From the food archives

I was rummaging through lots of old papers, cards and all those types of things I have laying around and came across some recipe cards that I picked up a few years ago at the Cabinet War Rooms – they are recipes that were distributed by the Ministry of Food War Cookery on leaflets in WWI and WWII.

Some of them – for understandable reasons – sound quite disturbing (i.e. mock bananas really made with parsnips, war-and-peace pudding made with potato and suet etc), but a couple, including this soup recipe, caught my eye.

French Peasant Soup

You’ll need:

• 1 lb mixed root vegetables (incl. potatoes)
• teacup of stale bread crumbs (*that would be about 1/3 cup)
• 2 pints of vegetable stock
• 2 oz grated cheese
• salt & pepper
• 2 tbsps coarsely chopped parsley

1. Bring stock (or water) to a boil. When boiling add the vegetables (diced) and salt and pepper.

2. When the vegetables are cooked, stir in the breadcrumbs, grated cheese and parsley and serve at once.

This sounds like a pretty tasty rainy day soup, actually. What do you think?