Soup, Glorious Soup!
By Mary Jo
I’ve always liked soups and it’s rare that I’ve tried one I didn’t like, but it was the Mayhem Consultant’s recent comment about how often my characters end up eating soup after some dire adventure that made me consider blogging about soup. (Photo by SteveBuissinne from Freerange Stock)
I started by looking up soup on Wikipedia. Here’s their description. “Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling or simmering solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth. Soups are similar to stews, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two; however, soups generally have more liquid (broth) than stews.”
Soup making probably goes back to Paleolithic times because our distant ancestors were not stupid. Soups are glorious because they provide warmth on cold days, are 
infinitely variable, and can be extended to provide enough for extra people. While soups can be on a spectrum from simple to extravagant, it’s a staple for people who have limited resources.
If my characters eat soup at a farmhouse while fleeing villains, it’s apt to be something like potato leek or cabbage soup because the ingredients are widely available and inexpensive. A pot can quietly simmer on the hob, ready for a quick, satisfying meal if anyone needs feeding. People without much money can make a fine soup with potatoes and onions, maybe a ham bone or a small piece of sausage to add flavor along with some herbs. I like to put rosemary and sage into most of my soups, and garlic is often a nice addition. (Photo by Aline Ponce from Freefange Stock.)
Soup flavors often improve after a day or two, and a pot of simmering soup can be augmented by leftovers. If you haven’t enough noodles for a chicken noodle soup, you can toss in some leftover rice. If you’ve eaten all the Thanksgiving turkey, the bones will make a delicious soup stock after they’ve simmered for a few hours. A bowl of soup, maybe a chunk of bread, and you have a warm, satisfying meal. Just the thing to serve to my exhausted characters if they show up late at your house. <G> (Photo by Eric Yuen from Freerange stock.)
I’ve always liked the European folk tale about stone soup. There are numerous variations, but it’s basically a story of a hungry stranger, perhaps a soldier, who arrives at a village carrying only a large soup pot. No one is willing to offer him a meal, so he fills the pot with water from a stream, makes a small fire, and puts a stone in the pot as the water heats. A curious villager asks what he’s doing and he says he’s making stone soup, which is delicious but it could use a bit of salt for flavor. The villager contributes some salt, and another villager is coaxed into provided a bit of ham 
bone. Soon other villagers are coaxed into contributing vegetables like onions, potatoes, and carrots, perhaps a handful of barley, some dried herbs, and other ingredients.
Eventually there is a full pot of delicious smelling soup that is shared by the villagers and a good time is had by all. It’s a lovely tale of sharing and community. I always figured that the soldier took the stone from the pot when it was empty, rinsed it off and put it back in his knapsack because he said it made a particularly fine soup. <g> (Photo of soup in a bread bowl by Adamaphoto from Freerange Stock0
Just for fun, here’s a video of Lewis Carroll’s song “Beautiful Soup.”
Are you a soup lover? What are your favorites?
Mary Jo, who makes a number of soups, especially in winter
When I was growing up my mom would make a big pot of soup with all the bits and dabs of leftovers in the refrigerator. It was always different and always delicious. Served with a pan of biscuits or cornbread it was a wonderful filling meal. Many years later I realized we always had soup the night before she got paid.
My soup ingredients now are more intentional but it always reminds me of my mom.
Tricia, what a wonderful and wise mother you had. This is a lovely example of soup can fill in the gaps of a tight budget, and how it’s always different and surely delicious.
I’m a soup lover, too. No special favorites, but not canned soups. Always home made. Sometimes it’s stone soup without the stone, often it’s lentil soup with lots of vegies. A big bowl of soup along with cheese on toast is a perfect supper.
Anne–YUM! Lentil soup is a particular favorite of mine.
Tasty post, Mary Jo. I LOVE soup. In the summer, I make that venerable Spanish cold soup, gazpacho. IN the winter, I could eat soup at least once a day. Examples of soup I make on a regular basis: red lentil soup, chili, kosher chicken soup (Jewish penicillin), vegetable soup. Soups I love and am hoping to try my hand at: broccoli cheddar (copycat Panera), butternut squash, sweet potato, and French onion. Happy to share recipes!
Binnie, so many lovely soups both past and future! Luckily delicious kosher chicken soup is blessedly non-denominational when it comes to consumption and the healing effects.
Yes, I love soup but I’m quite fussy about which ones – not too hot or spicy for me! My favourite is Swedish pea soup which is made with dried yellow peas, unsmoked bacon and onions. It’s delicious and now you’ve made me want to go and make some 🙂
Christina, your Swedish yellow pea soup soup sounds lovely, especially since the temperature here is well below freezing! I like yellow split peas but in the US green split pea soup is more common. That’s lovely, too!
Thanks for the fun and interesting post, Mary Jo.! I loved the children’s book called Stone Soup when i was growing up (i gave it as gifts to my neices and nephews when they were children and also gave it to their children!).
There us nothing like a bowl,of soup on a cold day. It is a very cozy and comforting food, Hits the spot!
Among my favorites are broccoli cheddar, butternut squash, french onion and the all time favorite, chicken soup(aka Jewish penicillin) .
Happy “souping”
Hmm, my reply to you vanished, Jane. But Stone Soup is a lovely story for children, just as hot soup is a great pleasure on these polar vortex days!
I squeeze a slice of lime into my soup bowl. We say a good soup ‘ da vida ‘ or ‘ da ánimo.’ Your mother would always feed you soup when you were in need of comfort.
Vera, I’ve not heard of squeezing a slice of lemon into a soup bowl, but I can definitely see how that would add life and delight!
Thanks, Mary Jo, for the blog and the wonderful soup photos.
I really enjoy orzo or noodle soup in bone broth with grated cheese of parmigiano reggiano, with or without meatballs. I used to make my mother’s recipe of chicken breast, meat on the bone, onions, carrots, celery, and an Italian ingredient of a small can of tomato sauce diluted in the water, cooked in a huge pot, medium flame until boiling, and then simmer for one hour, stirring a few times, iodized sea salt and pepper to taste. Now, I just purchase organic bone broth and do without the added sauce.
It’s a savory and hearty soup after the ingredients are cut up and put in a separate container to be added later. My mother would put the clear bone broth in plastic containers and, after cooling, freeze it. The fat would rise to the top to be scooped off. She would boil the broth and add the noodles to it. The flavor of the soup would be absorbed by the noodles. Scrumptious! She also made small meatballs to add to it as well.
Albondigas, Mexican soup, is good too, with meatballs.
I found quinoa and vegetable soup in a grocery store that was very tasty.
Another staple is lentil soup with carrots.
As long as it’s hot soup, not cold, I love soup at any time.
Patricia, your mother was definitely a soup maestro! Making stock from scratch makes awesome soup, but there is much to be said for the convenience of buy commercial bone broth and other broths. I’ve not had Albondigas, but if see it, I’ll definitely try it!
I love soup! My current favorite to make a quinoa-bean-tomato suop with carrrots, spinach—and anything else I feel like throwing in! It’s close to a stew, and very hearty for winter. I also love carrot-ginger soup . . .and well, most soups! (But am not a fan of ones with cream.)
Andrea, I agree with soup that’s thick as a stew. And bring on the carrot-ginger!
What a fun post, Mary Jo! We are big soup eaters here courtesy of my husband’s cooking. He makes a kale, kumara, and sausage soup that we eat frequently. A new find is a mustard soup with bacon and potatoes that we quite enjoyed.
I know it’s a stock (ha, that is apropos for this post on soup) photo, but I have to admit to being curious about the blue plastic item in the first picture…a thermometer, perhaps?
Kareni, your husband is AWESOME! I love the sound of a mustard soup with bacon and potatoes. One of the best soups I’ve ever had was when on a Danube River cruise, a lentil with mustard. I ate three bowls and skipped the rest of the lunch. I’ve tried to duplicate it but with less than full success. Even if less than fully successful, the results are still delicious.
Kareni, I think that blue thing might have been the top of a stirrer since the pot is pretty deep. Not sure, though!
I love soup. My 2 favorites are split pea & New England clam chowder. My daughter makes this copycat Olive Garden soup with sausage & kale. I really love that. The only problem is that she lives in Pennsylvania & I’m in California.
Jeanne–well DARN about the geographical incompatibility!
I also love soup. I even like some canned soups, but I try to avoid them because they have way too much sodium. I’m past my soup making days, but my favorite was a cabbage soup made with noodles, sausage and anything else I wanted to include. My sister still makes it and sends some over to me – Yum.
Great post.
Mary T, your cabbage + soups sounds lovely. And so does your sharing sister.
I too love soup and love the idea of the mustard one. I adore mustard!!
I make a butternut squash and sweet potato soup that goes down quite well here (I love it) and I throw in some leeks and an ordinary potato to thicken it. I like soup you can ‘eat’ rather than a liquid one.
There are some lovely, tasty ideas here.
I remember growing up, by Thursday the meat for the week would be gone so my mother would boil potatoes, which we grew ourselves, and put them in a dish, pour soup over them and we’d tuck in and polish the lot off. Oh happy days!!!
Teresa, Americans don’t use leeks often enough. Pouring tasty soup over boiled potatoes sounds like an excellent idea. I’m very fond of potatoes!
Teresa, here is a link to the recipe my husband made. He used regular cream and also added some potato.
https://www.karlijnskitchen.com/en/low-fodmap-mustard-soup/
Love the excursion into soup. I make soup quite a bit during the colder months and always a big enough pot to be able to freeze a container or two for later. Our favorites are vegetable and split pea. There are only hubby and me but when I get a ham, I always get a bigger one with a bone for soup. I also have used the ham slices for soup or ham pot pie using chicken stock to enhance the flavor. My mother in law always used a ham bone to make vegetable soup. I do that as well but also like beef barley soup with lots of veggies. One of these days I am going to try my hand at autumn squash soup like they serve at Panera.
Jan, I always make enough to be able to freeze several quart containers. Each is good for three servings. Ham is definitely a soup enhancer, and smoked sausage is also good.
Oh yes…my soups are of the thick variety as well. Grin. They are soupier than stew but definitely quite thick. My favorites right now are a vegetable soup and a broccoli/cauliflower soup. Plus my sister’s potato soup which is made with hashbrowns. When we have a family pot luck soup night…forget all the other soups. I stick to the potato! Grin.
Amazingly enough, hashbrowns work really well in vegetable soup as well. They don’t disintegrate like you would think they would. You still have potato bits. Makes it so easy to make soup if you just throw in half a bag of hashbrowns with all the frozen veggies.
My mom makes a really good green split pea soup as well. Some friends of mine make a delicious chicken noodle. Minestrone….. Yes…lots of really great soups.
I only know how to make huge pots of soup which is fine because it means I have lots to freeze to eat later.
Soup is an easy, expandable meal and I can see why it would be all important on adventures. Easy to make, hot and reviving after shocking adventures. Warming after being frozen. Easy to eat if starved. Etc, etc.
Vicki L, I’ve not thought of using hash browns as a soup ingredient but I can see how it would be an easy way to thicken the soup and I love potatoes. Soup: the universal food!
My mother learned good scratch cooking on the farm, where there was a crew to be fed three times a day and pie at every meal. Then she lived through the Great Depression where money was tight, she and my dad had kids to feed and and the rent to pay. She was very good with great recipes that stretched out what they had. Nevertheless every Sunday there would be a Sunday Dinner and whatever the meat course was got stretched and used up toward the end of the week. When we had a ham for dinner, it would reappear added to scrambled eggs and sandwiches, but our favorite was Lima Bean Soup.
Here is the recipe: Buy a ham. Eat ham. Save the bone and shards of meat (trim off any fat). Buy a one pound bag of dried white lima beans. Get the big pot and fill it half full with water, and put the beans in it to soak overnight. (Swish the beans off if you don’t trust the brand name.) Add more water, ham bone and meat and a bit of salt and simmer a few hours (timing is not important) until beans have dissolved to the point where if you stir the pot, the liquid turns cloudy. Remove bone, stir and serve with a little pepper. In the 1950s we got orange jello and carrot salad with this, and white bread, but it’s not the 1950s anymore 😉
Janice, I love putting ham hocks in with my legume soups–they really enhance the flavor. But I’ll pass on the orange jello!