooking with the Saints: An Illustrated Treasury of Authentic Recipes Old and Modern by Ernst Schuegraf.)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, white
• pinch of nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped (for dough)
• 12 cups chicken stock
• 2 tablespoon chervil, chopped
• 2 tablespoon parsley, chopped (for soup)

Directions:

1. Over low heat work the flour, cream, butter and Parmesan cheese to a solid dough. Work in the salt, pepper, nutmeg, eggs and egg yolks and parsley. Put the mixture into a piping bag with a big nozzle and pipe pea-sized balls onto a buttered tray. Let stand for about 30 minutes.
2. In the meantime heat some salted water until it boils, then drop in all the “dough peas”. Cook for 5 minutes, then remove them with a slotted spoon and add to the warm chicken stock. Season soup to taste and add the chervil and 2 tablespoons parsley.
3. Serves 10 to 12 people.

An Excellent Cheape Soup

from Cooking In The Archives: Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen. For additional notes on serving and preparation, and to see the original recipe, please click this link which will take you to the post on RareCooking.com.

• 1 lb stewing beef, cut into 1-2 inch cubes
• 4 T butter, for browning beef
• 2 large yellow onions, chopped
• 2 oz pearl barley, rinsed and sorted
• 7 oz split peas, rinsed and sorted
• 6 potatoes, chopped into 1-2 inch cubes
• cooking liquid: 1 cup chicken stock & 2 quarts water
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat your oven to 325F. Measure, chop, and prepare all ingredients.
2. Heat 2 T butter in an oven-safe stock pot or dutch oven. Brown the beef cubes in butter to seal-in their flavor. Add the other 2 T of butter as needed. When the beef is mostly browned, add the onions and allow them to soften for 1-2 minutes. Add the barley, peas, potatoes, and cooking liquid (stock and water) and cover. When the soup has come to a rolling boil, add salt and pepper to taste. Then transfer the pot to the oven to cook for approximately 2 hours.
3. Check every 45 minutes or so to make sure the grains have not absorbed all the liquid and add water as needed.

Find the rest of this alphabetical exploration of Vintage Cookbooks and Recipes in the list below!

• American Cookery Boston Cooking School Magazine, and Washington Pie
• Black & White Sandwiches, from Arrow Book Of Easy Cooking
• Crisco’s Easy As Pie Recipes, and Fudge Topped Pie
• Date Honeys, from the Cookie Book
• Electric Range Book by Monarch, and Ham Rolls with Bean Sauce and Banbury Tarts
• Fun To Cook Book, and Supper Cocoa
• Good Looking Cooking, and Mold A Main Dish Chicken Mousse
• Holiday Heritage: Betty Crocker, and Filbert Crown Cake
• Irish Potato Puffs, from They Taste S-o-o-o Good
• Joys Of Jell-O, and Ring Around The Tuna
• Kolachky, from Treasured Polish Recipes For Americans
• Lunch Box Cookbook, and Superman’s Delight
• Metropolitan Cookbook, and Saybrook Lemon Jelly Roll
• New York Times Cookbook, and Mozzarella En Carozza
• Out Of Vermont Kitchens, and Bishop’s Cake
• Praise For The Cook, and Brunswick Stew
• Quicker Ways To Homemade with Bisquick, and Waffle Club Rabbit
• Recipes That Pep-Up Meals with Wise Potato Chips, and Vanilla Chip Caramels
• Sunbeam Mixmaster Manual and Orange Refrigerator Cookies
• Turkish Paste from The Good Housekeeping Cookbook
• Uncle Bob’s Peanut Butter Sandwich with Texas Sweets, from Patio Daddy-O
• Vermont Symphony Orchestra Cookbook, and Frozen Strawberry Squares
• Wonderful World of Cooking: Italian Recipes, and Quick Tortoni
• Xcellent Cheape Soup, and Xavier Suppe
• Your Share: Daily Helps For Wartime Meal Planning and Wartime Cake
• Zippy Beets, and New Thrills of Freezing with a Frigidaire Freezer