Talk about opening a can of something............ A surpzingly LARGE amount of stuff that has been written about soup. I know what you're thinking: Soup? Really Cass? Really? 'Cause it's kinda a common place food; not trendy or anything. Cheap to buy, cheaper to make yourself. Soup? Really?
Yes really! Check it out: I found a lymerick to soup:
"There was a Young Lady of Poole,
Whose soup was excessively cool;
So she put it to boil,
by the aid of some oil,
That ingenious Young Lady of Poole.
"Edward Lear, English artist, writer; known for his 'literary nonsense' & limericks (1812-1888)
I found a quote in Alice in Wonderland about soup. (Actually I didn't find it because I don't like Alice in Wonderland, the search engine found it for me. Does everyone know that Tim Burton has a Alice in Wonderland movie coming out? http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/06/21/first-look-tim-burtons-trippy-new-alice-in-wonderland/ Like I said we're not Alice in Wonderland, or Tim Burton or Johnny Depp fans here so it's no big deal. I am, on the other hand excited about the new Marmaduke movie; because I'm an old fuddy duddy that's why! (As the class of 1990 "celebrates; yeah that's the word" our upcoming (cough) 20th high school reunion I am proud to admit that I am the first of the class to be a self proclaimed "fuddy duddy" but slightly ashamed that I am so fuddy duddyish that I know how to use the word. Anyways....... on with the quote.
Alice said:
"Beautiful soup, so rich and green
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!
Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth of beautiful soup?"
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
If you want to insult somebody check out this quote: "The soup, thin and dark and utterly savorless, tasted as if it had been drained out of the umbrella stand."Margaret Halsey (1910-1997) American author
We even owe parts of our language to soup. For instance without soup:
how would we describe a typically bad situation? *in the soup
Or fog? *thick as pea soup
Or too many acronyms? *alphabet soup
Or something that's very easy? *duck soup (that idiom is a new one on me, anyone else?
Or describe a whole jumble of things? *everything from soup to nuts
Or to increase the power of something? *soup something up (where would all the "Trick my whatever shows be without that phrase?).
And you can't even call people to come eat the soup without saying...........? Soup's on! ttp://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/soup
Let's not forget "The Soup Blog" or the cabbage soup diet.
How big is soup? Ask the Campbells soup company which has been around since 1897. For some reason I CAN'T tell you how many cans of soup they sell each year but I can tell you that they produce Watercress and Duck-Gizzard Soup in China and a Cream of Chili Poblano soup in Mexico. I realized the other day that Cream of Mushroom soup is the white gravy of the north. (I'll pause and let you guys think about that.) How big is soup? Ask Andy Warhol who painted the cans in 1962.
When I was in Asia I could have told you how big soup is by pointing out what a staple ramen noodles were to my diet. Not only did I eat them in soup (where the Koreans taught me to add veggies and egg to them) but I also crushed them up and shook the seasoning package over them to eat as a dry snack. Mmmmmmmm sodium!
Soup is soooooooooo big (now it sounds like I'm telling a fish story right?) that one of my favorite cooking websites grouprecipes.com boasts 3876 recipes for it. Including......... wait for it............. bat soup! One of the reviews on that recipe said that they'd rather eat a baseball bat. Stephanie O'Dea from "A year of slowcooking http://www.crockpot365.blogspot.com/ has 52 soup recipes in her blog. First let me say that I LOVE Steph. The split pea soup that I made the other day was her recipe and they are all great, if they're not she'll tell you. However for those of us who live in the middle of nowhere please do not try to make her sweet potato soup because it calls for a can of mangoes, which you CANNOT find when you live in the middle of nowhere no matter how many she-she-foo-foo grocery stores you go to!. Then you will end up making sweet potato muffins with the sweet potatoes that you bought for the soup and those will end up horrible because the recipe didn't include enough sugar or textury/fruity thingys.
My grandmother-in-laws (is that even a word?) Betty Crocker Cookbook from a zillion years ago (possibly my new most favorite quotable source other than www.urbandictionary.com which I won't be quoting but I will be laughing at) has these lovely soup tricks:
Soup shakes: Cream soups whipped with mike and served chilled, garnished with sprig of mint or slice of cucumber. (Think sneaky chef lady waaaaaay before her time. Don't think I'd get it past my kids though: but dessert soups are popular in Asia.)
Soup nogs: Cream soups whipped with egg and milk. Serve cold or heat slowly over low heat. (Soup meets eggnog in a result that can't be good.)
Hot buttered soup: Seasoned butter dropped into soup just before serving. (Where I come from we would call that really greasy soup.)
Hot soup cocktail: Tomato soup thinned out with bottled clam juice and spiked with Worcestershire sauce. (Or you could just use clamato juice, unless you're in the US and you can't because they don't have it here. What's wrong with tomato juice?)
And all of this make you wonder? WHY??????? Why Cass why? Why are you spending the precious few minutes you have with both your boys napping to tell us all about soup? Because it's COMFORTING that's why! The soup that is not the writing; although that's true too.
Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield have made a whole empire around the fact that soup is comforting to both the body and the soul. I can't even quote the stuff off of www.chickensoup.com because there's so much of it it boggles my mind. Check out http://www.zazzle.com/chicken+soup+for+the+soul+parody+gifts for a great parody.
Look at all these other great quotes in praise of soup.
"There is nothing like soup. It is by nature eccentric: no two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can."Laurie Colwin, 'Home Cooking' (1988)
"To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup."Laurie Colwin
"Good soup is one of the prime ingredients of good living. For soup can do more to lift the spirits and stimulate the appetite than any other one dish."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"One whiff of a savory aromatic soup and appetites come to attention. The steaming fragrance of a tempting soup is a prelude to the goodness to come. An inspired soup puts family and guests in a receptive mood for enjoying the rest of the menu."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"Soup is cuisine's kindest course. It breathes reassurance; it steams consolation; after a weary day it promotes sociability, as the five o'clock cup of tea or the cocktail hour."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"Soup is the song of the hearth... and the home."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"Soup is to the meal, what the hostesses smile of welcome is to the party. A prelude to the goodness to come."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"Soups challenge us, because an enticing flavorful stew can be as different from the thin watery beverage sometimes erroneously called soup as a genuine green turtle is from the mock turtle."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"There is nothing like a plate or a bowl of hot soup, it's wisp of aromatic steam making the nostrils quiver with anticipation, to dispel the depressing effects of a grueling day at the office or the shop, rain or snow in the streets, or bad news in the papers."Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
"Do you have a kinder, more adaptable friend in the food world than soup? Who soothes you when you are ill? Who refuses to leave you when you are impoverished and stretches its resources to give a hearty sustenance and cheer? Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guests? Soup does its loyal best, no matter what undignified conditions are imposed upon it. You don't catch steak hanging around when you're poor and sick, do you?"Judith Martin (Miss Manners)
"I live on good soup, not on fine words."Moliere
"Only the pure of heart can make good soup"Beethoven
"An old-fashioned vegetable soup, without any enhancement, is a more powerful anti carcinogen than any known medicine."James Duke M.D.(U.S.D.A.)
"It [soup] breathes reassurance, it offers consolation; after a weary day it promotes sociability...There is nothing like a bowl of hot soup, it's wisp of aromatic steam teasing the nostrils into quivering anticipation."Louis P. DeGouy, Waldorf-Astoria chef), The Soup Book (1949)
"Soup and fish explain half the emotions of human life."Sydney Smith
"Of all the items on the menu, soup is that which exacts the most delicate perfection and the strictest attention."Auguste Escoffier
"Soup of the evening, beautiful..."Lewis Carroll
"A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting."Abraham Maslow
"Between soup and love, the first is better."old Spanish saying
"Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite."Auguste Escoffier
"And Tom brought him chicken soup until he wanted to kill him. The lore has not died out of the world, and you will still find people who believe that soup will cure any hurt or illness and is no bad thing to have for the funeral either."John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Thanks to http://www.foodreference.com/html/qsoup.html for the great food quotes.
So here's to soup, without it we would be comfortless (?) UNcomfortable? and have nothing to eat with grilled cheese sandwiches. Thanks soup!
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