Put two quarts of dried white beans into soak the night before you
make the soup, which should be put on as early in the day as
possible.
Take five 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 to pieces,) and a pound
of bacon cut very small. If you have the remains of a piece of
beef that has been roasted the day before, and so much under-done
that the juices remain in it, you may put it into the pot, and its
bones along with it. Season the meat with pepper and salt, 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 table-spoonful of pounded celery-seed.
Boil it slowly till the meat is done to shreds, and the beans all
dissolved. Then strain it through a cullender into the tureen, and
put into it small squares of toasted bread with the crust cut off.
Some prefer it with the beans boiled soft, but not quite
dissolved. In this case, do not strain it; but take out the meat
and bones with a fork before you send it to table.