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.
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