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A FEAST OF SOUPS by Jacqueline Heriteau

A FEAST OF SOUPS

By

Pub Date: Feb. 19th, 1982
Publisher: Dial

If not a feast, then certainly an abundance of soups--and no doubt the makings of several hearty feasts are to be found among these hundreds of recipes. It's true that to extend her repertoire Heriteau occasionally makes soups of items better left out of a stock pot--among them Japanese tempura, steak (this ""stretches that costly meat,"" says Heriteau, though cheaper cuts give more flavor), and corned beef and cabbage. There's even a peaches and champagne soup (really a punch), offered here as ""a neat way to use up a bit of leftover champagne."" (Leftover champagne?) More conventionally, Heriteau declares that most soups require ""two key ingredients,"" onion sauteed in butter and a meat stock or consomme. Thus she begins with directions for making broth of beef, veal, chicken, fish, pheasant, and what have you, and uses one or the other in almost all her recipes. A chapter on quick soups recommends bouillon cubes--though canned broth, in our experience, better apes the homemade kind. (Because of this common key ingredient, there are very few true vegetarian soups, even among those labeled meatless.) Besides broth, another Heriteau standard is cream, and there is a whole chapter on creamed first-course soups as the Edwardians know them. In the main, Heriteau's sources are American and Western European, and these are well and soundly represented. An international chapter, on the other hand, offers the merest sampling of possibilities. Though serious cooks will look to the ethnic standards for their specialties and stick with the French chefs (or Sokolov) for stocks, Heriteau may well induce browsers to think in terms of more soup meals and Edwardian beginnings. They'll find here a goodly selection.