My mom loves soup. Like, really loves soup. She would probably eat it every day – including on hot summer days – if she could. As a result, my brothers and I ate a lot of soup growing up. My mom was a home economics queen and cooked with dried beans, pulses, and grains usually culminating in a “leftover soup” at the end of the week. It was a crapshoot and different every time because the ingredient list was: 1) everything that was leftover and 2) broth. I can count on – umm – one hand the number of times we asked her to please, please make that recipe again and the answer was always, “no can do.” The ingredients were simply never the same and this early learning impacted my approach to home cooking and soup building.
Like most foods from my childhood that I disdained for one reason or another, I’ve come fully back around on soup because it’s practical, affordable, and even tastier with a little lemon squeezed on top.
- The pros of soup: everything, but especially that it’s a one-pot meal, inexpensive, customizable, all of your favorite things in one bowl, stirs up nostalgia and fond memories, heart and soul warming, etc., etc.
- The cons of soup: sometimes they’re served cold and more like a smoothie?! (but not Jezabel Careaga’s gazpacho!) My friends say soups are not sharing foods so I can’t “order one for the table” 😕
Throughout my time at Vetri Community Partnership – and many programs and recipe development days – we have workshopped, tested, and tasted a lot of soup that could be made in a skillet and featured in our programs. During the pandemic, our cooking instruction and conversations became much more about using recipes as formulas for building dishes from what one had on hand. In a moment of inspiration to try to help others see this clearly, I sketched a diagram about how to build a soup.
As we make it through another winter, soup season (or as Gen Z says, soup SZN!) is firmly upon us and our programs have already been dishing up brothy, beany, tomatoey, chunky, or blended bowls of goodness to enjoy with one another. Here’s a recipe for one of my favorites, Vetri Community Partnership’s White Bean & Kale Soup – it’s hearty, comforting, and a squeeze of lemon at the end brings it all home.
I hope you enjoy the process of making it as much as you enjoy eating it – and as much as I like talking about soup!
