Today's Guest Editorial comes to us from "loyal reader" Linda Hedrick....
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I long to move to the Pacific Northwest, and if the gods of the real estate market would only smile upon me, I would do it in a heartbeat. When I tell people of my desire, they “flood” me with warnings of lots of rain (true) and a high suicide rate (not true). But rain is my friend and there are two things that will assuage any discomfort about lots of rain: books and soup.
My stacks of to-be-read books are approaching Mt. Everest in size, and I may even have seen a sherpa ducking in and out among them. If I were compelled to be inside because of the rain, I might actually make a dent in those piles of books. And for sustenance to aid my reading, hot, tasty soups are a joy to make and an even bigger joy to consume. To combine both pleasures, I have been thinking of collecting books on soup:
Amazon shows 13,904 results for “soup” in the books category. Take out the author’s pages, novels and non-fiction with “soup” in the title, and the “Chicken Soup for...” volumes (enough for a hearty collection in themselves), and you are left with lots and lots of cookbooks on soup.
Arguably the first cooked dish made by our most ancient ancestors was soup. Throw a couple of hot rocks into some sort of natural bowl filled with water and plants, and there you have it. According to etymologists, the origin of the word comes from the Latin “suppare” meaning to soak (the same root word also is said to be the base of “sup” and “supper”). It also is related to “sop”, and some early cookbooks say the concoction is to be poured over bread, which also was a mechanism for eating it before the advent of spoons. Even the word “restaurant” is related to soup, deriving from the French “restoratif”, as soups, being easily digested, were prescribed for invalids for millenia.
Cookbooks devoted to soup alone are rare in pre-modern times. Copies of ancient Greek and Roman cookbooks do have soup recipes in them, and they can be surprising to the unsuspecting modern cook, as they contain only ingredients known in those times (e.g., no tomatoes). Apicius was a Roman known for his recipes (at least a half-dozen of which we today probably would classify as soups). An interesting book in this regard is Francine Segan’s The Philosopher’s Kitchen: Recipes from Ancient Greece and Rome for the Modern Cook:
Cookbooks with soup recipes appeared in medieval England. The Forme of Cury was compiled by Richard II’s chefs some time in the late 14th century. Modern reprints are available by various publishers, but I could not find an original (and if I could, the gods of the lottery would probably have to not merely smile, but buckle over with mirth). In English, the most extensive collection of soups (and its cousins, broths and potages) was published in 1660 in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook or, the Art and Mystery of Cookery, of which 20% of the recipes are for soups. Again, I could only find reprints:
Eliza Smith’s The Compleat Housewife, or, Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion was first published in 1727, and contains a section on soups. In 1742, William Parks, a printer in Williamsburg, Virginia, published an amended edition of this book based on the fifth edition. This is considered to be the first cookbook published in the United States. Copies are available in various conditions (none pristine, as cookbooks were handled and used frequently) in prices ranging from a few dollars for a modern paperback to almost $2000 for an 18th century edition:
The first pamphlet in America devoted specifically to cooking soups was Emma Ewing's Soups and Soup Making (1882), which I’ve only been able to find as a modern reprint.
As to modern soup cookbooks, there are several that would serve well in a collection. The Culinary Institute of America published their Book of Soups in 2001, followed by The New Book of Soups in 2009. The Best Recipe: Soups & Stews, published by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated in 2001, not only has lots of recipes, but also the tips and technical information they are well-known for, including equipment recommendations:
If anyone has additional suggestions, or if you would like to share your favorite soup cookbook, please leave me a comment!
Speaking of soup, I’m getting hungry and there are some greens leftover from my CSA box. I think I’ll throw them in some water, and crack open a book. Now if only I can find some suitable rocks....
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