| Soup's On! |
(SAKI)
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It seems there's nothing quite so comforting as a bowl of soup. In winter, it warms us as we watch the snow falling outside. In summer, chilled fruit soups are the perfect accompaniment for light fare such as salads and grilled dishes. Furthermore, experts are now confirming what our mothers and grandmothers have always known - the combination of chicken and broth does have real medicinal value.
Soup Throughout History
Who invented soup? It's common knowledge that the word soup comes from the same source as the English term "sop," meaning a piece of bread soaked in liquid. In common parlance, soup replaced sop at about the same time that people began serving the heated liquid without the ever-present piece of bread (approximately one-hundred years after Catherine de Medici arrived in France with her entire kitchen in tow and proceeded to transform the world of French cuisine). However, it's likely that people have been enjoying some version of meat cooked in heated water since the days when Prehistoric man was forced to stalk and kill his dinner before he could even think about cooking it.
The origins of boiling are lost to history. Nonetheless, in The History of Food, Raey Tannahill states that it's clear man knew about boiling long before the invention of earthenware pottery (around 6,000 BC). Ever inventive, prehistoric man found that bamboo trees filled with clay, reptile shells, and especially the stomachs from the animals they had killed, all made perfect vessels in which to boil liquid filled with fresh meat over a hot fire. When nothing else was available, they could always resort to the more time consuming method of filling a pit with water and throwing in a few stones heated from the fire to bring the water to a boil. (How they managed to transport the hot stones from fire to water without scalding themselves in the process remains a mystery).
Various evidence, including residue sticking to pots, tells us man was regularly consuming soup by the Iron and Bronze Ages. The Ancient Romans ate soup, including a type of fish broth cooked in wine and spices. The Greeks were familiar with soup as well, as the following quote from a play by the Athenian satirist Aristophanes illustrates:
Dionysus:
..."Did you ever feel a sudden urge for soup?"
Heracles: " Soup? Ten thousand times so far."
(from the play The Frogs, translation from the Perseus-Tufts website)
Today, the world of soup is vast and sophisticated. There are thick soups such as bouillabaisse that nearly cross the line from soup to stew, thin clear consommés, and everything in-between. Nearly all cultures have their own specialties: hearty Russian borscht, garlicky Spanish gazpacho, and Pot-au-Feu, a French clear soup made from boiled beef and vegetables. (I say "nearly" as I can't think of a soup native to my own country, Canada. Maritime clam chowder, perhaps?) Soup can be a meal in itself, an appetizer, or a dessert. And we can't forget soup's role as the ultimate comfort food.
Next page > Soup in China > Page 1, 2
Part II: From
Thick to Thin, Stock to Tonic - the ABC's of Chinese Soup
(including
recipes for Tomato Eggflower and Winter Melon Soup)
Research
Sources
Offline
Academic American Encyclopedia, Grolier Incorporated, Danbury,
Connecticut
A Cook's Alphabet of Quotations, ed. by Maria Robbins Polushkin, The Ecco
Press, 1991
Cuisines of Asia: Nine Great Oriental Cuisines by Technique, Jennifer
Brennan, St. Martin's Press, 1989
Food in History, Reay Tannahill, Stein and Day, New York, 1973
Online- Perseus-Tufts Website
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