Making soup in the 1800s was a long process, requiring it to simmer for hours on the stove. Commercially canned soup only became available in the late 1800s. The largest and most popular company was Campbell’s, which began selling canned soup in 1895. And in 1897, Campbell’s chemist John T. Dorrance developed condensed soup by removing much of the water. This made soup cheaper to ship, store, and buy. and was certainly more convenient.

One of the recipes below is for “Portable Soup” where you boil away most of the water. Then you dry and store what remains to use when traveling. It’s more like a dried soup rather than condensed, but with the same idea of convenience.

RECIPES BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

BROTH MADE FROM BONES FOR SOUP
Fresh bones must be broken up small, then put into a boiling-pot with a quart of water to every pound of bones. After being placed on the fire, the broth must be well skimmed, seasoned with pepper and salt, a few carrots, onions, turnips, celery, and thyme, and boiled very gently for six hours. It is then to be strained off and put back into the pot, with any bits of meat or gristle which may have fallen from the bones. 

Let this broth be thickened with peasemeal* or oatmeal, in the proportion of a large tablespoon to every pint of broth. Stir over the fire while boiling for twenty-five minutes, by which time the soup will be done. It will be apparent to all good housewives that, with a little trouble and good management, a savory and substantial meal may thus be prepared for a mere trifle.

*peasemeal – a flour produced from yellow field peas that have been roasted. The roasting enables greater access to protein and starch, thus increasing nutritive value. Traditionally the peas would be ground three times using water-powered stone mills.

BEEF AND SAGO BROTH
Stew two pounds of beef, cut up small, in two quarts of water until it falls to pieces. Strain it out, salt the liquid and stir in one cup of sago, soaked soft in a little lukewarm water.. Simmer gently one hour, stirring often. Add the beaten yolks of three eggs. Boil up once and serve.

This is a strengthening and nice soup. Eat with dry toast.

RICH BROWN SOUP ~ Take six pounds of lean fresh beef cut from the bone. Stick it over with four dozen cloves. Season it with a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, mace, and a beaten nutmeg. 

Slice half a dozen onions, fry them in butter, chop them, and spread them over the meat after you have put it into the soup pot. Pour in five quarts of water, and stew it slowly for five or six hours, skimming it well.

When the meat has dissolved into shreds, strain it, and return the liquid to the pot. Then add a tumbler and a half, or six wine glasses of claret or port wine. 

Simmer it again slowly till dinner time. When the soup is reduced to three quarts, it is done enough. Put it into a tureen, and send it to the table.

POT-AU-FEU
Into four quarts of cold water, put in one pound of cheap lean meat, one pound of liver whole, some bones cut into bits, two tablespoons salt, one teaspoon pepper, four leeks cut in pieces, and the following vegetables whole: four carrots, four turnips, and four onions, each stuck with two cloves. 

Boil all gently for three hours, skimming occasionally and adding two tablespoons of cold water about every half hour. 

Take up the meat and the liver on a platter, arrange the vegetables neatly around them, and serve the broth, strained, in a tureen with plenty of bread.

BREAKFAST STEW OF BEEF
Cut up two pounds of beef—not too lean—into pieces an inch long. Put them into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, and stew gently for two hours. Set away until next morning, then season with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram or summer savory, chopped onion, and parsley. Stew half an hour longer, and add a teaspoon of sauce or catsup, and a tablespoon of browned flour wet up with cold water. Finally, if you wish to have it very good, half a glass of wine. Boil up once, and pour into a covered deep dish.

This is an economical dish, for it can be made of the commoner parts of the beef, and exceedingly nice for winter breakfasts. Eaten with corn-bread and stewed potatoes, it will soon win its way to a place in the “stock company” of every judicious housewife.

FARMER STEW
Pound flour into both sides of a round steak, using as much as the meat will take up. This may be done with a meat pounder or with the edge of a heavy plate. Fry in drippings, butter, or other fat, in an ordinary iron kettle or a frying pan. Then add water enough to cover it. Cover the dish very tightly so that the steam cannot escape and allow the meat to simmer for two hours or until it is tender. One advantage of this dish is that ordinarily it is ready to serve when the meat is done as the gravy is already thickened. However, if a large amount of fat is used in the frying, the gravy may not be thick enough and must be blended with flour.

PORTABLE SOUP
Take beef or veal soup and let it get perfectly cold, then skim off every particle of the grease. Set it on the fire, and let it boil till of a thick glutinous consistence. Care should be taken that it does not burn. 

Season it highly with salt, pepper, cloves and mace. Add a little wine or brandy, and then turn it onto earthen platters. It should not be more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Let it remain until cold, then cut it in pieces three inches square.

Set them in the sun to dry, turning them frequently. When perfectly dry, put them in an earthen or tin vessel, placing white paper between each layer. These, if the directions are strictly attended to, will keep good a long time. 

This preparation is convenient in traveling or at sea, where fresh meat is not readily obtained. Whenever you wish to make a soup of them, nothing more is necessary than to put a quart of water to one of the cakes, and heat it very hot.

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