From en.wikipedia.org:
[Primarily liquid food] [good article] [Other uses] [pp-move-indef]
[pp-semi-indef]
[date=May 2023] {{Infobox food | name = Soup | image =
File:Asparagus_soup_(spargelsuppe).jpg | caption = Asparagus soup |
main_ingredient = Liquid, meat or vegetables | variations = Clear soup, thick
soup | calories = | other = }} French onion soup
SOUP is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot – though it is
sometimes served chilled – made by cooking or otherwise combining meat or
vegetables with stock, milk, or water. According to _The Oxford Companion to
Food_, "soup" is the main generic term for liquid savoury dishes; others
include broth, bisque, consommé, potage and many more.
The consistency of soups varies from thin to thick: some soups are light and
delicate; others are so substantial that they verge on being stews. Although
most soups are savoury, sweet soups are familiar in some parts of Europe.
Soups have been made since prehistoric times, and have evolved over the
centuries. The first soups were made from grains and herbs; later, legumes,
other vegetables, meat or fish were added. Originally "sops" referred to
pieces of bread covered with savoury liquid; gradually the term "soup" was
transferred to the liquid itself. Soups are common to the cuisines of all
continents and have been served at the grandest of banquets as well as in the
poorest peasant homes. Soups have been the primary source of nourishment for
poor people in many places; in times of hardship soup-kitchens have provided
sustenance for the hungry.
Some soups are found in recognisably similar forms in the cuisines of many
countries and regions – several from Asia have become familiar in the west and
chicken soups and legume soups are known round the world; others remain almost
entirely exclusive to their region of origin.
** Name
The term soup, or words like it, can be found in many languages. Similar
terms include the Italian [it], the German [de], the Danish [da], the Russian
[ru] (pronounced "soup"), the Spanish [es] and the Polish [pl].<ref
name=d735/> According to _The Oxford Companion to Food_, "soup" is "the most
general of the terms which apply to liquid savoury dishes";<ref name=d735/>
other terms embraced by "soup" include broth, bisque, bouillon, consommé,
potage and many more.<ref name=d735>Davidson and Jaine, p. 756<ref name=oed/>
According to the lexicographer John Ayto, "the etymological idea underlying
the word soup is that of 'soaking'". In his 2012 _The Diner's Dictionary_
Ayto writes that the word dates back to an unrecorded post-classical Latin
verb [la] – "to soak", which was derived from the prehistoric Germanic root
"sup–", which also produced the English "sup" and "supper". The term passed
into Old French as [fr], meaning a piece of bread soaked in liquid" and, by
extension, "broth poured on to bread".[1] The earliest recorded use in English
of "sop" in the first sense dates from 1340.<ref name=oed/> The ancient
conjunction of bread and soup still exists not only in the croutons often
served with soup, and the slice of baguette and Gruyère floating on
traditional French onion soup, but also in bread-based soups including the
German [de] (black bread soup), the Russian [ru] and the Italian [it] (tomato
pulp).[2] The [fr] records the term "[fr]" in French use from the twelfth
century but adds that it is probably earlier.<ref name=daf>"soupe" (see
https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9S2286) , [fr]. Retrieved 14
June 2025 [In all its editions from the first (1694) to the eighth (1935) the
[fr] stipulated that soup is served with bread: "a kind of food made of broth
and slices of bread" (1694) and "liquid food in which bread is usually soaked"
(1935) – [fr] and [fr] . <ref name=daf/> The current edition distinguishes
between the old and the modern meanings of the word: (i) a slice of bread that
was drizzled with broth or another liquid (ii) a liquid dish, more or less
substantial, which is most often served hot and at the beginning of the meal (
[fr] ). <ref name=daf/>] The _Oxford English Dictionary_ records the use of
the word in English in the fourteenth century: "Soppen nim wyn & sucre & make
me an stronge soupe".<ref name=oed>[soup] The first known cookery book in
English, _The Forme of Cury_, [1390], refers to several "broths", but not to
soups.[3]
_The Oxford Companion to Food_ (OCF) comments that soups can "stray, over what
is necessarily an imprecisely demarcated frontier", into the realm of stews.
The Companion adds that this tendency is noticeable among fish soups such as
bouillabaisse.<ref name=d735/> The Hungarian goulash is regarded by many as a
stew but by others, particularly in Hungary, as a soup ([hu]).[4] The food
writer Harold McGee contrasts soups with sauces in _On Food and Cooking_,
commenting that they can be so similar that soups may only be distinguished as
less intensely flavoured, permitting them to be "eaten as a food in
themselves, not an accent."[5]
** History
*** Prehistory
Before the invention of boiling in water, cooking was limited to simple
heating and roasting.<ref name=speth>Speth, John. Did Humans Learn to Boil?"
(see
https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/732/693"When) ,
_Paleoanthropology_, 5 September 2014, pp. 54–55 The making of soup or
something akin has been dated by some writers back to the Upper Palaeolithic
(between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago).<ref name=speth/> Some archaeologists
conjecture that early humans employed hides and watertight baskets to boil
liquids.<ref name=vd/> According to a study by the academic Garritt C. Van
Dyk, the first soup may have been made by Neanderthals, boiling animal bones
and drinking the broth.<ref name=vd>Van Dyk, Garritt. "Good soup is one of
the prime ingredients of good living: a (condensed) history of soup, from cave
to can" (see
https://theconversation.com/good-soup-is-one-of-the-prime-ingredients-of-good-living-a-condensed-history-of-soup-from-cave-to-can-205656)
, _The Conversation_, 4 June 2023 Archaeological evidence for bone broths has
been found in sites from Egypt to China.<ref name=vd/>
*** Ancient times and later
In 1988 the food writer M. F. K. Fisher commented, "It is impossible to
think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without soup or bread
in it. It is almost as hard to find any recorded menu, ancient or modern,
without one or both".[6] Methods of making soup evolved from one culture to
another. The first soups were made from grains and herbs; later, peas, beans,
other vegetables, pasta, meat or fish were added.<ref name=r3>Rumble, p. 3 In
her 2010 work _Soup: A Global History_, Janet Clarkson writes that the ancient
Romans had a great variety of soups. [la] (On the Subject of Cooking), a
collection of Roman recipes compiled in the fourth or fifth century from
earlier manuscripts gives details of numerous ingredients, mostly
vegetable.[7] [[File:Bartolomeo2 restored.jpeg|Open-air soup cooking, by
Bartolomeo Scappi, 1570|thumb|upright]] In European and Arab cuisines soups
continued to feature after the fall of the Roman Empire. Clarkson writes that
the earliest known German cookery book, the [de] (Book of Good Food) published
in about 1345, includes recipes for many soups, including one made with beer
and caraway seeds, another with leeks, almond milk and rice meal, others with
carrots and almond milk or goose cooked in broth with garlic and saffron. The
early fifteenth-century French book [fr] (From the Kitchen) has many recipes
for potages and "sops" including several regional variants.[8]
During the seventeenth century the soup itself, rather than the "sops" it
contained, became seen as the most important element of the dish.[9] One of
the most famous cookery books of its time was Robert May's _The Accomplisht
Cook_ (1660). Clarkson comments that about a fifth of May's recipes are for
soups of one kind or another.[10]
The Huangdi Neijing, a Chinese medicinal text, describes the preparation of
soups and clear liquids by steaming rice, and recommends soups as
medicine.[11]
In the eighteenth century, meals at grand European tables were still served in
the style that had persisted since the Middle Ages, with successive courses of
three or four dishes placed on the table simultaneously and then replaced by
three or more contrasting dishes.<ref name=c30>Clarkson, p. 30 Soup was
typically part of the first course. Exceptionally, at particularly grand
dinners, a first course might consist of four different soups, succeeded by
four dishes of fish and then four of meat.{{refn|For a dinner given by the
Prince Regent in 1817, Antonin Carême served a first course of [fr] and [fr]
(respectively, a brown cream soup with foie gras and truffles, rustic
vegetable broth with cabbage, a delicate purée of pearl barley and carrots,
and Russian style fish soup).[12]|group=n}} In the early nineteenth century a
new style of dining became fashionable in Europe and elsewhere: [fr] –
Russian-style service: dishes were served one at a time, usually beginning
with soup.<ref name=c30/>
*** Soup for the poor
Soup-kitchen in Dublin, 1847 In the OCF Alan Davidson writes that although
soup is now typically served as the first of several courses in western menus,
in many places around the world substantial soups have historically been an
entire meal for poorer people, particularly in rural areas.<ref name=d735/>
Many Russian peasants subsisted on rye bread and soup made from pickled
cabbage.[13]
Charitable soup-kitchens preparing soup and supplying it to the needy, either
free or at a very low charge,[14] were known in the Middle East in the
sixteenth century.[15] From the late eighteenth century, soup-kitchens (in
German [de], in French, [fr]) were set up in Germany, France, England and
elsewhere.[16] In the 1840s the chef Alexis Soyer established a soup-kitchen
in the East End of London to feed Huguenot silk weavers impoverished by cheap
imports.<ref name=c120>Cowen, pp. 120–121 During the Irish famine, which
began in 1845, he set up a kitchen in Dublin capable of feeding a thousand
people an hour.<ref name=odnb>Ray, Elizabeth. "Soyer, Alexis Benoît
(1810–1858)" (see https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/26076)
[url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103173300/https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-26076;jsessionid=E775F0F633934CA690B181092DCE0932
], _Oxford Dictionary of National Biography_, Oxford University Press, 2011.
[ODNBsub]
In the United States soup-kitchens were set up in the 1870s. During the Great
Depression, Al Capone established and sponsored a soup-kitchen in Chicago.[17]
In the same period the Salvation Army ran similar operations elsewhere in the
US and in Canada, Australia and Britain.[18]
** Regional cuisines
*** Asia
[Soups in East Asian culture] {{Multiple image| | align = right | direction =
vertical | background color = | width = | caption_align = | image_style = |
image_gap = | image1 = Chinese cuisine-Shark fin soup-04.jpg | width1 =200 |
alt1 = alt= a bowl of light-brown-coloured soup with numerous strands of
orange-coloured flesh | caption1 = Chinese shark fin soup | image2 = Phở bò
(39425047901).jpg | caption2=Vietnamese pho | width2=200 | alt2 = a bowl of
brightly coloured soup with vegetables and meat in it }} In Asian countries
soup became a familiar breakfast dish, but has not, according to Clarkson,
done so in the west.[19]{{refn|Nevertheless, the creator of vichyssoise, Louis
Diat recalled in his memoirs, published in 1961: "Casting about one day for a
new cold soup, I remembered how [fr] used to cool our breakfast soup, on a
warm morning, by adding cold milk to it. A cup of cream, an extra straining,
and a sprinkle of chives, _et voila_, I had my new soup. I named my version
of [fr] soup after Vichy, the famous spa located not twenty miles from our
Bourbonnais home, as a tribute to the fine cooking of the
region".[20]|group=n}} In China and Japan, soup came to have a different place
in meals. As in the west, there was a distinction between thick and thin
soups, but the latter would often be treated as a beverage, to be drunk from
the bowl rather than eaten with a spoon.<ref name=c106/> In Japan miso soup
became the best known of the thick type, with many variations on the basic
theme of dashi, a stock made from kombu (edible seaweed) and dried fermented
tuna, with miso (fermented soy bean) paste. Clarkson writes, "Miso soup is
the traditional breakfast soup in the ordinary home, and the traditional end
to a formal banquet".<ref name=c106>Clarkson, p. 106 Ramen, a noodle soup,
popular in Japan and latterly internationally, is documented only from the
second half of the nineteenth century.[21]
In China, soups wholly unknown in the west were developed, including bird's
nest and shark's fin soups.[22] Snake soup continues to be an iconic tradition
in Cantonese culture, and that of Hong Kong.[23] In China, rat soup is
considered the equal of oxtail soup.[24]
Indian cuisine includes [in] (sometimes called pepper-water), a thin, spicy
soup, typically made with lentils, tomatoes, and seasonings including
tamarind, pepper, and chillies.[25] In Thai cuisine [th] are soups: the most
popular are [th] made with prawns and [th] made from galangal, chicken and
coconut milk.[26] [vi] is a Vietnamese soup, usually made from beef stock and
spices with noodles and thinly sliced beef or chicken added.[27] In Filipino
cookery [fi] is a soup made with meat, shrimp, or fish and flavoured with a
sour ingredient such as tamarind or guava;[28] also from the Philippines is
[fi], a goat soup.[29] The soups of Indonesia include [id] (chicken), [id]
(shrimp with rice vermicelli) and [id] (crab).[30] [dv] is a soup served in
the Maldives, with chunks of tuna in it.[31]
Two soups from Armenia are a cucumber and yoghurt soup called [am], and [am],
containing lamb and fruit;[32] [az] is a dumpling soup from Azerbaijan;[33]
Tibetan cooking includes _tsamsuk_, made from grains, butter, soya and
cheese.[34] An Iranian summer soup, [fa], is made with yoghurt, cucumber, and
mint.[35] Turkish [tr] is made from the meat from animal heads and feet.[36]
[tr], one of the oldest traditional Turkish soups, is made by mixing and
fermenting yoghurt, cereal flours and a variety of cooked vegetables,
producing a soup with a sour and acidic tang and a yeasty flavour.[37] Also
from Turkey is [tr], a yoghurt soup with rice or barley. Like chicken soup it
has curative properties ascribed to it by some.<ref name=smith/>
*** Europe
From the sixteenth century onwards, Paris was known for its street vendors
selling soup,{{refn|Soup was marketed as a "restorative" – [fr]. In 1765,
according to Prosper Montagné's _Larousse Gastronomique_, a Parisian
entrepreneur opened a shop specialising in soups, sold as "magical
restoratives". This prompted the use of the modern word _restaurant_ to refer
to eating establishments.[38]|group=n}} and in mid-nineteenth-century Paris,
[fr], the large central food market, became known for its stalls selling onion
soup with a substantial topping of grated cheese, put under a grill and served
[fr].<ref name=lp>" Dégustation : la soupe à l'oignon, bonne à en pleurer!"
(see
https://www.leparisien.fr/week-end/degustation-la-soupe-a-l-oignon-bonne-a-en-pleurer-21-01-2015-4466103.php)
[url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328120524/http://www.leparisien.fr/magazine/week-end/degustation-la-soupe-a-l-oignon-bonne-a-en-pleurer-21-01-2015-4466103.php
], _Le Parisien_, 21 January 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2023[39] This [fr]
transcended class distinctions, becoming the breakfast of the [fr] – the
workers responsible for transporting the goods – and a restorative for the
party people leaving the cabarets of Paris late at night.[40]
{{Multiple image| | align = left | direction = vertical | background color = |
width = | caption_align = | image_style = | image_gap = | image1 =
Straciatella - bowl.JPG | width1 =2o0 | alt1 = a bowl of brown coloured soup
with egg white flecks | caption1= Italian [it] | image2 = Caldo verde,
Cajamarca 02.jpg | caption2=Portuguese [pt] | width2=2o0 | alt2 = a bowl of
green coloured soup with light-coloured vegetables}}
The many cuisines of Europe have a wide range of soups.. Among the soups of
Italy are [it], [it] and [it], respectively a vegetable broth, consommé with
poached eggs, and a meat broth with eggs and cheese.[41] From Belgium there
are [fr] – a pea and bean soup – and [fr], a vegetable soup with fine
vermicelli and milk.[42] Bulgarian cuisine includes [bg], a cold yoghurt and
cucumber soup.[43] Dutch soups include [nl] – a split pea soup – and [nl], a
brown bean soup eaten with rye bread and bacon.[44] A soup from the Faeroe
Islands is [fo], made with dried mutton.[45] [de], is a German split pea soup
with pig's ear.[46] [lv], a Latvian fish soup incorporates whole pieces of
cooked fish with potato;[47] The Finnish kesäkeitto is a light summer soup of
seasonal vegetables cooked in milk and water;<ref name=b27>Bonekamp, p. 27
the Swedish [sv] is a meat and vegetable soup;[48] the Norwegian [no] is
cauliflower soup with egg yolks and cream.<ref name=b27/> [lu], from
Luxembourg, is made with pork offal, and finished with prunes soaked in local
white wine.[49]
Maltese soups include [mt] ("widow's soup"), made with green and white
vegetables and garnished with a poached egg and cheese, and [mt] a light fish
soup flavoured with garlic and marjoram.[50] Two soups from Poland are [pl], a
crayfish and beetroot soup, served chilled[51] and [pl], yellow-pea soup with
barley.[52] Portuguese soups include [pt] (chicken) and [pt] (potato and
cabbage).[53] Cullen skink (smoked haddock soup)[54] and nettle soup[55] are
of Scottish origin. A Welsh soup, cawl, is typically made with lamb or beef
together with vegetables including potatoes, swedes and carrots.[56] Slovenian
cuisine includes [sl], a meat and vegetable soup.[57] Russian soups include
[ru] (cabbage soup), [ru] (vegetable soup with meat or fish), [ru] (pickled
cucumber soup), and [ru] (fish soup).[58]
*** Africa
[List of soups]
Arab [ar] typically contains meat and oats;[59] Egyptian food includes [ar], a
soup of jute leaves and meat.[60] The Moroccan [ar] contains chickpeas, meat
and rice.[61] In Nigeria, according to Davidson, "soupy stews or stewlike
soups" are popular. He gives as examples [yo] soup, often made with offal,
palm oil, carob, lemon basil, and egusi powder, and various okra soups. He
adds that in Nigeria soup made from goat is "so important that it is usually
served at the most important functions".[62] In _A Safari of African Cooking_
(1971) Bill Odarty also highlights goat soup from Liberia.[63] Other Nigerian
soups include the spinach-based soup Efo.[64] A study in 2025 reported that
despite their nutritional richness and cultural importance, traditional soups
were declining in popularity, particularly among younger generations and in
urban areas.[65]
Soups from other parts of Africa include Cheruba – a lamb and vegetable soup
with lima beans or chickpeas – from north Africa;[66] a West African
speciality is groundnut soup.[67] Abenkwan, from West Africa, is a soup of
crab meat, pulped palm nuts and lamb.[68][69] East African cuisine includes
bean soup with tomato, onion, pepper and curry powder.[70] Supuya papai, from
Tanzania, is a cream soup containing papaya and onion.[71] A Congolese green
papaya soup is made with bacon fat, chicken broth, milk and red pepper.[72]
South African soups include curried snoek head soup.[73] A 2014 study records
a Ghanaian saying, "I haven’t eaten if I don't have my soup and fufu" (a dough
of pounded cocoyam or cassava).[74] The soup is typically based on okra.[75]
*** The Americas and Australasia
Soups from the Americas include a spiny lobster soup from Belize,[76] Cajun
crayfish bisque,[77] and gumbo, a hearty soup (or stew) traditionally made
from meat or shellfish with tomatoes, vegetables, herbs, and spices, thickened
with okra.[78] In the Caribbean and Latin America sancocho is a thick soup
typically consisting of meat, tubers, and other vegetables.[79] [br] soups are
found in the West Indies and Brazil.[80]
A Brazilian favourite is [pt], a broth of tomato and coconut with shrimps: one
food writer comments "locals eat steaming bowls on even the hottest days".<ref
name=smith>Smith, Jen Rose. ""20 of the world’s best soups" (see
https://albanyherald.com/features/20-of-the-worlds-best-soups-2/) , _The
Albany Herald_, 17 November 2024 [co] is a Colombian avocado soup),[81] and
Mexico has a black bean soup.[82] [es], a Peruvian soup, is a chowder of
shrimp and chilli pepper and is reputedly an aphrodisiac.<ref name=smith/>
Honduras, the US and Mexico all have a tripe soup, respectively [es], pepper
pot soup, and [es].<ref name=smith/>[83] The Mexican [es] is a meatball
soup.[84]
Soups from the US include the clam chowder of New England, which has entered
the international culinary repertoire,[85] an American regional favourite,
Maryland crab soup,[86] and cream of corn soup, which became popular in
California during the 1980s.[87]
Australasian soups include two from New Zealand: toheroa (clam) and kumara
(sweet potato and chilli).[88] Davidson remarks favourably on the Australian
wallabi-tail soup.[89]
** Modern times
In the western cuisine of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there have
been and are numerous soups. Auguste Escoffier divided them into two main
types:
- Clear soups, which include plain and garnished consommés
- Thick soups, which comprise the purées, veloutés, and creams
He added, "A third class, which is independent of either of the above, in that
it forms part of plain, household cookery, embraces vegetable soups and
garbures or gratinéd soups. But in important dinners – by this I mean rich
dinners – only the first two classes are recognised".[90] Louis Saulnier's
[fr], first published in 1914, contains six pages of details of [fr] (clear
soups), two pages on [fr] (moistened with water, milk or thin white stock),
eight pages on [fr] (soups thickened with egg yolks) and [fr] (thickened with
double cream),[91] as well as a further three pages on fifty-three [fr] –
foreign soups – including borscht from the Russian Empire, clam chowder from
the United States, cock-a-leekie from Scotland, minestrone from Italy, mock
turtle from England, and mulligatawny from British India.[92]
The French distinction between clear and thick soups is echoed in other
languages: in German [de] and [de]; in Italian [it] and [it]; and in Spanish
[es] and [es].[93] Many soups are fundamentally the same in the cuisines of
various countries, with minor local variations. Oxtail soup, a familiar item
in British and American cooking, is one of several oxtail soups from round the
world, including one from Sichuan, others from Austria ([de]), Jamaica, South
Africa and France ([fr] – oxtail consommé thickened with tapioca, garnished
with asparagus and diced mushrooms).[94] Chicken soups have been common to
numerous cuisines since ancient times: they featured in east Asian cooking
more than 5,000 years ago,[95] and were considered therapeutic in pharaonic
Egypt, the Roman empire, Persia and biblical Israel.[96]{{refn|Chicken soup
has acquired the nickname "Jewish penicillin" from its frequent use as food
for invalids.[97]|group=n}} Modern variants are found from Japan ([ja])[98] to
Portugal ([pt]),[99] Colombia ([es])[100] and France ([fr]).[101]
Elizabeth David comments in _French Provincial Cooking_ (1960), "No doubt
because the tin and the package have become so universal, people are
astonished by the true flavours of a well-balanced home-made soup and demand
more helpings if only to make sure that their noses and palates are not
deceiving them".[102] In their _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_ (1961),
Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child write: {{blockindent|a good
home-made soup in these days of the tin opener is almost a unique and always a
satisfying experience. Most soups are uncomplicated to make, and the major
portion of them can be prepared several hours before serving.[103]}}
** Cold soups
[List of cold soups] Cold soups are a particular variation on the traditional
soup. Two well-known chilled soups are the Franco-American vichyssoise and
the Spanish _gazpacho_. _The Oxford English Dictionary_ defines the former as
"A soup made with potatoes, leeks, and cream, usually served chilled", and the
latter as "A cold Spanish vegetable soup consisting of onions, cucumbers,
pimentos, etc., chopped very small with bread and put into a bowl of oil,
vinegar, and water".[104]
** Sweet soups
Many ancient cuisines developed versions of fruit soup: either fruits were
added to a grain-based pottage or the soup consisted mostly of fruit flavoured
with various spices.<ref name=r3/> The soups were made from whatever fruit was
ready for harvest locally or from dried fruit.<ref name=r3/> Fruit soups
remain well known in Germany and Nordic countries: although they may sometimes
be served at the beginning of a meal they are sweet dishes. Davidson
instances [da], also known as [de], a red berry soup popular in Denmark, other
parts of Scandinavia and Germany, [fi], a creamy lemon soup from Finland, and
the Middle Eastern [ar], made with dried fruits.<ref name=dj332/> Other fruits
used to make sweet soups include apples, blueberries, cherries, gooseberries,
rhubarb and rose-hips.<ref name=dj332>Davidson and Jaine, p. 332
** Sour soups
Davidson mentions a category, "sour soups", important in northern, eastern and
central Europe. Some have a fermented beer base or use Sauerkraut, others are
soured with vinegar, pickled beetroot, lemon or yoghurt. Examples include
[fi] (above), [tr], a meat and vegetable soup found in many coutries of
eastern Europe, north Africa and Asia,[105] and [id], a fish soup from
Indonesia.[106] Żurek, from Poland, is a sour bread soup based not on meat or
vegetable stock but on fermented cereal such as rye. According to a Polish
cookery book, "it is always sour, salty, and creamy at the same time".[107]
** Portable, tinned and dried soups
Food preservation has, in Clarkson's phrase, "always been a preoccupation of
the human animal",<ref name=c67>Clarkson, p. 67 allowing food to be kept for
long periods. In her _Domestic Cookery_ (1806), Maria Rundell gave a recipe
for "Portable Soup – a very useful thing"[108] – highly concentrated meat
stock that set to a solid consistency: for a bowl of soup it was only
necessary to dissolve some in hot water.[109] By the beginning of the
nineteenth century the Royal Navy had been victualling its ships with portable
soup for some years.[110] Recipes were published under many names; Clarkson
lists "veal glew", "cake soup", "cake gravey", "broth cakes", "solid soop",
"portmanteau pottage", "pocket soup", "carry soup and "soop always in
readiness".[111]
In 1810 Peter Durand, an English inventor, was granted a patent for the first
tin can for soup. The first commercial canning factory opened in England in
1813; it had a capacity of only six cans an hour; each can was cut by hand,
filled and the lid soldered on individually.[112] With advances in technology
the canning of food had expanded by the end of the century and companies such
as Heinz were promoting their soups as gourmet products indistinguishable from
home-made versions.[113] Canning made soup readily available, easily
transportable, long-lasting and convenient.[114] In 1897 Heinz's rival
Campbell's introduced condensed canned soups, to be diluted with water to
produce double the volume.{{refn|To sell condensed soup at low prices,
Campbell's management drove down costs by automating production as much as
possible and applying anti-union policies against the
workforce.[115]|group=n}} According to the food historian Reay Tannahill,
tomato soup was not popular in the US or Britain until Campbell's began
marketing it.[116]
Drying is one of the oldest methods of preserving food, and in the nineteenth
century Soyer praised commercially dried vegetables as a good ingredient of
soldiers' soup during the Crimean War.<ref name=c76>Clarkson, p. 76 Dried
soups remained in military use into the 1950s, but it was not until the
mid-twentieth century that manufacturers began extensively marketing them for
domestic use. _The Good Nutrition Guide_ (2008) commented, "Although many
types of processed soup have been criticised for their salt levels, packet
soups are by far the worst".[117] Subsequently, some manufacturers have
experimented with reduced-salt packet soups. A trial in France in 2012 found
that reducing salt in chicken noodle soup by more than thirty per cent did not
affect consumers' liking for the product.[118]
** Literature, screen and stage
Soups and sops are frequently encountered in literature. In the King James
Bible, Jesus identifies his forthcoming betrayer: "'He it is, to whom I shall
give a sop, when I have dipped it'. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave
it to Judas."{{refn|In the New English Bible this is given as "'It is the man
to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish'. Then,
after dipping it in the dish, he took it out and gave it to
Judas".[119]|group=n}} _Stone Soup_, an old folk tale, tells of soup produced
by travellers who have no food and promise to feed the inhabitants of a
village who contribute what they have to a cauldron which at first contains
only a stone but is quickly added to by the villagers, making a tasty soup for
everyone.[120]
The figurative use of "milksop" – literally bread dipped in milk – to mean a
feeble, timid or ineffectual person is found in Chaucer's _The Canterbury
Tales_ and Shakespeare's _Richard III_.[121] In Jane Austen's _Pride and
Prejudice_, Mr Bingley is kept waiting to announce his forthcoming ball until
his cook has made enough white soup, a soup containing veal stock and almonds,
much favoured for dances at the time.[122] One of Lewis Carroll's best-known
characters, the Mock Turtle, who owes his name to the eponymous soup,[123]
sings a song that begins "Beautiful Soup, so rich and green/ Waiting in a hot
tureen!"[124] In Isak Dinesen's 1958 story "Babette's Feast", turtle soup is
the first course of a magnificent dinner.[125]
Soup is frequently mentioned in films and on television. Though the foodstuff
plays no part in the action, _Duck Soup_ is used as the title of a 1927 film
by Laurel and Hardy[126] and a 1933 film by the Marx
Brothers.[127]{{refn|"Duck soup" was an American slang expression meaning an
easy task (possibly alluding to "a sitting duck" as an easy
target).[128]|group=n}} In Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film _Frenzy_, Mrs Oxford
serves her nonplussed husband a soup containing "smelts, ling, conger eel,
John Dory, pilchards and frogfish".[129] In the 1990s a character dubbed "the
Soup Nazi" appeared in _Seinfeld_, an American television comedy series: his
magnificent soup-making was offset by his bullying manner.[130] _Tortilla
Soup_ is a 2001 film comedy about a retired restaurateur and his family's love
of food.[131]
In the theatre, _Chicken Soup with Barley_ is the title of a 1956 stage play
by Arnold Wesker.{{refn|Chicken soup with barley, a traditional Jewish dish,
is served in the first act of Wesker's play in a family kitchen in the East
End of London.[132]|group=n}} A later stage play was the comedy _There's a
Girl in My Soup_, in which, again, the actual soup is purely nominal; it ran
in the West End for 2,547 performances between 1966 and 1969.[133]
** Gallery
<gallery mode="packed"> Image:Tom Yum Soup.JPG|Tom yum
File:Saigon_style_chicken_phở.jpg|Chicken phở File:Seafood chowder.jpg|Seafood
chowder File:Borscht with bread.jpg|Borscht File:Okroshka, Russian okroshka,
Rostov-on-Don, Russia.jpg|Okroshka File:Vegetable beef barley
soup.jpg|Vegetable beef barley soup File:Chicken Noodle Soup.jpg|Chicken pasta
soup File:Tomato soup and grilled cheese.JPG|Chunky tomato soup
File:Pea-soup-with-tortilla.jpg|A thick pea soup garnished with a tortilla
accent File:Crème d'asperge à la truffe.jpg|Cream of asparagus soup
File:Reindeer cheese soup.jpg|Cheese soup File:Algerian_Food_(12).jpg|
Algerian soup </gallery>
** Notes, references and sources
*** Notes
[group=n]
*** References
[Reflist]
*** Sources
[refbegin]
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- [editor1-last=Gardner ]
- {{ cite book | last= Grigson | first= Sophie | authorlink=Sophie Grigson | title= The Soup Book | year= 2009 | location= London | publisher= Dorling Kindersley | url=https://archive.org/details/soupbook0000unse/page/348/mode/2up | url-access=registration | isbn=
978-1-40-534785-3}}
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- [ last=Zimmerman ]
[refend]
** See also
[col-begin] [col-3]
- Lists of foods
- List of bean soups
[col-break]
- List of fish and seafood soups
- Soup and sandwich
[col-break]
- Soup spoon
- Three grand soups
[col-end] [Food]
[Soups] [Soup] [Wikisource]
[Authority control]
Category:World cuisine Category:Ancient dishes Category:Types of food