Bowl of pale green Potage de Santé French pea soup garnished with fresh herbs on a rustic wooden table

Baroque France · France

Massialot's Potage de Santé

Name: Massialot's Potage de Santé
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: 400 g fresh or frozen peas; 1 head butterhead lettuce, shredded; 3 tablespoons chopped chervil or parsley; 1.2 l chicken stock; 60 g butter; 2 spring onions, chopped; Salt and pepper; 2 egg yolks; 60 ml cream

From Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois · François Massialot · 1691

Verified from original source

A healthful French soup of fresh peas, lettuce and herbs in light stock.

Historical note: Prenez des pois nouveaux, de la laitue, du cerfeuil...

History

Potage de Santé (Health Soup) appears in François Massialot's 1691 Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, a foundational French cookbook bridging aristocratic and bourgeois cooking. These 'health' potages were lighter broths, often featuring chicken, veal, or vegetables, designed for invalids or those requiring gentle nourishment. Massialot's work codified techniques that influenced 18th-century French cuisine and crossed the Channel to Britain. Such potages reflected Enlightenment-era beliefs about diet and health, promoting digestibility over heavy medieval pottages. The concept evolved into consommés and bouillons in haute cuisine, whilst 'invalid cookery' remained a distinct category through the Victorian era.

Sources

François Massialot, Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, 1691
Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789, 1983
Ken Albala, Eating Right in the Renaissance, 2002
Philip and Mary Hyman, 'Printing the Kitchen: French Cookbooks, 1480-1800' in Food: A Culinary History, 1999
Ivan Day, Royal Sugar Sculptures: Six Hundred Years of Splendour, 2015

Serves

Prep

15m

Cook

25m

Difficulty

Easy