Amish coffee soup, anyone? Amish cooks have long been admired for their scratch skills and minimalist meals. By minimalist, I mean whipping up a big hearty casserole with just a few on-hand ingredients. But the Amish struggled during the Great Depression period just like everyone else, perhaps more so. Most Amish were farmers in those days and the Great Depression decimated agriculture. So the already frugal Amish were forced to rely on even less. So soups that required very few ingredients became a culinary staple. How does cold milk soup swimming with bananas and "Amish coffee soup", which can be made with bread or crackers sound? Give it a try!
Here's a video of my grandmother and Uncle Pat tasting coffee soup!
Here is the recipe for coffee soup (by the way, you can use saltines in place of bread…that might be better, actually. And I have heard of some people putting cheese - gag - in their coffee soup. I left that ingredient out!)
☕ Ingredients
- 4 cups hot coffee
- 4 slices bread — toasted
- sugar
- cream
???? Instructions
- Brew the coffee according to your taste.
- Break each slice of bread into 1-inch pieces and place in four serving bowls.
- Fill each bowl with steaming coffee.
- Add sugar and cream to your taste and stir. Serve hot.
???? More Depression Soup Recipes
The original Amish Cook columnist, wrote about some of these simpler soups in a column back in 1999
CHILI SOUP
Today, I made a chili soup taking hamburger and browned it with a couple chopped onions. Then I added homemade V-8 hot tomato juice to it. I also made a thickening of several tablespoons of flour with water, adding it to the above in a four quart kettle , poured it in the boiling mixture, added a can of red kidney beans, and also seasoned it with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and salt and pepper to your taste. I didn't add chili powder as the V-8 made it hot enough.
POTATO SOUP
The girls also like their potato soup. I make it by peeling potatoes and an onion in a small amount of water. Cook till soft, mash it up and add milk, salt, and pepper and also add a teaspoon of margarine and heat. Don't boil after adding the milk. Just so it's hot.
My mother didn't have to use a recipe book for her cooking. We had more of all kinds of soups when we were smaller. There were soups like bean soup, rivel soup, potato soup, vegetable soups, brown flour soup, coffee soup, beef and homemade noodle soup and pot pie soup. Mother didn't have recipes for any of these, she just knew how much of this and that to put in.
When you think to back then, meals were much simpler and probably better for health. In the summer months, when it was hot, a cold milk soup was on the menu for supper. Sweetened cold milk was poured over crumbled bread, strawberries, mulberries, raspberries, or bananas. We could change the cold soup as different fruit came in and out of season.
CHEESE SOUP
Now, a summer favorite is a homemade cheese soup. It's made of 1/2 cup finely chopped onion, 4 tablespoons margarine, 1/2 cup flour, 4 cups milk, 4 cups chicken broth, 1/2 cup finely diced carrots, 1/2 cup finely diced celery, dash of salt and pepper, 1 cup diced sharp processed American cheese.
In a 41/2 - 5 quart kettle, cook margarine and onion until tender. Blend in flour. Add remaining ingredients except cheese. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat. Add cheese. Stir until it melts. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serves 8.
These recipes always evoke a deep nostalgia within me. They get passed down from generation to generation among the Amish.
???? Full Recipe
Coffee Soup
Ingredients
- 4 cups hot coffee
- 4 slices bread — toasted
- sugar
- cream
Instructions
- Brew the coffee according to your taste.
- Break each slice of bread into 1-inch pieces and place in four serving bowls.
- Fill each bowl with steaming coffee.
- Add sugar and cream to your taste and stir. Serve hot.
yum YUM
do not need to say any more.
like the hot milk over toasted or not bread with sugar. no butter
Each one of these soups sound good. I love the Amish Cook and read it in the The Northwest iIndiana Times on Wednesday . Keep up the good work.
Thank you Lillian!
I lived in NW Indiana my whole life (until 2 years ago) and when money was tight for us in the 50s, we would have milk toast. Toast or just bread cover with milk, add some sugar and eat. My brothers loved it, I couldn't stand it.
This soup sounds good to me. At my grandmothers. House when I was little. We had cereal made with saltines in milk with sugar
Cereal made with saltines?
We ate this alot growing up in the 60"s. My mom didn't use sugar on hers,but we kids did!
Didn't know it was called cold milk soup but I often have bananas in milk with a little sugar sprinkled on. Especially when the bananas start getting a little ripe.
It really tasted pretty good!
Growing up, we had "milk toast", which was buttered toast, usually 2 slices, in a bowl with warm milk poured over top. Really good - my mother sometimes gave it to us when we were recuperating from a cold, etc. Also, my dad always ate his shredded wheat (the old fashioned large biscuits) with milk and a little black coffee, just enough to make the milk warm. I still prefer it this way.
ahhh Milk Toast, my Mom used to give it to us when we were sick. Its always been my comfort food even today and I am 63.
Probably a better comfort food than a cold Coke, that tends to be what I reach for, unfortunately!
Growing up we had toast spread with cinnamon and sugar and sometimes we would break it up put it In a bowl with milk
My grandma would give us graham crackers broken into pieces with milk in a bowl when cold cereal was not on hand. I guess Golden Grahams is the boxed version.
My mom used to open a can or two I guess of tomato's . She heated the tomato's up, and broke bread in them, and sugar to sweeten. At the timeI thought it was good. I really do not care for it now. There were seven children in our family , and money was very tight most of the time, so there was little left over for sweets.
My mother taught me to love cornbread soup. Her mother called it graveyard stew, for whatever reason.Take a piece of cornbread and crumble it in a bowl or glass of cold milk. Yummy! It's one of my favorite breakfasts the morning after I've served cornbread with dinner.
Linda, my mother loved cornbread crumbled in buttermilk or sweet milk. I don't remember it being called graveyard stew though. I don't think I would have forgotten that name!
If Dad was in charge of the meal we would either have grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or milk toast. The video worked great.
Mmmm, grilled PB&J, the grilled part sounds like a nice touch!