1. Definitions of soup by Escoffier
• Clear soups, which are always “clear consommés with a slight garnish in keeping
with the nature of the consommé”.
• Purees, which are made from starchy vegetables and are thickened with rice,
potato or soft bread crumbs.
• Cullises, which use poultry, game or fish for a base and are thickened with rice,
lentils, espagnole sauce or bread soaked in boiling salted water.
• Bisques, which use shellfish cooked with a mirepoix as a base and are thickened
with rice.
• Veloutés, which use velouté sauce as a base and are finished with a liaison or
egg yolks and cream.
• Cream soups, which use béchamel sauce as a base and are finished with heavy
cream.
• Special soups, which are those that do not follow the procedures for veloutés or
creams.
• Vegetable soups, which are usually paysanne or peasant-type and “do not
demand very great precision in the apportionment of the vegetables of which
they are composed, but they need great care and attention, notwithstanding”.
• Foreign soups, “which have a foreign origin whose use, although it may not be
general is yet sufficiently common.”