Jenny Lind's soup facts for kids
| Type | Soup |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Rutabaga, chicken stock, roux, Gruyère cheese, sago, egg yolks, heavy cream, egg whites |
Jenny Lind's soup is a special kind of soup. It's named after a very famous singer from the 1800s called Jenny Lind. People believed this soup helped her voice and soothed her throat before she sang.
Contents
What's in Jenny Lind's Soup?
This soup is made with several interesting ingredients. It often includes mashed rutabaga or sago. Rutabaga is a root vegetable, a bit like a turnip. Sago is a starchy food that comes from the inside of palm trees.
The soup also has chicken stock. This is a flavorful liquid made by simmering chicken bones and vegetables in water. It's made thicker with something called a roux. A roux is a mix of fat (like butter) and flour, cooked together.
Other ingredients include Gruyère cheese, which is a type of hard, salty cheese. It also has sage, a herb that adds a nice smell and taste. To make it creamy, egg yolks and heavy cream are added.
The Special Topping
A unique part of Jenny Lind's soup is its topping. It's finished with fluffy, beaten egg whites. This might seem unusual to some people. However, it's a common cooking tradition in French cuisine de famille (family cooking). This clever trick uses up the egg whites left over after the yolks are used to thicken the soup.
A Soup with History
Jenny Lind's soup is mentioned in old cookbooks. One famous book is Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management from 1861. This book was written by Isabella Beeton.
Mrs. Beeton's recipe was based on an even older book. This was Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton, published in 1847. Acton's description came from Mary Howitt. Mary Howitt was a translator who worked with the Swedish writer Fredrika Bremer.
Jenny Lind's Soup in Stories
This soup has even appeared in jokes and famous books!
A Funny Joke
For over sixty years, a joke about Jenny Lind's soup was popular in British and Irish newspapers. These included the Western Daily Mercury. The joke went like this:
"Why would Jenny Lind make good soup?" The answer was: "Because she's neither Alboni (all bony) nor Grisi (greasy)."
This joke played on the names of two other famous singers, Marietta Alboni and Giulia Grisi. It was a clever way to make people laugh!
In a Famous Novel
The soup also shows up in a very famous book called Ulysses. This novel was written by James Joyce. In the story, a character named Leopold Bloom thinks about the soup. He imagines it while eating lunch in a hotel. He describes it as "Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half-pint of cream. For creamy dreamy."
