If it’s fall, it’s soup time!
Autumn calls us to come in, get those wool and warm socks out of the bottom drawer. When it gets dark earlier in the day, call the soup.
The story of good soup, in its early round pots or in today’s gleaming, fully clad, flat-bottomed marques, remains a favorite subject of story writers the world over.
When the aroma of fresh vegetables simmering for soup fills any everyday kitchen, the aroma signals a sigh and a feeling of “coming home.” That familiar smell brings a kind of satisfaction and ease about food and eating, of course. But it’s also a satisfaction about life in general. a pot of soup Y a good story can do that.
The soup awakens the literary in us.
Tea pot of soup Y melting pot they are often used interchangeably as overloaded metaphors for two seemingly opposite truths:
• Soup ingredients can be stewed together and processed into a thick, flavorful liquid, like the picture of pot soup from early America.
• Or, ingredients, such as vegetables, can be added to a broth, remain distinct, and at the same time contribute to the overall rich flavors of the soup. This version is also called America’s Melting Pot, but with respect for its many different contributions.
Pots of soup are a popular metaphor because there have been stories and myths about food created (or invented) in a large pot, probably since the beginning of time. And food has always been a popular subject for stories, whether telling, reading, or watching a story.
Ancient storytellers composed myths to conjure up ways to answer the big questions: why is the sky blue, why are the seas salty? Any of these salt myths, while shockingly illogical, leaves one with a newfound respect for the magic of this simple compound of salt. No soup can work without it.
Perhaps without praising the wonders of salt, the poet Owen Meredith praised the power of good food back in the 1860s:
We can live without friends; we can live without books;
But the civilized man cannot live without cooking.
You can live without love. What is passion but nostalgia?
But where is the man who can live without dinner?
The old soup pots, with round bottoms, are making a comeback here and there today. And the old soup stories are even more abundant. There must be thousands of versions of stone soup – said in schools, churches, homes – all because of the sense of community that making soup creates.
Today’s food writer, Calvin Trillin, used one of his stories to pitch his full-blown campaign to make “spaghetti carbonara” the national meal over the usual Thanksgiving turkey. In his story, Trillin provides hilarious supporting evidence in his descriptions of Christopher Columbus, being from Genoa and all, savoring the fine flavor of cheese, bacon, bacon and pasta.
Stories sprout in kitchens. The stories land in the middle of the conversations at the table. A natural conversation starter is often “can I have the recipe for this delicious dish?” But while a great recipe is a treasure, what’s most entertaining and enlightening is the story that surrounds it.
The next time you make soup, tell your family a story. Or read one: Calvin Trillin’s “Spaghetti Carbonara” is a good start.
Or read the old culinary story told by the 18th century English essayist Charles Lamb about the history of the roast pig. His story delights in describing a certain eldest son of a Chinese man, 60 or 70 thousand years ago, who accidentally set the pig house on fire and delighted in licking his fingers after pulling a pig out of the fire. Accidental fires could no longer be the only way to roast pigs, so soon people began taking out iron and molding it into cauldrons and pots.
