The Famous White Soup from Pride and Prejudice

By Camille Elliot/Camy Tang

Why did Mr. Bingley insist on white soup? Explore its Regency history, literary significance, and my recreation of the famous dish.

There was a line in Pride and Prejudice that always baffled me. Mr. Bingley is talking about the ball he plans to host at Netherfield:

“If you mean Darcy," cried her brother, "he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it begins—but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send round my cards.”

Nicholls is the housekeeper/cook at Netherfield. Bingley is saying the invitations will go out once she has prepared a large enough quantity of this particular soup.

What White Soup Actually Was

White soup was exactly what its name suggests—a rich, creamy, pale-colored soup that was considered an elegant dish for special occasions. Most recipes included:

• A rich meat stock made from veal, chicken, or both (sometimes with bacon for extra flavor)
• Blanched almonds, pounded into a paste
• Cream, with egg yolks sometimes added for extra richness
• Rice or breadcrumbs to thicken the soup
• Seasonings such as herbs, mace, or even anchovies, depending on the recipe

Historians generally believe white soup evolved from the French court dish Potage à la Reine (“Queen’s Soup”), which itself descended from medieval aristocratic cookery. Recipes for white soup appear in several cookbooks from Jane Austen’s time, including Martha Lloyd’s household book (Martha later lived with the Austens and eventually married Jane’s brother Francis) as well as the Knight family cookbook.

It was not quick to throw together. The stock was typically simmered for hours, then left overnight so the fat could be skimmed off. After that it was enriched with finely pounded almonds, strained, and then finished carefully with cream so it stayed silky rather than curdling. Preparing enough for an entire ballroom full of guests would have required advance planning and a busy kitchen staff.

Why White Soup Mattered

At many Regency private balls, supper was served late in the evening, often around midnight after several hours of dancing. White soup was one of the fashionable dishes commonly served at these suppers, alongside negus—a warm wine punch that was equally popular.

Food historian Joyce White wrote that serving white soup “confers a certain amount of status.” It’s easy to see why. The soup required generous amounts of meat, cream, and almonds, along with many hours of preparation. It wasn’t the sort of meal most families would make on an ordinary weekday.

So Bingley is doing more than mentioning the menu. He’s showing that he intends to host the sort of elegant entertainment everyone would expect at Netherfield. It’s one of those ordinary details Jane Austen slips into her novels that tells us something about her characters and everyday Regency life.

I then found these two fascinating articles on white soup from the Jane Austen Centre and the Austenonly blog. I decided to try making it!

The Original Recipe

I followed the original Regency recipe from the book by John Farley, published in 1811, The London Art of Cookery and Domestic Housekeepers' Complete Assistant : uniting the principles of elegance, taste, and economy : and adapted to the use of servants, and families of every description. You can download the scan of the original book from the link.

Here’s the original recipe:

White Soup.

PUT a knuckle of veal into six quarts of water, with a large fowl, a pound of lean bacon, half a pound of rice, two anchovies, a few pepper-corns, a bundle of sweet herbs, two or three onions, and three or four heads of celery cut in slices. Stew all together, till the soup is as strong as you would have it, and then strain it through a hair sieve into a clean earthen pot: let it stand all night, skim off the fat, and pour it into a stewpan. Put in half a pound of Jordan almonds beat fine, simmer a little, and run it through a tamis: add a pint of cream and the yolk of an egg, and send it up hot.

Also, it mentions a few pages earlier:

“In the preparation of white soup, remember never to put in your cream till you take your soup off the fire, and the last thing you do, must be the dishing of your soups. ”

Camy’s Regency White Soup Adventure

I didn’t have a pot large enough to hold an entire chicken and 6 quarts of water, so I halved the recipe:

• 1 package of beef shank, 1 pound (When looking up what a “knuckle of veal” was, I found this online: “Look for veal shank. The main thing for your stock is to get bones with a good deal of marrow. Knuckles, by the way, typically need to be cracked, whereas the shanks are often sold in 2"to 3" pieces, so the marrow is already exposed.”)
• 2.5 pounds chicken thighs, in lieu of half a chicken
• 1/2 pound bacon, chopped
• 1/4 pound rice
• 2 anchovy fillets (I assumed the recipe meant 2 entire anchovies, so I minced 2 fillets)
• 5-6 peppercorns
• A handful of minced fresh basil. I wanted to also add fresh thyme but didn’t have any, so I added a teaspoon of dried thyme.
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 bunches (or less) of celery, chopped (When I was chopping, it seemed like a lot of celery, but then I started the soup and realized it’s a lot of soup, so 2 entire bunches of celery ended up not being all that much. Still, reduce to only 1 bunch if you’re not a fan of that much celery.)
• 3 quarts of water
• 1/4 pound raw almonds
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup cream

I put everything but the almonds, egg, and cream in my stock pot on high heat, raised it to a boil, then put the heat to medium and simmered it. My stock pot was extremely full—in fact, I kept back one of the celery bunches and let the soup simmer for about an hour to reduce the water volume, then added the rest of the celery. (In hindsight, I probably could have just left out that second bunch of celery.)

I wasn’t entirely sure how long is “as strong as you would have it,” so I looked it up in my Williams-Sonoma cookbook, which said that a typical meat stock takes about 3.5-4 hours of simmering, partially covered. So I simmered for 4 hours, partially covered.

The soup got thick pretty quick, probably from the rice, so that it was more like a stew than a soup. Also, like when you make rice on the stovetop, the bottom can burn. (Sigh. I should have expected that.) So I had to be sure to watch it and stir consistently.

I strained the solids only through a metal colander, and then I forgot to put the soup in the fridge to let the fats solidify on the top so I could skim it off. Sigh again.

I was a bit surprised at how little soup there was, but then I’d looked at how much solids I had, and it made more sense.

I put 1/4 pound of raw almonds in my blender with 1/3 cup water and pulsed until it was all ground up, then added that to the soup. In hindsight, I should have used blanched almonds so the soup would be more “white.” I then brought it to a boil and simmered it, covered, for 15 minutes.

I strained the almonds using a wire strainer, which was a rather tedious process. Belatedly, I put it in the fridge to solidify the fats so I could skim them off.

I whisked the egg yolk, then tempered it by adding hot soup a little at a time, whisking in between until the yolk was hot enough, then whisked all of it into the soup. Then I stirred in the cream.

At the End of the Adventure

It tasted fabulous! It’s extremely creamy and rich even though there’s only 1 cup of cream for the entire pot of soup, I think because of the rice and almonds that thickened it. The meat flavor and the almond flavor both come through. It’s extremely elegant as a cream soup—it deserves fine china and silver cutlery.

I had saved the meat, veggies, and rice because I couldn’t bear to throw them away. I stripped the meat off the bones and shredded it. Then I added it all back to the soup to make it more stew-y and significantly less elegant. Mr. Darcy would be appalled, but Captain Caffeine was pleased by the result.

Bonus Epilogue

This would have been an expensive soup in Jane Austen’s day, because of the amount of meat in it. And there isn’t even meat in the soup itself! It was a bit pricey even for today. It was also rather tedious to make.

If you try this recipe, consider making homemade pressure-cooker stock to save several hours. Additionally, you can try using whole milk instead of cream so it’ll be a bit less rich. You might also consider using almond milk instead of the ground almonds—I’m pretty sure it would taste the same with much less work.

Despite the work involved, I can see why Mr. Bingley insisted on serving white soup at Netherfield. Rich, elegant, and surprisingly delicate, it feels exactly like the sort of dish that belongs at a grand Regency ball.

Would you have tried it?

(This article first appeared on my personal blog and has been updated for Heroes, Heroines & History.)

About the Author

Camy Tang writes Christian historical and contemporary romance filled with intrigue, adventure, and faith. Under the pen name Camille Elliot, she writes the Christian Regency romantic suspense series Lady Wynwood’s Spies, set in 1811 London where secrets, espionage, and slow-burn romance unfold against the glittering backdrop of high society.

If you enjoy Regency romance with adventure and a dash of humor, you can receive her novella Lissa and the Spy free when you join her newsletter.

Lissa and the Spy

A Regency Romantic Suspense Novella

In her quest for a marriage of convenience, plain and unpopular Lissa finds herself entangled with the enigmatic Lord Jeremy Stoude, who has a secret mission for the Crown. As danger stalks them, they must navigate a labyrinth of society’s expectations and their own insecurities to find love.

Click here to get Lissa and the Spy

The Most Powerful and Notorious Address on Earth - Domus Augustana Part 2

 by Liisa Eyerly

#1 AI image #2 Domitian I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons, 

From atop Rome’s Palatine Hill, Roman rulers governed millions of people, from Britain to Egypt for nearly two thousand years. Crowning the famous hill stands the palace Domus Augustana. Power and wealth, control and opulence, radiated from every marble column and gilded hall. Designed to awe foreign ambassadors, military commanders, and senators alike, the palace proclaimed a single message: Rome had one ruler. It was not merely the emperor's home—it was the beating heart of an empire.  

Gone are its elegant courtyards, reflecting pools, audience halls, and lavish dining rooms. Its grand vaulted chambers, stairways, and terraces that cascaded down the hillside are mere skeletons, connected by crumbling colonnades and collapsed balconies. A relic of one of the largest and most extravagant royal residences in the ancient world.

• The public state palace (Domus Flavia)
• The private residence (Domus Augustana)
• The enormous garden-stadium
• Multiple courtyards, pools, fountains, reception halls, dining rooms, and service areas. 

Cassius Ahenobarbus, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
You can still see the remains of sunken peristyle courtyards and the famous third peristyle, which still preserves the footprint of its massive rectangular pool. Archaeologists believe the pool occupied most of the courtyard and may have contained a small island shrine, possibly dedicated to Minerva, Domitian's favorite goddess. 

    #1 Cassius Ahenobarbus,CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, #2 AI Image

Despite its grandeur, the palace witnessed one of Rome's most dramatic assassinations. In September of AD 96, Emperor Domitian was lured into a private chamber by conspirators that included palace officials and members of his household. Believing he was receiving routine business, he instead found himself surrounded by assassins. After a violent struggle, he was stabbed repeatedly and killed, an event that launches Powers of Death, the third book in my Secrets of Ephesus series.  Domitian I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons,

Domitian was hated for many reasons, but especially his heavy taxation and spending. Enormous sums went to...
building forums, temples, roads, aqueducts
chariot races, gladiatorial contests, beast hunts
military campaigns
excessive palace staff, extravagant court entertainment
religious festivals, imported luxuries

#1 AI-generated image, #2 Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A flashpoint of criticism came when he demolished many of the previous aristocratic houses to construct his Domus Flavia and the Domus Augustana, the first true imperial palace complex on the Palatine Hill. The palace dwarfed the homes of earlier emperors such as Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Critics viewed the vast palace complex as a symbol of monarchy rather than the unpretentious leadership expected of a Roman princeps. His home asserted that Domitian intended to rule as an absolute monarch. ([Wikipedia][1]) (Cassius Ahenobarbus, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsAugustus,)

History invites an unsettling question: would Domitian have been assassinated had his ambition and ego not driven him to create one of the largest and most extravagant residential complexes in the Roman world—a sprawling monument of marble, fountains, and gardens? Had Domitian been content with a more modest residence, would his enemies have found fewer reasons to strike? We can never know. But there is a certain irony that the emperor who built a palace the size of seven modern football fields may have also constructed the perfect stage for his own assassination.

 

Step into the shadowy streets of 96 AD Ephesus, where danger lurks around every corner, and the line between friend and foe is razor-thin. Fortunes of Death, plunges you into a world where faith is tested, alliances are shattered, and one woman's courage could be the difference between life and death.

Sabina, a fierce young Christian widow, is thrust into a deadly game when a wealthy citizen is murdered. With her friend’s life hanging in the balance, Sabina must unravel a web of lies, deceit, and hidden motives. Every clue she uncovers brings her closer to the truth—and closer to becoming the next victim.

This isn't just a murder mystery. It's a gripping tale of faith, resilience, and the power of one woman standing against the darkness. 

Visit me at my website, on my Author Facebook page,

or purchase my books at:

• Fortunes of Death
• Obedient Unto Death
• My Amazon book page

 

Mystery, murder, and mayhem aren’t your typical Christian themes—but why should secular authors have all the fun solving crimes in ancient Rome? My love of history, scripture, and whodunits led me to blend faith with intrigue, bringing the world of the early Christians to life. Writing from my home in the woods of northern Wisconsin, I also draw inspiration from my travels to Turkey, Greece, and Italy, where I’ve walked the same streets my characters once did. Through historical mysteries, I explore a time when faith was a matter of life and death—literally

 

 

Western Hearths: Keeping Cool with Vintage Lemonade

August in the Wild West could make a homesteader long for winter, especially the cook. Baking, cooking, and preserving often turned the kitchen into the hottest room in the house. With the first mass-produced electric refrigerators decades away, keeping food on the table while staying cool called for ingenuity. Any mention of hot kitchens in summer oversimplifies the situation, though. Sometimes there was no kitchen. Homestead cabins might only have a fireplace, or later a wood stove, in the main room. In rhat case, homeowners needed to prepare food while keeping the whole house from overheating. How did they do it?

Wise cooks avoided being trapped over a stove or fire during the heat of the day. They rose early and took care of food preparation and preservation tasks in the cool of the morning. Cooking outdoors or, for the prosperous, in a separate cookhouse also kept the house from warming up.

The menu mattered. Foods that required little to no cooking made life easier. That usually meant fresh lettuce, cucumbers, peas, onions, beans, new potatoes, corn, and fruit. Pickles, preserves, bread, cold potatoes, leftover meat, milk, and buttermilk likewise did not go amiss. Of course, availability depended on factors like location, rainfall, and the presence of livestock. Distance from a farm, town, or railroad station affected western diets.

Keeping food cool was another matter.

Walker Family Farm Springhouse, Gatlinburg, TN
Public Domain Image

A springhouse built over or beside a spring solved the problem for some. This structure created a place to cool milk, butter, and other perishables using cold water emerging from underground. 

Old Root Cellar

Root cellars built into a hillside, where the earth kept them cool, also helped. These simple methods made a huge difference during the heat of summer.

And then there was ice.

Ice Harvesting, Massachusetts, early 1850s;
unknown author; public domain image

Yes, homesteaders had ice, or at least some did. In areas with lakes and ponds that froze in winter, families could cut big blocks of ice. These they would pack in thick layers of straw, hay, or sawdust and store in an icehouse to last all summer long.

Icehouses occupied shady locations near homes, dairies, or other buildings where ice was needed. Or homesteaders might place them near ponds or lakes to make harvesting and storing the ice easier. Constructed partly or entirely underground, Icehouses took advantage of the earth’s ability to maintain lower temperatures.

Commercial companies got into the act beginning in 1873 and started shipping ice to western towns and settlements by rail, water, or wagon. Not everyone could afford to buy ice, however, and homesteaders who lived remotely were often out of luck. Those who did obtain ice greatly treasured and rationed it. A cold glass of lemonade, so common these days, was a rare treat in the Wild West.

And yes, homesteaders had lemonade—at least sometimes. Lemons and sugar were transported into much of the West, but were similarly precious. Lemonade wasn’t a regular item for most people and would have been reserved for special occasions. If the household had ice, the lemonade could be chilled. If not, it could still be refreshing served cool from the springhouse, cellar, or well.

Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management, published in 1861, includes a lemonade recipe made with lemon rind, lemon juice, loaf sugar, and boiling water. The recipe below is an adaptation.

Vintage Lemonade

Ingredients

• Rind of 2 lemons
• Juice of 3 large or 4 small lemons
• 1 pound loaf sugar (Note: purchase loaf sugar online or substitute 2¼ cups granulated sugar)
• 1 quart boiling water

Instructions

• Rub some of the sugar over the lemons to extract the fragrant oil from their skins. Put the sugar into a jug and add the strained lemon juice. Pour over the boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves.
• Strain the lemonade through a fine sieve or clean cloth and allow it to cool.

Bringing this Homestead Treat to Your Family

Make this recipe for a special occasion, just as a western homesteader would do. Fill everyone’s glasses with ice in tribute to the effort that went into harvesting it in winter and storing it for summer use. Chat around the table while you enjoy the sweetness.

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt fell in love with literature an early age when her father read chapters from childhood classics to her as bedtime stories. After she grew older, Janalyn put herself to sleep with tales of her own. She trained more formally in writing through Christian Writers Guild.

Janalyn writes in several genres. She is the Amazon-bestselling author of the Montana Gold western historical romance series. New York Times bestselling author, Eric Wilson endorsed and wrote the forward for Janalyn’s medieval epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven. Readers often describe Janalyn’s books as lyrical and transporting. Learn More>>>

The Treacherous Thousand Island Shipping Channel

During the Gilded Age, the Thousand Islands occupied a unique position between leisure and industry. While the region became renowned for opulent summer estates and grand hotels, it also lay along the St. Lawrence River shipping channel. The movement of cargo vessels through this island-filled corridor shaped daily life.

By the late nineteenth century, the St. Lawrence River was a critical link between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic world. Steam-powered freighters carrying grain, timber, and ore passed through the Thousand Islands on their way to international markets. These working vessels shared the river with excursion steamers and private yachts, creating a contrast between industrial purpose and Gilded Age leisure.

Navigating the shipping channel through the islands was challenging and dangerous. Strong currents, fog, narrow passages, and hidden shoals made precise navigation essential at night. Lighthouses became the backbone of river safety. Strategically placed on exposed points and isolated islands, they marked channel edges, warned of hazards, and guided ships through tight turns. Range lights worked in pairs, allowing pilots to align vessels accurately within the dredged channel.

Governments on both sides of the border invested heavily in lighthouse construction and maintenance, recognizing that safe passage was vital to commerce. Lighthouse keepers and their families lived year-round in remote conditions, tending lamps, cleaning lenses, and monitoring weather to ensure the lights never failed.

For island residents and vacationers, the lighthouses became familiar landmarks. At night, their steady beams traced arcs across the water, a reassuring presence amid the river’s movement. Watching freighters follow these lights underscored the balance between beauty and industry.

In the Thousand Islands during the Gilded Age, lighthouses symbolized connection. They made possible the coexistence of grand leisure estates and global trade, ensuring the same river carrying elegance and escape could safely carry the commerce of a modernizing world.

ABOUT EMMA’S ENGAGEMENT

Book 3 of the Love in a Lighthouse series:

Emma Row yearns to build a loving family. But becoming the Rock Island Lightkeeper's wife brings treacherous waters of isolation and the bitter rejection of her new stepdaughter, Ada. Michael Diepolder, the widowed lightkeeper, had hoped marriage would simplify life but realizes that the path to happiness is far more turbulent than he ever anticipated. Emma and Michael must confront the tempestuous waves of doubt, jealousy, and isolation that threaten to extinguish the light of their love. Can they weather the storm and find the strength to keep their family together, or will the darkness consume them all?

ABOUT SUSAN:

Susan G Mathis is an international award-winning, multi-published author of stories set in the beautiful Thousand Islands in upstate NY. Susan has been published more than thirty times in full-length novels, novellas, and non-fiction books. She has sixteen in her fiction line. Susan is also a published author of two premarital books, stories in a dozen compilations, and hundreds of published articles. Susan lives in Northern Virginia and enjoys traveling the world. Visit www.SusanGMathis.com/fiction for more.

The Methodist Minister They Called "Fightin' Jack"

by Tom Goodman 

Before Texas communities had pastors and church buildings, many depended on circuit riders: preachers who traveled on horseback from settlement to settlement, conducting services wherever people gathered.

Few fit the frontier image better than Andrew Jackson Potter--or “Fightin’ Jack,” as friends and enemies alike called him. 

Potter had hauled freight, driven cattle, prospected for gold, and fought in the army before becoming a Methodist preacher. Beginning in 1866, he served circuits across West and South Texas, preaching in homes, churches, military forts, camp meetings, and even saloons.

His routes reportedly covered about 2,500 miles each year.

Potter made a point of going to rough communities where other ministers hesitated to serve. He frequently carried a gun, sometimes propping it beside the pulpit while he preached to crowds that included drunkards, cowboys, trail drivers, and hecklers. 

A weapon might seem an odd tool for a pastor, but it caused men to think twice before interfering with Potter's meetings or accosting him on a remote road. In the language of his day, he once wrote:

"When God calls me to travel in a region of country infested with lurking savages, my Winchester gun and a full belt of cartridges shall ever prevent distressing alarms about my safety when meeting a savage foe, feeling that in the fearful struggle for life I have some safe means to preserve my God-given manhood."

He spent twelve years riding the Kerrville circuit and later established a Methodist circuit at Fort Concho, where he preached the first Methodist sermon at the future site of San Angelo. He continued circuit riding until 1895, when he died while preaching in a Caldwell County chapel.

By the turn of the century, Texas pastors were more likely to receive an appointment centered on one town or a small group of established churches. But stories of armed circuit riders who braved lawless settlements still lingered. 

Such stories may have fortified the resolve of the real-life preacher behind my forthcoming novel when he faced dangers of his own.

My new novel is called Through Many Dangers. It's based on the remarkable true story of Jesse Lee, whom I renamed Rick Burleson for the novel. In 1905, Lee faced down a violent bootlegging syndicate in Groveton, Texas, to become known as the pistol-packing preacher. 

When I first ran across the tale, it was like someone had taken one of my favorite films, The Untouchables, and dropped it in the remote Piney Woods of East Texas.

Read the back cover copy here. To keep up with the launch, sign up for my newsletter at this page and get a free copy of Ten Texas Tales.

I need some advance reviewers who will read the book before the October 1 pub date and be ready to drop a review at online stores and review sites the first week it's out. 

Members of the Review Team will get a free copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review. Apply to join the Review Team by clicking on the deputy badge below:

Photo of Jack Potter: H. A. Graves, Andrew Jackson Potter, the Fighting Parson of the Texan Frontier (1881). Courtesy of the Library of Congress and Internet Archive. Public domain. The Houston Chronicle adapted the engraving.
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