Soup As A Main Meal

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Growing up in the Smokies, soup was a major factor in my family’s diet from the first killing frost right through the various cold snaps of early spring such as Blackberry Winter.

Momma regularly canned quart after quart of what she called soup mix (just a blend of whatever garden vegetables happened to be in season along with tomato juice). They would subsequently be opened and, more often than not, blended with ham or beef to make a meat-based soup. At that point in time you could actually buy beef soup bones from the local butcher, and the bone and trimmings from a ham shoulder or hind quarter were put to fine use.

Similarly, the carcass and leavings from baked hens went into soups featuring noodles or rice, and there were also meatless soups aplenty. Many of the latter, though devoid of actual flesh, would have a meaty taste thanks the liberal use of chicken, ham, or beef stock. Grease frugally saved from frying bacon also came into play. There was always a pint jar to hold it ready at hand near the stove top.

Any of the many soups mountain folks made, some of them so thick they closely resembled stew, formed the basis for a hearty, healthy meal. They also had the undeniable advantage of offering a means to make something that was costly or in small supply—usually meat—go a long way. Such soups, when partnered with a pone of cornbread, cathead biscuits, garlic bread, or homemade sourdough bread, made mighty fine fixins. Rounded off with something for the sweet tooth such as fried pies, canned fruit warmed and topped with cream or a pat of butter, or walnut-raisin cookies, resulted in a meal sufficiently satisfying to bring comments such as “Fit for a mountain king” or “What more could a body want?”

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Here’s a small sampling of hearty old-time soups that formed common fare in my yesteryears and, perhaps with minor variations, that of many another mountain lad or lass. They may not be the sort of offering you will find in restaurants, especially fancy-dancy ones featured in fine dining magazines or favored by culinary cognoscenti, but for my part they are mountain eating at its finest. One note before turning to the actual recipes—almost any soup calling for some type of beef can be prepared using comparable cuts of venison. Similarly, wild turkey and other game birds can be substituted for domestic fowl.

Three B Soup (beef, beans and barley)

Many hearty soups are high in protein, and that is definitely the case with Three B Soup. It is in the category I’ve often heard described as “stick-to-your ribs” or “working man’s” fare, but for anyone who feels a bit peckish, is suffering from a late winter case of mollygrubs, or has any of the many ailments falling under the category of what my paternal grandfather called “the miseries,” this soup can be just the culinary ticket you want.

  • ¾ cup dried lima beans
  • ¼ cup barley
  • 2 quarts water
  • 1 cup chopped ham or a ham hock
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 carrot, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon garlic salt or 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Black or hot pepper to taste
  • 1 pound beef (either browned hamburger or stew meat cut into small cubes and browned)
  • 1 pint tomato juice

Rinse lima beans and barley thoroughly. Bring water to a boil in a four-quart saucepan. Add browned beef, ham, and beans. Skim top off soup. Add remaining ingredients and simmer, covered, for  2½ to 3 hours or until lima beans are cooked. Adjust seasonings as needed. Warms over well.

Vegetable Beef Soup

Although the recipe below offers specific vegetables, this is a soup where a great deal of flexibility comes into play. For example, corn and okra can be substituted for squash and zucchini, a cup or two of diced tomatoes can be part of what goes in the pot, parsnips make an interesting difference, or try a leek in place of onion. Moreover, when I prepare this soup it is almost always with venison substituted for beef. As is the case with many soups, variety makes for pure delight.

  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 4 carrots, chopped
  • 2-3 potatoes, chopped
  • 2 stalks celery, chopped
  • 1 zucchini, chopped
  • 1 yellow squash, chopped
  • 1-2 cups chopped stew beef or the same amount of hamburger (leftover meat from a roast can also be used)
  • 2-3 cans beef broth
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tablespoon dried parsley
  • ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning

In a large Dutch oven combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for one hour or until vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf. Serve hot, topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

After the Feast Soup

  • 1 baked hen or turkey carcass with saved meat scraps
  • 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
  • 4 ribs celery with leaves, chopped
  • 1 large carrot, scrubbed and cut into chunks
  • 2 whole garlic cloves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Water to cover

Remove any remaining skin from the carcass. Place in a stock pot and surround with onion, celery, carrot, garlic and bay leaf. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for two hours. Refrigerate stock and fat which accumulates on the top. Remove all meat from bones and save.

  • 8 cups stock (add canned chicken broth if needed)
  • 2 cups milk
  • 4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 3 carrots, peeled and diced
  • 3 ribs celery, diced
  • 1 cup frozen or canned lima beans
  • 2 ounces small shell pasta
  • 2 cups fresh, chopped spinach
  • 1 cup frozen green peas
  • Meat from carcass
  • ¼ cup fresh parsley
  • ½ teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon fresh black pepper
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 cup evaporated milk
  • 2 tablespoons flour mixed with 4 tablespoons water (optional)

Cook stock, milk, potatoes, carrots and celery for a half hour. Add lima beans, pasta, spinach, peas, chicken meat, parsley, basil and pepper to the soup and cook an additional 20 minutes. Remove from heat, season with salt if necessary, and stir in evaporated milk. Return to low heat, stirring often. Do not let soup boil. Thicken with flour/water paste or cornstarch if desired.

Makes 12 hearty servings.

Old-Time Potato Soup

While chicken soup is often heralded as a sort of “cure all” for sickness or for the soul, in my extended family that billing went to potato soup. No doubt the fact that chicken was special, known as “preacher meat” or the “Gospel bird” and only served on rare occasions such as when a minister came to eat, explained part of that. “Taters,” on the other hand, were readily available, tasty, and easily prepared as a hearty, eminently satisfying soup.

  • 3-4 medium to large potatoes, sliced ¼ inch thick
  • 1 medium onion (optional), diced
  • ½ stick of butter
  • 2½ cups whole milk or, for a really creamy, rich soup, use 1½ cups whole milk and a cup of half-and-half
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Cook potatoes and onion in water in a large pot. When potatoes are done and tender through or break apart with a fork, remove from heat and drain water. Add milk and return the pot to the stove, reducing the heat before you do so. Add butter, salt, and pepper and stir frequently. Do not allow the potato and milk mixture to come to a boil. If you want the potatoes totally broken up in the soup, they can be mashed before the milk is added, although I prefer chunky potato soup. Serve piping hot with bread or Saltine crackers.

Cabbage Pot Likker

A fine way to utilize pork as a seasoning, as opposed to a meat-on-the-platter main dish in a meal, is pot likker. The exact description of pot likker is if anything more confusing than just what constitutes proper barbecue. Some misguided souls seem to think pot likker is watery leavings in a pot fit only for dogs to eat or to be added to the slop bucket for hogs. Others consider it the liquid left behind after a mess of greens has been cooked. While those vitamin-infused byproducts of preparing vegetables merit serious attention and can be delicious, it is something of a misnomer to call them pot likker. My Grandpa Joe frequently described what remained in such situations, after all the beans, greens, or poke sallet had been transferred to his plate, as “leavins.” That’s probably a pretty apt choice of words.

Properly prepared pot likker is an entirely different matter, a dish that no five-star chef, no fancy city restaurant, can aspire to imitate. Aficionados will sometimes wax so eloquent as to suggest that true pot likker is so closely akin to another kind of likker, that made from corn, and so delectable as to make a fellow disinclined to share it with anyone other than close family or special friends. I’m somewhat of this persuasion, for when served with a pone of cornbread it is nectar of the culinary gods. Pot likker offers a spark of brightness lighting up the dead of winter and is sho’ nuff sustenance of the sort to fill the inner man. The delicacy is, in short, a dish fitten to make anyone in their right mind hasten to the table to sit down and take up nourishment, and to me, thanks to its consistency, it ought to be reckoned a type of soup.

My Grandma Minnie frequently made pot likker, and my, oh my, was it ever fine. Anytime I happened to be at the home of my grandparents when she served cornbread and pot likker was a moment of pure gustatory glory.

While there are likely as many ways of preparing pot likker as there are recipes for fruitcake or apple pie, all have certain basic ingredients and approaches. The one offered here comes from memory as well as some reading, but I know first-hand it is irresistible. If you want to vary it a bit—say substituting dried flakes from homegrown hot red peppers for store-bought black pepper, or seasoning with streaked meat rather than ham shoulders—that’s fine.

Put a ham shoulder, backbones and ribs, or maybe the bone left over from a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast (you will want to be sure there’s a good bit of meat on the bone) in a big pot of water and simmer for a couple of hours.  Then wash and core a head of cabbage. Cut it into quarters and add to the pot along with a cup and a half of chicken broth. If you started with hambone from a cured ham you will not need salt; otherwise, add a tablespoon of salt. Sprinkle in black pepper, red pepper, or both to taste. Let simmer for two hours, being sure to keep the level of liquid up by adding water as needed.

When cooked to the point the cabbage is falling apart tender, the dish is ready to serve as a blend of cabbage, meat, and juice together. When served with a pone of cornbread or maybe hoe cakes, along with a bowl of stewed apples on the side, this makes a hearty and exceptionally satisfying meal.

About the author: Jim Casada’s book Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food, in tandem with Tipper Pressley, is scheduled for a May 1 release date. For more information visit jimcasadaoutdoors.com.

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