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17. Potato or Parmentier Soup.
I have -given an alternative "fancy
" title to this excellent
pottage in remembrance of the philanthropist
who was the
first to introduce the potato into French cookery.
Parmentier
was a military apothecary, who, late in the last
century, had
learnt to believe in the dietetic value of the
potato while
serving with the French armies in Germany. At
the outset
he had to encounter the bitterest opposition
both from the
French Academy of Sciences and the French clergy.
Tho
first declared the tuber to be poisonous ; the
latter denounced
it as s, " Protestant " vegetable. Parmentier,
however, succeeded
in obtaining the support of Benjamin Franklin
and
of Lavoisier; but his triumph was completed when
he induced
l-Marie Antoinette to accept and wear in her
bosom a bouquet
of potato flowers. "La Liberte- et les Patatas'="Liberty
and Potatoes "-was a popular cry in Paris in
the early days
of the French Revolution ; and the strip of ornamental
garden
of the Palace of the Tuileries was planted with
seed potatoes.
Slice ten large Potatoes (kidneys are
the best), blanch
them ; stew them in stock with two leeks aud
n- head of
celery tied up-, ind the crumb of a Frenh
roll; when they
break under the pressure of the finger, take
out the bunch of
herbs, and run the potatoes through a tammy ;
mix with
a sufficient quantity of stock, clarify the whole,
add a pinch
of sugar and a little nutmeg. When serving, ,just
after
boiling point, mix in a pint of milk-nursery
milk if you
can get it and if you can afford it-a third of
a pint of
double cream and a pat of fresh butter. Pour
the soup into
a tureen with some blanched chervil ; fried crusts
as usual, to
make it more toothsome. This is a cheap soup
without the
cream, and eminently relishable.
You may also make a clear Parmentier soup
by using-;
finely shredded potatoes mingled with shredded
onions in the
broth, and leaving out the milk and cream.
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