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
The building was impossibly narrow, 10 feet wide at most. It stood on the corner of a short London street and looked as though someone had shaved three-quarters of the structure leaving only the decorated façade behind. All four floors housed a single restaurant. 40 seats tops. Just a few tables on each floor accessed by an impossibly narrow winding staircase that both tray carrying waiters and patrons nervously navigated. I preferred sitting at the bar on the ground floor. It felt very grown-up. I think I was 13 the first time I had lunch there with my father. He took me there to eat soup. We ate lobster bisque. It was heavenly. The epitome of sophistication in a bowl.
I have been thinking about soup a lot over the past few weeks as I’ve been writing this article and I realized that particular soups have played a starring role in many of the cities I called home over the past four decades. In each case linked to a restaurant where I would inevitably eat the same dish, that particular soup. One of my favorite haunts in Los Angeles had a sensational Soupe de Poisson complete with a rustic rouille and garlicky toasts to float on the surface and soak up all the fragrant juices; another in Golfe-Juan served a bouillabaisse that many drove across the country for; I remember a particularly chunky-creamy-yet-not-too-rich clam chowder in Newport, R.I. shared at communal tables in a casual deli, and an earthy mushroom soup in a tiny Paris Bistro which I would happily travel half-way around the world to get another taste of.
So what is it about soup that is so appealing? Ask anyone about soup and what sensations it conjures up for them and a reoccurring theme runs through their answers. It reminds them of home, their grandmother, their mother, their youth, being nurtured and comforted, it’s easy to make, it has endless possibilities, it’s easy to eat, and it’s healthy. As one of the founders of Gourmet Magazine, Louis P. De Gouy wrote in his ‘The Soup Book’ (1949) “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.” No wonder that the age old remedy for a bad cold is a bowl of chicken soup!
I am no exception to the rule. I grew up eating soup almost every day as my mother had. Fresh vegetable soup, served pureed or in a clear broth. My grandmother made a wonderful vegetable ‘potage’, a creamy concoction with seasonal vegetables, leeks, shallots, potatoes and a few fresh herbs. She’d a dollop of crème fraiche in there sometimes for good measure. It was the perfect food after a day out in the snow. I liked dipping a piece of baguette in the soup so that it would soak it up which is perhaps just how soup got its name, as the word comes from ‘suppa’ and ‘sop’ which both mean "bread soaked in broth". Isn’t that one of the best parts of eating a bowl of hearty soup?
There are few dishes that can nourish one as completely as soup does. This was the very comment that Anthony Carroccio (founder and President of the Organic Soup Kitchen) made when I spoke to him about why so much of the food they prepare is centered around a hearty bowl of soup. I agree completely – it is a dish that sustains you.
Everyone I have spoken to is nostalgic about this dish. It’s evocative in a manner that is quite personal to each person. Perhaps that’s why, when I unexpectedly found myself around the corner from that very narrow restaurant, on that short London street last year, I immediately rushed over to taste ‘that’ bowl of soup….. I stood aghast in front of the scaffolding that encased the building, the new building. The old one had been demolished, the restaurant, and a 130 plus years of culinary history with it, all in the name of progress. What a shame! However, the memory of that soup lingers with me, perhaps that makes it all the sweeter.
The recipes from this article:
CARROT, ORANGE AND GINGER SOUP
ROASTED PARSNIP SOUP WITH A SAUTÉ OF WILD MUSHROOMS
CAULIFLOWER SOUP WITH STILTON AND CARAMELIZED PEAR CHUTNEY
