INTRODUCTION TO SOUP (click here to open)

ALTHOUGH commercially canned soups are excellent and convenient,

there are still several good reasons for making soup in one's own kitchen.

In the first place, as many as 1,000 varieties are not obtainable in cans.

Again, home-made soups are less expensive, particularly as left-over's are

generally utilised in preparing them. Thirdly, the flavours of canned soups

are necessarily bland, because they must please (or at least not offend) the

taste of thousands, whereas home-made soups can be made to appeal to just

oneself and one's guests.                                    

Every country has at least one soup which attains perfection. Personal

taste is the chief factor in appreciation, but every epicure admits that the

following (and innumerable others) are each perfect of their kind:

Soon after the discovery of fire prehistoric man found that he could boil

meat by heating stones and dropping then into a bag made from animal skin

filled with water and meat. Later the bones of animals or the bones of birds

were split or cracked and boiled with particles of meat still adhering to them. Thus

began the art of making soup.

From the animal skin stage we come to the stone or metal stage, when

kettles of various shapes and sizes were used, heated over fire. Thus, we get

our Pot-au-feu (pot on the fire). We are reminded in the Bible (Genesis,

chapter 25, verses 29 to 34), that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a "mess

of pottage" Red Lentil soup. Thus apparently lentil soup is the earliest

soup known. (See Potage Esau).

Soup kitchens are said to have originated in the Middle Ages. Through the

centuries, soup has been relied upon as a mainstay of the diet. In war, famine,

plague or catastrophe, soup kitchens are the first things set up, being the

easiest, cheapest and most practical way of feeding the masses.

It is quite certain the taste for sweetened potage appears to have lingered

for many centuries, even after the custom of sweetening meat had been

confined almost entirely to mince pies. Sugar is still taken with tomato soup,

and a certain lady praised her guests as recently as the nineteenth century if

they noticed at a glance that she liked sugar with her soup. The sweetened

rice soup became thicker and thicker in England, until at last it

developed into the rice pudding, that dish so well known to the nursery.

An Archbishop of the Middle Ages was accused, by fervent Puritans of

his time, of indulging in the luxury of six sweet and coloured soups, all on

the table at the same time. Each was rendered still more worthy of rebuke

by its sprinkling of pomegranate seeds. Thus, it will be seen that the garnishing

of soups is nothing new; and the custom of serving sweets at the beginning

of a meal was of early origin.

The first French treatise on soups was written by Taillevant (Master Cook

to Charles VII, of France), in 1456. The earliest English recipe for Cabbage

Soup, as written down in 1390 by one of Richard II's chefs.

Every country has at least one soup which attains perfection. Personal

taste is the chief factor in appreciation, but every epicure admits that the

following (and innumerable others) are each perfect of their kind:

Oxtail Soup, Scotch broth, Leek soup, Irish Kale, Shchi, Borsch, Czernina, Cream of Tomato,

Mulligatawny, Minestrone, Erwtensoep, Puchero, kummel, Soup, Pot-au-feu, Petite Marmite,

and Bouillabaisse.

These are just some of the soups I will be making