SOUP
Soup images: Alphabet
Soup album cover; French
onion soup;
"Coco
eating his soup" by Renoir (1905); "The
Soup" t-shirt
Soup is a savoury
liquid food that is made by combining ingredients,
such as meat, vegetables and beans in stock or hot
water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth.
Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the
invention of waterproof containers (which probably
came in the form of pouches made of clay or animal
skin) about 5,000 years ago (possibly longer), so
soups presumably were little-known before that time.
Over the centuries, the terms gruel
and potage have become separated from broth and stock
(and their refinement, consommé). The language
may have shifted over time, but the modern definitions
of soup and stew were established in the 18th century:
soups usually are more liquid; stews are thicker,
containing more solid ingredients. Stews are cooked
in covered containers for longer periods of time,
at a gentle boil with less water and at a lower heat.
(Read more about traditional soups here.)
Here's a list
and some links to traditional types of soup.
William-Adolphe
Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Soup
(1865)
The word soup originates from the
Teutonic word suppa, which refers to a Medieval dish
consisting of a thick stew poured on slices of bread,
called sop, used to soak up the liquid. Often described
as potages, French onion soup is an example of a modern
soup that retains this bread sop.
The word restaurant was first used
in France in the 16th century, to describe a highly
concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors
called restaurer, that was advertised as an antidote
to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur
opened a shop specializing in restaurers. This prompted
the use of the modern word restaurant to describe
the shops.
In America, the first colonial cookbook
was published by William Parks in Williamsburg, Virginia
in 1742, based on Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife;
or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion and it included
several recipes for soups and bisques. A 1772 cookbook,
The Frugal Housewife, contained an entire chapter
on the topic. English cooking dominated early colonial
cooking; but as new immigrants arrived from other
countries, other national soups gained popularity.
In particular, German immigrants living in Pennsylvania
were famous for their potato soups. In 1794, Jean
Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien, a refugee from
the French Revolution, opened an eating establishment
in Boston called Restorator, and became known as "The
Prince of Soups." The first American cooking
pamphlet dedicated to soup recipes was written in
1882 by Emma Ewing: Soups and Soup Making.
Portable soup was devised in the
18th century by boiling seasoned meat until a thick,
resinous syrup was left that could be dried and stored
for months at a time. The Japanese miso is an example
of a concentrated soup paste.
Learn about the history of canning
and commercial soups, Asian
soups and fruit
soups.
Soup Kitchens
Soup
kitchen run by Quakers in 19th century England
A soup kitchen or a bread line is
a place where food is offered to the poor for free
or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in
lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed
by volunteer organizations, such as church groups.
Soup kitchens sometimes obtain food from a food bank
for free or at a low price, because they are considered
a charity. The American gangster Al Capone financed
a soup kitchen during the Great Depression to improve
his image.
Campbell's Soup Company
History
of Campbell's Soup Company book cover
Campbell Soup Company NYSE: CPB (also
known as Campbell's) is a well-known American producer
of canned soups and related products. Campbell's products
are sold in 120 countries around the world. It is
headquarted in Camden, New Jersey.
Campbell's was founded in 1869 by
Joseph A. Campbell, a fruit merchant, and Abraham
Anderson, an icebox manufacturer. The company was
originally called the "Joseph A. Campbell Preserve
Company" and produced canned tomatoes, vegetables,
jellies, soups, condiments, and minced meats.
By 1896, Anderson left the partnership,
leaving Campbell to reorganize and form a new company,
Joseph Campbell & Co. In 1897 a nephew of one
of the new Campbell partners, Dr. John T. Dorrance,
began working for the company at a meager wage of
$7.50 a week. Dorrance, a gifted chemist with degrees
from MIT and Göttingen University, Germany, developed
a commercially viable method for condensing soup by
halving the quantity of its heaviest ingredient: water.
Soup was not a popular staple in
the American diet at the turn of the century, but
it was in Europe. However, Dorrance's condensed soups
quickly became successful among the public for their
convenience and their price, 10 cents a can. The product
competed at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and was awarded
a gold medal, an image of which still appears on the
label. (Read more about this soup company here.
Here
is a colorful history of Campbell's Soup.
Soup Tureens
"Still
life with silver soup tureen" by Chardin
(1728)
A tureen is a broad, deep oval vessel
with fixed loop handles and a low domed cover with
a knob, used for serving foods such as soups or stews.
Tureens may be ceramic—either the glazed earthenware
called faience or porcelain—or silver, and customarily
they stand on a serving plate en suite. The tureen's
prehistory may be traced to the use of the communal
bowl, but during the reign of Louis XIV it was developed
from a practical covered serving vessel into one of
the most richly ornamented centerpieces of the formal
apparatus of dining. This period also saw the old
practice of dressing the dinner table with every dish
at once (service à la française) superseded
by the new practice of separate courses at meal time,
each entrée entering from the kitchens with
an air of ceremony. Soup remained the first course
of most meals, from the king's table to the peasant's,
and the soup tureen on its serving platter provided
the opening ceremony. (Read more about soup tureens
here.)
See images of soup tureens
here.
National
(USA) Soup Month (January)
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