CELERY SOUP.--Take half a dozen heads of celery, or a smaller quantity if
the heads of celery are very large; throw away all the green part and cut
up the celery into small pieces, with one onion sliced, and place them in a
frying-pan, or, better still, in an enamelled stew-pan, and stew them in a
little butter, taking great care that the celery does not turn colour. Now
add sufficient water or stock, and let it all boil till the celery becomes
quite tender. Let it boil till it becomes a pulp, and then rub the whole
through a wire sieve. Next boil separately from one to two quarts of milk
according to the quantity of celery pulp, and boil a couple of bay-leaves
in the milk. As soon as the milk boils add it to the celery pulp, flavour
the soup with pepper and salt; serve fried or toasted bread with the soup.
It is needless to say that all these white soups are greatly improved both
in appearance and flavour by the addition of a little cream.


CHEESE SOUP.--Light-coloured and dry cheese is necessary for this somewhat
peculiar soup, but the best cheese of all is, undoubtedly, Gruyere. Grate
half a pound of cheese and spread a layer of this at the bottom of the
soup-tureen. Cover this layer of cheese with some very thin slices of
stale crumb of bread. Then put another layer of cheese and another layer
of bread till all the cheese is used up. Next take about two
tablespoonfuls of brown roux, melt this in a small saucepan, and add two
tablespoonfuls of chopped onion. Let the onion cook in the melted roux
over the fire, and then add a quart of water, and stir it all up till it
boils, adding pepper and salt and a few drops of Parisian essence (burnt
sugar) to give it a dark brown colour. Now pour the boiling soup over the
contents of the soup-tureen, and let it stand a few minutes so that the
bread has time to soak, and serve.