Saturday Beef Soup

Saturday Beef Soup

From ‘The Real Taste of Jamaica’ by Enid Donaldson

Saturday soup got its name from the fact that cows were slaughtered on Friday and soup bones would spoil quickly. As a result, the soup was prepared on Saturday along with fresh vegetables form the market and the beef ‘goose neck,’ if the butcher considered you a favourite customer.  The soup made was second to none.

Saturday was a busy day for all householders, since precious little was done on Sunday.  The house was thoroughly cleaned, the ice box or refrigerator defrosted and cleaned, the silver polished, the bed linen changes and all baking and cooking that could be done on Saturday was done. Not to mention cleaning of shoes, ironing of clothes, packing the press or chest of drawers and washing whatever was exposed on the open wagon.

The fresh smell of cleaning agents and the aroma of home baking permeating the atmosphere.  The smell of freshly cut grass and the changing state of readiness for the morrow, made it impossible to do too much more thana one pot soup.

Many Jamaicans cannot recognise the day without soup, even though the familiar scenes and scents have vanished.

Ingredients
45 grams    soup bones or stewing steak
23 grams    carrots, cubed
11 grams    turnips, cubed
45 grams    yellow yam, cut up
23 grams    cabbage
One        sprig thyme
Two        stalks escallion
1.8 litres    water

How to prepare

1.    Boil soup bones in 1.8 litres water (about 30 minutes in pressure cooker).
2.    Cut up vegetables, yam and coco and add with seasoning to soup.
3.    Dumplings may be added if desired.
4.    Once it starts boiling, simmer uncovered until yam is cooked and soup is of a medium consistency.
Serves 6

Here are links to more beef soup recipes
Grace Beef Soup
The Spruce Eats, Caribbean Beef Soup 

Also visit our gallery for contemporary Jamaican/Caribbean fine art: EJ Gallery
 

January 2022