Soup in China

Soup has played many different roles in Chinese cuisine

More of this Feature • Soup in History   Featured Recipes • Chinese Chicken Stock (A fairly simple recipe made with Szechuan peppercorns) • Cream Corn Soup • Hot and Sour Soup

Of all the countries in Asia, the food savvy Chinese were the first were to see the potential of what cookbook author Louis P. De Guoy once called "cuisine's kindest course." A written reference to sour and bitter soup (from the poem "The Summons of the Soul") dates back to the third century BC. Another poem, penned during the Ming dynasty, highlights the extent to which soup was revered in ancient Chinese society: 

"A bowl of fish soup isn't worth more than a few cents;
Yet, made as in the days of the former capital, it brings smiles to the imperial face. 
So people come in droves to buy it at twice the price; 
In part, they are buying the imperial gesture, and in part they buy the soup."

(translated by Frederick W. Mote, quoted in Cuisines of Asia: Nine Great Oriental Cuisines by Technique, by Jennifer Brennan)   

Of course, not all soups are created equal. Throughout the centuries, soup has played many different roles in Chinese cuisine. While China's dynastic families feasted on gastronomic luxuries such as shark's fin or bird's nest soup, designed to stimulate their palate for the next banquet course, rural Chinese had to make a meal of a watery mixture flavored with bean curd and whatever local vegetables were available. Where you or I might reach for a glass of tap or mineral water at mealtime, the Chinese serve soup, believing that it's unhealthy to consume cold drinks with a meal. Sweet soups make a light, satisfying finale to a meal. And herbal Chinese soups are famous for their reputed medicinal properties. 

Over time, the Chinese developed basic rules for making soup, which were passed on to other Asian cuisines. Of course, while the techniques for making soup remained the same, the dish picked up a number of local characteristics, depending on what ingredients were available. The next time you are enjoying a bowl of Japanese miso (made with fermented beancurd paste) or a spicy Thai seafood version of Hot and Sour Soup, you may want to raise your soup spoon in silent thanks to the Chinese for spreading the art of soup making to the rest of Asia. 

 "To make a good soup, the pot must only simmer, or 'smile'."
(French Proverb)

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Next Week: 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
            Soupsong Website

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