Soup/Stew/Chowder Field Pea Soup

field pea soup
(from The Kentucky Housewife, by Lettice Bryan, 1839)

Ingredients:

3 pints of tender white field peas, large or small​

a piece of pork, or bacon​

4 oz. butter​

4 tbs. flour​

salt and pepper​

1 pint sweet cream​

​

1-1/2 dozen small balls of forcemeat, fried in butter​

Instructions:

There are several kinds of field peas, some of which are unfit for soup, being very dark; there are two kinds that are white, and very nice for the purpose; the one is large, and the other quite small, being far the most delicate of this species. They should be full grown, but not the least hard or yellow. Take three pints of either after they are hulled, rinse them clean, and boil them with a small piece of pork or bacon. When they are quite tender, take out the meat; and if they are of the large kind of pea, mash a part of them, to thicken the soup, but if they are small ones, do not break them, as they look much prettier to serve whole. There should be at least three pints of the liquor, to which add four ounces of butter, broken up and rolled in four table-spoons of flour; season it to your taste with salt and pepper, boil it up, and then stir in gradually a pint of rich sweet cream, and one and a half dozen of little force-meat balls, not larger than a nutmeg, made in the usual manner, and fried brown in butter.​