Vintage Recipe: Mushroom Shrimp Bisque

There are several recipes in my 1944 Good Housekeeping cookbook that immediately intrigued me the very first time I flipped through it. The Apple Cheese Crisp I made a while back was one of said recipes, as was the recipe I tried today: Mushroom Shrimp Bisque.

Right off the bat, this recipe ticked all the boxes for me: mushrooms? Yes, please. Shrimp? Sign me up. Soup? Always. To boot, the recipe looked extremely simple and quick to get on the table during a busy week at the office. But the real kicker was the unique nature of the recipe. Located in a section of the cookbook that focused on combining two different canned ingredients to make a new dish, I thought the recipe for Mushroom Shrimp Bisque sounded creative and I could not wait to try it. 

Easy? Absolutely. The hardest part of this recipe was finding my can opener in the Kitchen Drawer from Hell. Fast? Without a doubt. I had this recipe done and on the table in less than 10 minutes. Now that’s what I call an ideal weeknight supper! This is GREAT, I thought to myself and I could not wait to dip my spoon into the bowl.

As I ladled the soup and delivered it to the table, I could tell the Mister and my Maman were not quite as enthusiastic as I was. “THAT’S what we’re having for dinner??”, the Mister asked. “What’s in here?”, asked my Maman. I excitedly shared the name of the recipe and we all took our first bite.

The glances at the dinner table told the tale. There was no immediate reaction of “wow!” or even furrowed brows whilst we decided if we enjoyed the soup or not. There was silence. 

The Mister, brave former Marine that he is, piped up first with “it doesn’t really have any flavor, does it?” My Maman quickly agreed that it was very, very bland. Staunch defender of my own cooking that I am, even I couldn’t put a positive spin on this one. What a disappointment. 

So what DID it taste like? Well, frankly, it tasted like a warm bowl of milk with things floating in it. Actually, plain warm milk probably would have been better. The soup lacked any taste of mushroom or shrimp. None of us could discern any hint of tabasco, onion, or sherry either. To say it was an unsatisfying supper would be an understatement. It was very, very bland. In fact I commented that it would be a nice soup for someone requiring a bland diet. 

If you do happen to have a medical condition that requires you drop a few pounds and eat a bland diet, nutritionally this soup isn’t bad: in just 77 calories you get 50% of your daily vitamin D needs as well as over 5 grams of protein. Normally I don’t do a nutritional analysis of the recipes I try, but I’m trying to make lemonade here! 

That all being said, I appreciate the recipe for what it was – a creative way for a woman to feed her family a nutritious meal on a tight budget during a time of war and food rationing. If it was 1944 and this was my dinner, I would have been mighty glad to have had it.

Bon appetit!