Required: Half a pint of red lentils. One quart of water or stock. One small carrot. One onion.

One ounce of butter or dripping. Two sticks of celery. Salt and pepper. Two ounces of ham or bacon.

Let the lentils soak overnight in cold water to soften them. Next day prepare the vegetables, and chop them and the ham finely. Melt the butter in a saucepan, strain off the water from the lentils, add them to the butter with the ham and vegetables, and stir them in the pan over the fire for five minutes. Next add the stock, and boil all gently until the vegetables are soft. Then rub all through a sieve, rinse out the saucepan, pour back the soup, re-boil and season it, and serve it with neat dice of fried bread.

Pot liquor - that is, liquid in which meat, either fresh or salt, has been boiled - is excellent as a foundation for this soup.