DRIED BEANS SOUP

Put two quarts of dried white beans to soak the night before you make the soup, which should be put on as early in the day as possible. Take two pounds of the lean of fresh beef (the coarse pieces will do). Cut them up and put them into your soup-pot with the bones belonging to them (which should be broken in pieces), and a pound of lean bacon, cut very small. If you have remains of a piece of beef that has been roasted the day before, and so much undergone that the juices remain in it, you may put it into the pot and its bones along with it. Season the meat with pepper only, and pour on it six quarts of water. As soon as it boils, take off the scum, and put in the beans (having first drained them) and a head of celery cut small, or a tablespoonful of pounded celery seed. Boil it slowly till the meat is done to shreds, and the beans all dissolved. Then strain it through a colander into the tureen, and put into it small squares of toasted bread with the crust cut off.