"Soup," says Brillat-Savarin," rejoices the stomach, and disposes it to receive and digest other food."

The gourmet looks upon soup as a preparatory element in a refined dinner; he takes a small quantity of it only, and does not ask for a second helping; he requires it to be served hot, and not lukewarm, and in deep soup-plates, and not in bowls. A bowl of soup may be welcome to a traveller or to a simple eater, who wants merely to satisfy his hunger by quantities of nourishment. Remember always that there is a difference between dining and feeding.

The great fault with the most popular English soups, such as ox-tail, turtle, mock-turtle, mulligatawny, etc., is their strength and heaviness. To begin dinner by absorbing a large portion of these preparations implies coarseness of conception and prodigious digestive powers.

When I hear the voice of the Anglo-Saxon waiter pronouncing behind my chair the laconic formula, "Thick or clear, sir?" my heart sinks as I think of the poverty of his wit and the grossness of the distinction he makes. Are there, then, but two soups in the world? What kind of thick soup? What kind of clear soup? Know, good Anglo-Saxon waiter, that although I take only a ladleful of soup, I require it to be perfection of its kind-a poem, a dream - something suave and comforting, exceedingly pure in flavor. I neither want slops nor heavy messes charged with catsup and spices and salt and pepper. "Thick" and "clear" is, certainly, a broad distinction that may be made, but, as we have to borrow so much from the French in this gastronomic art, we cannot do better than employ their terms for extracts, compounds, and reductions, and classify our soups, or potages, as consommes, purees, or cremes.

Soup, we must never forget, is intended to prepare the stomach for the dinner that is to follow. Heavy soups are, therefore, inadmissible, because they constitute meals in themselves, and encroach upon the domain of the dinner proper, which, as we have seen in previous pages, is the grand event in our material daily life.

In no branch of cookery has the imagination of fanciful cooks been so industrious as in the combination and naming of soups. As we have over one hundred fairly distinct varieties of soup, it is desirable to avoid fancy names that convey no meaning, such as the names of princes and statesmen, and to call these soups by titles that give some idea of their composition. In this matter clearness and simplicity are desirable, and the example of Gouffe is to be followed in mentioning always the characteristic ingredient of the soup, thus: potage a Voseille, consomme aux pates d'Italie, soupe aux choux, puree d'asperge, etc.

Potage, or soup, is the generic term, though in French soupe is reserved for such soups as are served with bread in them, while potage is applied to soups without bread.

Potages are divided into gras and maigres, according as they have been prepared with or without meat.

Potages gras are made with bouillons or decoctions of all kinds of butchers' meat, fowl, fish, and crustaceans. In the same way potages maigres are made from all sorts of vegetables.

The name puree, or crime, is given to thick soups made of alimentary substances crusted or pounded, such as game, pease, beans, lentils, asparagus, etc. The soups are generally very nourishing, but not easily digestible.

Consomme is the name given to the supreme result of the decoction of animal and vegetable matter; it is a perfect bouillon, a bouillon consomme. In the cook-books you will find directions for making the ordinary consomme, composed of the juices of beef, veal, and fowls decocted in grand bouillon, or fine stock, and also for making consomme de volaille, consomme de gibier, and consommes of vegetables.

Consomme is necessary for making fine soups, but for household cookery the good ordinary stock is sufficient. (N.B. - Without good beef-stock it is impossible to make a dinner worthy of the name.) Stock is constantly required in the most simple operations of cookery. The aversion of the Anglo-Saxon cook to making stock is one of the main sources of his inferiority. Extract of meat does not take the place of stock. Extracts of meat should be very sparingly used in a well" regulated kitchen, and extracts of coffee never.

As a rule, in cookery, avoid new inventions, scientific improvements, and everything that recommends itself in the name of Progress. Good cooking, like good painting, is a question of genius and sentiment.

Note that stock, or bouillon, is not an aliment; the so-called potages gras, which have a basis of bouillon, are not essentially aliments; in general, the soups that are served at a scientific dinner are not aliments. As we have said above, soup is, theoretically, merely a preparation for the dinner; it is a consolation to the hungry stomach, and at the same time an appetizer and a stimulant.

The decoction of meat and vegetables which, under the names of consomme or bouillon, forms the basis, if not the whole sub-stance, of meat-soups, or potages gras, is simply an aromatic and exciting liquid of agreeable flavor, very poor in organic alimentary matter, but very rich in mineral salts.

In the long process of cooking needed to make bouillon the eminently nutritious principles of the meat have been annihilated, and deprived of all their qualities of organic nutriment. Bouillon contains, in the way of assimilable substances, only a small quantity of grease, some mineral salts, and a certain quantity of gelatine.

The researches of modern chemistry have shown that gelatine has little or no alimentary virtues, but that it is certainly "peptoge-nic," that is to say, it excites the stomach to activity.

The stimulating power of bouillon is chiefly due to creatine, which has almost the same chemical composition as caffeine, and passes through the system without being absorbed at all.

Bouillon is also rich in salts of potash. The chemists tell us that osmazome consists, as far as we can find out, of creatine, inosic acid, and mineral salts, lactates, phosphates, chlo-rures of potassium, calcium, sodium, etc.

Bouillon restores a man immediately after drinking it, like tea or coffee. It is thus essentially an appetizer and a stimulant, but not an aliment.

In devising a menu and in regulating one's desires, the above-mentioned points should be borne in mind. By the addition of all kinds of alimentary products, and by the various combinations to which purees and crimes lend themselves, the soup may be made a meal in itself. But in our "Art of Delicate Feasting" the theory of soups is that they should play the role of stimulants, of appetizers, of soothers of the impatient stomach.

At a dinner of any ceremony two soups ought to be served, one of the liquid kind and the other of a creamy nature. In the meat-soups - the simple bouillon or the more quintessential consommes - the qualities which the gourmet demands are limpidity, succulence, and purity of aroma, unimpaired by violent or piquant seasoning. In the early stages of the feast the palate is offended by too-ardent appeals. The qualities required in purees and cremes are smoothness and lightness, fineness of taste, perfect material, amalgamation of all the elements, and the preservation and development of the distinctive savors of the different constituent substances.

The Englishman proverbially says, "I don't like slops;" by which he expresses a general disapproval of soups. If his experience has been limited to England I agree with him heartily. With the exception of the very heavy national soups of the turtle or ox-tail kind, the English soups are often, if not generally, nothing but "slops." Soups require care, method, and intelligence on the part of the cook who undertakes to make them, and also that quality which I have so frequently insisted upon as necessary for the highest achievements in the kitchen, namely, sentiment.