Calf's Head Soup

History

This recipe is Abby Fisher's own. It appears as "Calf's Head Soup" in her book "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking," published in San Francisco in 1881. Fisher was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in June 1831 to Abbie Clifton; genealogical research in San Francisco records identifies her father as James J. Andrews, an Orangeburg planter who held some seventy people in slavery, and an 1869 receipt from the Freedman's Savings and Trust in Mobile records her under her mother's name. Before 1865, censuses recorded only an enslaver's name with the age and sex of those he held, so no surviving record names Fisher herself; Karen Hess, who rediscovered her book, noted that absence of documentation. After emancipation she settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. She could neither read nor write, and dictated her recipes to friends, whose names were printed in the book.

In San Francisco, Fisher ran a pickle and preserves business and won public recognition for her cooking, taking a diploma at the 1879 Sacramento State Fair and two medals at the 1880 San Francisco Mechanics' Institute Fair. Her 1881 book is among the earliest cookbooks published by an African American author — by one account she was the second Black woman in America to publish a cookbook.

The recipe records the Southern cooking Fisher mastered and set down under her own name. She directs the cook to have the butcher open the head, reserve the brains in salted water, and leave the tongue in to boil (saving it afterward for tongue salad); then simmer two gallons of water down to one and strain it clear for about a dozen guests. The soup is thickened with browned flour worked into butter, seasoned with red pepper and with thyme and half an onion tied in a linen rag, and finished in the tureen with mustard, wine, and a glass of sherry; light fried brain cakes are served two to a plate. Fisher closes by calling it "the most delicious soup in the cookery".

The historical record consulted does not document a specific earlier origin or European lineage for this particular dish. What is documented is Fisher's authorship of it. Any account tracing the soup to French technique is unsupported and has been removed.

Ingredients

• 1 calf's head
• 2 gallons water
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 small piece thyme
• 0.5 onion
• salt
• pepper
• red pepper
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 1 tablespoon wine
• 1 glass sherry wine
• 2 eggs
• 0.25 teacup powdered cracker
• 1 tablespoon flour
• parsley
• hot fat

Instructions

1. Have the butcher open the calf's head wide.
2. Remove the brains and place them in clean water with a little salt.
3. Leave the tongue in the head and put the whole head on to boil with two gallons of water.
4. When the tongue is tenderly cooked, remove it from the pot and let it cool for making tongue salad.
5. Continue boiling the head until the liquid reduces to one gallon.
6. Strain the liquid clear; this makes soup for about a dozen guests.
7. Take two quarts of this strained liquid and bring to boil.
8. Brown two tablespoons of flour in a separate bowl.
9. Rub one tablespoon of butter into the browned flour until it reaches a creamy consistency.
10. Add the flour and butter mixture gradually to the boiling soup, stirring well throughout.
11. Season with salt, pepper, and a little red pepper.
12. Tie a small piece of thyme and half of an ordinary-sized onion in a clean linen rag.
13. Boil this bundle in the soup and remove it when the soup is finished cooking.
14. Remove all skin from the reserved brains.
15. Beat two eggs light and add them to the brains.
16. Beat the eggs and brains together into a batter.
17. Add one-quarter teacup of powdered cracker and one tablespoon of flour to the brain and egg mixture, beating well together.
18. Form this batter into small cakes about the size of a hickory nut.
19. Chop parsley very fine and boil it into the soup.
20. Just before serving the soup, fry the brain cakes brown in hot fat.
21. Blend one teaspoon of mustard with one tablespoon of wine and place it in the tureen.
22. Add one glass of sherry wine to the tureen.
23. Pour the hot soup into the tureen with the mustard, wine, and sherry mixture.
24. Serve the brain cakes on a separate dish, allowing two cakes per plate of soup.