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Chestnut (Spanish) Soup

A historical recipe from The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861).

A historical recipe

The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Project Gutenberg eBook #10136.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #10136 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10136). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

Spain. Associated with Spain by its title says: Spanish (confidence 0.7). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. 124.
  2. INGREDIENTS.--3/4 lb.
  3. of Spanish chestnuts, 1/4 pint of cream;
  4. seasoning to taste of salt, cayenne, and mace;
  5. 1 quart of stock No.
  6. 105.
  7. Mode.--Take the outer rind from the chestnuts, and put them into a large pan of warm water.
  8. As soon as this becomes too hot for the fingers to remain in it, take out the chestnuts, peel them quickly, and immerse them in cold water, and wipe and weigh them.
  9. Now cover them with good stock, and stew them gently for rather more than 3/4 of an hour, or until they break when touched with a fork;
  10. then drain, pound, and rub them through a fine sieve reversed;
  11. add sufficient stock, mace, cayenne, and salt, and stir it often until it boils, and put in the cream.
  12. The stock in which the chestnuts are boiled can be used for the soup, when its sweetness is not objected to, or it may, in part, be added to it;
  13. and the rule is, that 3/4 lb.
  14. of chestnuts should be given to each quart of soup.
  15. Time.--rather more than 1 hour.
  16. Average cost per quart, 1s.
  17. 6d.
  18. THE CHESTNUT.--This fruit is said, by some, to have originally come from Sardis, in Lydia;
  19. and by others, from Castanea, a city of Thessaly, from which it takes its name.
  20. By the ancients it was much used as a food, and is still common in France and Italy, to which countries it is, by some, considered indigenous.
  21. In the southern part of the European continent, it is eaten both raw and roasted.
  22. The tree was introduced into Britain by the Romans;
  23. but it only flourishes in the warmer parts of the island, the fruit rarely arriving at maturity in Scotland.
  24. It attains a great age, as well as an immense size.
  25. As a food, it is the least oily and most farinaceous of all the nuts, and, therefore, the easiest of digestion.
  26. The tree called the horse chestnut is very different, although its fruit very much resembles that of the other.
  27. Its "nuts," though eaten by horses and some other animals, are unsuitable for human food.