$15  A  Prize  Series.  $15 
HOW  UII)  YOU  SUPPORT  YOUR  FAMILY  ?  HOW  CAN  PARENTS 
HELP  THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL?  FANCY  COOKERY  FOR 
THE  FARM  TABLE. 
How  Did  You  Support  Your  Family  ? 
HE  question  as  to  what  a  woman  thrown  upon  her 
own  resources  may  do,  or  can  do,  is  one  of  the  chief 
questions  of  the  day.  Mrs.  Croly  has  just  issued  a  book 
upon  this  subject,  which  is  receiving  much  attention, 
and  many  articles  are  being  written  showing  what 
the  writers  would  do  in  certain  supposable  cases.  All 
these  excite  thought  and  are  valuable.  The  It.  N.-Y. 
gave  some  space  to  this  topic  a  few  months  ago,  but  it 
now  wishes  to  take  it  up  in  a  little  different  style. 
“  To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils,”  is  proverbial.  Those 
who  have  succeeded  have  full  right  to  a  hearing  when 
they  tell  how  to  succeed.  Therefore,  we  want  the 
women  who  have  been  thrown  upon  their  own  resources, 
with  no  masculine  help  to  depend  upon  for  their  own 
living,  or  the  support  of  those  dependent  upon  them, 
to  tell  how  they  solved  the  problem. 
How  Can  Parents  Help  the  District  School  ? 
These  articles  are  to  be  written  from  the  teacher’s 
standpoint,  for  she,  if  anybody,  knows  where  parents 
fail  in  their  duty  to  the  school,  and  where  they  might 
be  a  strong  support  to  the  teacher.  Teachers  only,  are 
invited  to  write  on  this  topic.  Some  of  the  questions 
we  would  like  to  have  answered  are  : 
Do  parents  commit  the  manners  and  morals  of  the 
child  wholly  to  the  teacher  ?  Is  it  fair  ?  Can  the 
teacher  take  the  place  of  the  parents  ? 
How  far  are  parents  responsible  for  the  teachers’ 
“  government,”  or  lack  thereof  ? 
Dainty  Cookery  for  the  Farm  Table. 
There  are  by  far  too  many  homes  in  which  a  few 
standard  recipes  are  used  day  after  day  and  month 
after  month,  until  all  zest  for  food  is  taken  away 
except  from  the  keenest  appetites,  through  the  lack  of 
variety. 
Can  fancy  cookery  obviate  this  ? 
Is  it  practicable  ? 
Must  it  of  necessity  increase  expenses  ? 
Can  the  housewife  afford  time  for  fancy  cookery  ? 
Are  there  simple,  easy  recipes  which  give  good  re¬ 
sults  ? 
These  are  a  few  of  the  points  to  be  treated  under 
this  topic. 
Conditions  which  apply  to  all  these  subjects  : 
1.  The  writer  must  be  of  the  family  of  a  R.  N.-Y. 
subscriber. 
2.  Articles  must  not  exceed  1,000  words. 
3.  Matter  must  be  written  on  one  side  of  the  paper 
only,  addressed  to  the  Women  and  Home  Department 
of  The  Rural  New-Yorker,  and  marked  “  for  the 
competition.” 
4.  Articles  must  be  received  by  March  13,  1892. 
$5. — We  will  give  $5  for  the  best  article  under  each 
of  the  three  heads.  No  manuscript  will  be  returned  ; 
but  in  order  that  all  who  do  the  best  work  may  get 
something,  we  will  pay  $1  for  each  article  used. 
Ideas  count  first  in  deciding  the  value  of  articles  ; 
after  ideas,  grammatical  accuracy,  neatness,  etc. 
Faith  Soup. 
WE  suspect  that  our  contributor  who  speaks  a 
good  word  for  the  nourishing  soups  has  never 
heard  of  “  faith”  soup,  or  she  would  perhaps  have 
added  it  to  her  list.  A  friend  of  the  New  York  Observer 
invented  it,  and  tells  in  that  paper  the  story  of  the 
inception  of  the  idea.  Recause  it  illustrates  so  well 
the  value  of  the  littles  that  are  often  thrown  away,  we 
give  our  readers  the  benefit  of  it. 
A  woman  with  six  little  children  under  12  years  of 
age,  most  of  whom  were  girls,  lived  around  the  corner. 
Her  first  effort  was  to  keep  her  rent  paid,  and  soon  the 
hunger  wolf  began  to  prowl  around  the  doors  and  win¬ 
dows  at  night,  keeping  her  and  the  children  awake. 
The  daily  rations  were  meal  mush  for  breakfast,  corn 
bread  for  dinner  and  meal  mush  for  supper.  The  fat 
little  faces  began  to  fall  in  and  the  eyes  to  grow  large 
and  restless.  I  was  very  unhappy  about  it.  Each  day 
I  sent  a  plate  of  food,  but  what  was  that  among  so 
many  ? 
The  winter  was  a  hard  one  for  all  of  us.  What  was 
to  be  done  ?  Our  expenses  had  been  cut  down  by  dis¬ 
missing  the  cook,  and  one  morning  as  I  was  clearing 
away  the  breakfast  dishes,  I  was  “  moved,”  as  our 
brethren  the  Quakers  say,  to  put  on  the  soup  pot, 
with  a  gallon  of  water  in  it,  a  tablespoonful  of  salt  and 
a  teaspoonful  of  pepper.  Our  breakfast  had  been  one 
of  the  most  frugal,  so  that  the  leavings  in  the  dishes 
amounted  to  very  little  ;  three  spoonfuls  of  grits,  two 
spoonfuls  of  stewed  potatoes,  three  beefsteak  bones 
with  some  trimmings  of  fat  and  gristle,  a  hard-boiled 
egg  and  four  slices  of  toast  were  all.  After  chopping 
these  up  and  crushing  the  bones  with  a  hammer,  I  put 
them  into  the  faith  pot. 
When  I  began  to  cook  dinner  I  found  the  outer  green 
leaves  of  the  cabbages,  and  the  trimmings  of  the 
roast,  after  both  had  been  chopped,  could  go  in.  I 
concluded  to  wait  until  after  our  own  dinner  to  com¬ 
plete  the  faith  soup,  and  to  say  nothing  to  any  one 
about  it ;  for  the  reason  that,  if  I  expected  to  keep 
it  up,  I  must  say  nothing  to  induce  any  members  of  the 
family  to  deny  themselves  anything  they  could  not 
make  a  habit  of  doing  without. 
When  the  dinner  dishes  were  emptied  two  spoonfuls 
of  canned  tomatoes,  three  small  potatoes  chopped,  two 
slices  of  broken  bread  and  two  spoonfuls  of  turnips 
were  added,  and  now  for  the  flavoring. 
I  found  that  on  the  top  of  the  soup  was  quite  a  coat¬ 
ing  of  melted  fat.  This  I  skimmed  and  put  in  the  fry¬ 
ing-pan,  and  when  the  blue  smoke  rose  from  it,  added 
a  finely-chopped  onion  ;  when  this  was  a  golden  yellow, 
I  added  two  heaping  tablespoonfuls  of  flour,  and  stir¬ 
ring  until  brown,  I  thinned  off  with  two  tablespoon¬ 
fuls  of  vinegar  and  a  teacupful  of  the  soup  liquor.  The 
mixture  was  then  added  to  that  in  the  pot.  And  now 
after  taking  out  the  scraps  of  bone,  the  faith  soup  was 
ready.  It  was  smooth  and  consistent  throughout,  no 
lumps  nor  ragged-looking  scraps,  and  the  odor  was 
really  appetizing.  The  only  expense  had  been  the 
onion,  the  two  spoonfuls  of  flour  and  the  vinegar. 
Just  as  it  was  done,  I  looked  out  of  the  window,  and 
saw  the  only  little  boy  of  the  family  passing  by,  drag¬ 
ging  his  torn  shoes  aimlessly  along  the  sidewalk. 
When  I  called  “  Gus”  he  became  at  once  an  animated 
creature,  and  his  loose-soled  shoes  flapped  merrily  into 
the  kitchen.  He  had  not  been  poor  long  enough  to  be 
lugubrious  or  whining,  and  had  in  his  six-year-old 
body  the  courage  and  ambition  of  a  man. 
“  Could  you  carry  that  bucket  of  soup  home  ?  ” 
“  Uv  course  I  kin,  an’  another  one  jis  like  it.” 
Every  day  during  the  winter  Gus  was  the  bearer  of 
a  bucket  of  faith  soup. 
The  “  leavings  ”  varied,  beans,  rice  and  hominy  being 
sometimes  the  staple  articles.  If  there  were  no  toma¬ 
toes,  I  added  a  flavoring  of  a  spoonful  of  catsup.  Rut 
I  always  tasted  the  soup,  and  it  was  such  as  I  would 
have  enjoyed  myself.  Indeed  one  of  my  schoolboy 
sons  would  beg  for  a  taste  of  some  of  the  “  Dutch 
soup,”  as  he  called  it,  preferring  it  to  the  brown  or 
clear  soup  that  we  occasionally  had. 
The  round,  rosy  little  faces  of  the  poor  children  were 
a  sight  to  see  when  they  left,  and  their  mother  declared 
that  it  was  caused  by  the  faith  soup. 
A  Chapter  on  Soups. 
NO  dinner,  however  elaborate  in  other  respects,  can 
be  regarded  as  perfect,  which  is  not  preceded  by 
a  soup. 
Soups  are  always  good  and  wholesome,  and  it  would 
be  much  better  for  those  who  seldom  use  them  if  they 
could  be  persuaded  to  give  them  a  regular  place  in 
their  bill-of-fare.  They  are  the  lightest,  most  nourish¬ 
ing  and  most  savory  of  all  dishes. 
To  make  a  good  meat  soup  the  water  in  which  the 
meat  is  placed  should  simmer  rather  than  boil,  as  boil¬ 
ing  has  a  tendency  to  toughen  the  meat.  The  salt 
should  not  be  added  until  the  meat  is  thoroughly 
cooked,  lest  it  harden  the  fibers,  and  restrain  the  flow 
of  the  juices. 
Reef  Soup. — When  you  have  learned  to  make  a  good 
beef  soup  you  have  very  nearly  learned  the  trade.  A 
plain  beef  soup  is  made  as  follows  :  Take  a  four-pound 
soup  bone,  cut  the  meat  into  small  pieces  and  crack  the 
bone  until  it  is  wholly  fractured.  Put  this  into  three 
quarts  of  cold  water  and  simmer  for  four  hours.  Then 
take  out  the  bones  and  meat.  It  is  now  ready  for  the 
vegetables,  which  should  be  cooked  by  themselves 
until  very  tender ;  three  potatoes,  one  large  onion  and 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  rice.  Add  these  to  the  soup  and 
boil  all  together  slowly  half  an  hour.  Salt  when  you 
add  the  vegetables. 
Chicken  Soup. — Cut  up  a  chicken,  breaking  all  the 
bones,  and  put  it  in  a  gallon  of  cold  water.  Let  it 
simmer  five  hours  ;  the  last  hour  add  a  cupful  of  rice 
and  a  sprig  of  parsley.  Strain  through  a  sieve,  pressing 
the  rice  through.  Then  mix  the  rice  by  stirring  it  with 
the  soup  until  it  is  smooth.  Onions  may  be  added  if 
the  flavor  is  liked. 
Lamb  Soup. — To  each  pound  of  meat  take  a  quart  of 
wrater  and  a  teaspoon  ful  of  salt.  After  the  meat  has 
boiled  one  hour  add  two  sliced  onions,  two  carrots,  two 
or  three  potatoes,  four  turnips  and  a  bunch  of  sweet 
herbs.  When  the  vegetables  are  cooked,  take  out  the 
meat  and  add  a  little  flour  mixed  to  a  smooth  paste 
with  a  little  water. 
Economical  Soup. — Take  what  remains  of  a  cold 
turkey  or  goose,  and  put  it  to  boil  in  sufficient  cold 
water  to  cover  all  the  bones.  Roil  four  hours  and 
season  with  salt  and  pepper,  adding  a  few  vegetables 
as  for  other  soups,  thicken  with  a  little  rice,  and  it 
makes  a  relishable  dish. 
Venison  Soup. — Three  pounds  of  venison,  one  pound 
of  ham  or  salt  pork,  one  onion  and  one  head  of  celery. 
Cut  up  the  meat  and  chop  the  onion  and  celery  and 
stew  slowly  for  one  hour  in  just  water  enough  to  cover 
them.  Then  add  two  quarts  of  boiling  water,  a  few 
blades  of  mace  and  a  little  Cayenne  pepper.  Roil  two 
hours  and  add  a  tablespoonful  of  butter  with  a  table¬ 
spoonful  of  flour  made  into  a  smooth  paste  with  a  little 
water.  Add  a  tablespoonful  of  walnut  catsup  and  a 
teaspoonful  of  Worcestershire  sauce. 
Celery  Soup. — Roil  a  small  cup  of  rice  in  three  pints 
of  milk  until  it  will  pass  through  a  sieve.  Grate  the 
white  part  of  three  heads  of  celery  and  add  to  the  milk 
after  it  is  strained  ;  add  to  this  a  quart  of  strong  veal 
stock,  and  boil  till  the  celery  is  very  tender.  Season 
with  salt  and  Cayenne  pepper. 
Potato  soup  is  a  very  palatable  dish.  Roil  one 
pound  of  salt  pork  in  three  quarts  of  water  1)4  hour. 
Then  add  three  sliced  potatoes  and  two  chopped  onions. 
Roil  three-fourths  of  an  hour.  Then  beat  a  table- 
spoonful  of  butter  and  a  cup  of  cream  or  milk  into 
which  has  been  stirred  a  well-beaten  egg. 
Tomato  Soup. — Roil  together  until  well  cooked,  two 
quarts  of  tomatoes,  one  quart  each  of  carrots,  turnips 
and  onions,  and  a  tiny  bunch  of  parsley.  Strain 
through  a  sieve  and  boil  for  30  minutes.  Season  with 
butter,  pepper  and  salt. 
Asparagus  Soup — (White.)  Roil  together  for  three 
hours  three  pounds  of  veal  and  the  heads  of  two 
bunches  of  asparagus  in  one  gallon  of  water.  Strain 
and  add  the  heads  of  one  bunch  of  asparagus.  Roil  20 
minutes  more,  and  lastly  add  a  cup  of  sweet  milk  or 
cream  in  which  has  been  stirred  a  tablespoonful  of 
corn  starch.  Season  with  salt  and  pepper. 
Green  Corn  Soup. — Roil  a  knuckle  of  veal  in  three 
quarts  of  water  and  add  three  teaspoons  of  salt.  Cut 
the  corn  from  one  dozen  ears  and  boil  with  the  veal 
until  the  veal  is  tender.  Add  an  ounce  of  butter 
rolled  in  flour.  Canned  corn  may  be  used  if  fresh  is 
not  in  season. 
Pea  Soup  is  made  in  the  same  way  as  the  corn 
soup,  using  about  a  quart.  The  peas  should  not  be 
put  in  till  about  half  an  hour  before  the  meat  is  done. 
Graham  Soup. — Chop  together  three  onions,  three 
carrots,  three  turnips,  one  small  cabbage  and  one 
bunch  of  celery.  Add  one  pint  of  stewed  tomatoes  and 
boil  all  together  in  four  quarts  of  water  until  tender. 
Strain  and  add  two  teaspoons  of  Graham  flour  wet  with 
cold  water,  a  small  piece  of  butter,  pepper,  salt,  and 
half  a  cup  of  cream. 
Rean  and  Corn  Soup. — Take  two  pounds  of  beef, 
one  pound  of  pork,  one  pint  of  beans,  soaked  overnight 
in  warm  water;  also  a  large  onion,  a  small  carrot,  and 
a  head  of  celery.  Cut  up  the  meat  and  chop  the  vege¬ 
tables.  Simmer  all  together  in  four  quarts  of  water 
for  five  or  six  hours.  About  an  hour  before  it  is  done 
add  a  quart  of  canned  corn.  Strain  and  season  with 
Cayenne  pepper  and  salt. 
Noodle  Soup. — Noodles  may  be  added  to  any  soup 
after  it  has  been  strained.  They  are  prepared  in  the 
following  manner:  Reat  up  an  egg,  add  a  pinch  of 
salt  and  stir  in  flour  enough  to  roll.  Roll  out  in  a 
thin  sheet,  sprinkle  lightly  with  flour  and  roll  it  up 
closely.  With  a  sharp  knife  cut  very  thin  slices  from 
the  end  of  the  roll,  and  add  to  the  soup  while  boiling. 
Cover  and  boil  ten  minutes.  Margaret  Percy. 
We  pay  the  printer  to  give  you  good 
advice  about  health  and  to  lead  you  to 
careful  living. 
Our  reason  is  that  Scott’s  Emulsion 
of  cod-liver  oil  is  so  often  a  part  of  care¬ 
ful  living. 
If  you  would  go  to  your  doctor  when¬ 
ever  you  need  his  advice,  we  might  save 
our  money.  He  knows  what  you  need. 
Let  us  send  you  a  book  on  careful 
living  ;  free. 
Scott  &  Bownk,  Chemists,  132  South  5th  Avenue,  New  York. 
Your  druggist  keeps  Scott’s  Emulsion  of  cod-liver  oil— all  druggists 
everywhere  do.  $1. 
