The quick answer: A warm bowl of soup makes a perfect winter dish. It’s also healthy, tasty, economical, and filling (plus low in calories).
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Canned Soup
I spent two and a half years in Central America when a young man, living with humble people and eating their food. It was a seminal experience that influenced my life. I didn’t fully appreciate the wisdom of their diet at the time, but it was affordable, minimally processed, and mostly local. I still remember the first soup I ate—homemade chicken vegetable. It stands out because I discovered the chicken’s foot in my bowl. I thought my Mom was a frugal cook, but these people were world-class in waste reduction. Water-based soups were a regular part of lunch and even dinner. I regret that it never occurred to me to collect a few recipes
Later, the soup most familiar to me was Campbell’s. The Campbell soup can, artfully copied by Andy Warhol, is an American icon. The Napoleonic Wars caused the invention of canned food in the early 1800s. There was a double benefit to the can: It fit the needs of wartime eating, plus in-can cooking sterilized the food, eliminating spoilage. Indeed, consumption of canned foods (like other bad habits) increases during wartime. The Campbell Soup Company got its start following the Civil War based on one improvement—a condensed soup cut costs. The user could add water or milk when the soup was heated, which at least gave the appearance of cooking.
The health complaints against Campbell’s soups have been the sodium content (lowered for a time, but recently increased when sales continued to drop), and concerns about high levels of Bisphenol A (BPA is a human endocrine and nervous system disruptor, a cause of obesity, and a suspected carcinogen). There is a movement away from canned foods, though they’re useful when you don’t have time to cook dried beans, or don’t make your own tomato sauce.
Campbell soups played a role in the rise and fall of casserole dishes, I believe. In the post-WWII emphasis on convenience, casseroles rose in popularity as a single-dish meal. Recipes often included a can of Campbell’s soup. Unfortunately, taste and wholesomeness were lesser considerations and there is a generation now who distain casseroles. This is unfortunate as casseroles have a place in traditional cooking—think of ratatouille. We should have a post on tasty and healthy casserole recipes.
Homemade Soup
Two things: First, it’s cheaper to eat traditional home-cooked whole foods than buy modern processed foods (even before you consider the cost of healthcare for the diseases of the modern diet). That’s our position—healthy home food is cheaper than factory food. Second, Marie Antionette, wouldn’t have lost her head if she has just said, “Let them eat soup” and then cooked up a big pot to mollify those hungry protestors.
Leah Widtsoe, a formidable advocate of healthy eating, wrote a 1943 book titled How To Be Well: A Health Handbook and Cookbook. Widtsoe spoke of traditional soup making:
“A soup kettle is a wise possession for every family. In it should go every scrap of meat, bone, cooked meat, chicken and turkey bones. If a rolled roast or shoulder of ham is ordered, insist that the chopped bones are sent also for soup or gravy. In the vegetable soup kettle go all clean vegetables parings, outer leaves or lettuce, celery, pea pods, chopped parsley, and all bits of good food that should not be wasted. The basis of the soup of the day should be found here. . . . One must never waste good food.”
Soup is more a winter food and in Widtsoe’s day the wood-burning kitchen stove often heated homes. So the stove would be hot often enough that bacteria wouldn’t get established in the soup kettle. The soup kettle was displaced by modern heating, which led to the success of Campbell’s soups.
It's time to reinvent soup making. The soup kettle is no longer practical but a plastic container with a closable lid, placed in the freezer, could take its place for saving scraps. Another innovation is slow cooking using a crock-pot. Set the crock-pot on low for 8-hour soups, or on high for 4-hour cooking. Or you can just simmer a pot on the back burner.
What are the most popular soups? Tomato, followed by the chicken soups. Other favorites include potato, onion, split pea, and clam chowder. (For our split pea soup recipe go here.)
There are established patterns to soup making. Meat flavored soups, with the exception of the chowders, traditionally have four ingredient groups: meat in some form, stock, mirepoix (chopped onion, carrot and celery), and herbs (typically bay leaf, thyme, and parsley, plus salt and pepper). Some may include a carb, like egg noodles, rice, or perhaps orzo.
Chicken Soup
If you read through enough chicken soup recipes, you’ll see a pattern. The chicken is either whole, cut up, or pre-cooked & chopped. The latter is the quickest to make, you can be done in 40 minutes. Recipes using cut up chicken usually call for browning of the chicken with the mirepoix in a frying pan.
For raw chicken—cut up or whole—plan on 2+ hours cooking time, but there’s a benefit—you can make your own stock by cooking the chicken with mirepoix, and the traditional herbs (bay leaf, thyme, and parsley). Or you can slow-cook by using a crock-pot.
To make chicken noodle soup simply follow the basic recipe and add ½-1 cup of egg noodles (preferably whole grain) per pound of chicken plus extra water. For chicken and rice soup, substitute a cup of rice for the noodles, with extra water, adding it as needed to meet the cooking time of the rice. For cream of chicken soup, replace the stock with milk and puree after cooking. These are well-evolved, simple recipes.
The approach that makes the most sense to me begins with the carcass of a roasted chicken. After you’ve enjoyed a meal of roasted chicken (you may be buying them roasted, but a future recipe will feature home roasting) you’re left with the carcass. I confess to throwing these in the garbage in my prior life. The recipe below starts with stock; if you have a carcass see note #1.
Skip’s Chicken & Rice Soup Recipe
Ingredients:
1 lb. meat scraps (about 3 cups)
6 cups liquid (I used 4 cups homemade stock and 2 cups water.)
3 cups mirepoix (roughly equal amounts of chopped onion, celery, and carrot)
1 cup of mixed wild rice, or brown rice (If you like more rice, add another cup plus 1-1/2 cups additional water.)
2 each bay leaf
2 T chopped parsley
½ tsp ground thyme
1 tsp each, salt and ground pepper
Directions:
Combine ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 40 minutes. Let cool, add salt or pepper if needed. If too thick for your taste, add a little water. Homemade bread or cornbread makes a nice side. Could this be any simpler? For the small family, this makes 2-3 meals. Put a quart in the freezer for later use.
Note 1: If you’re starting with a cooked chicken carcass, flatten the carcass in a pot, cover with 6 cups water, and add herbs (bay leaf, thyme and parsley). Bring to a boil and simmer at least two hours to loosen meat and make stock. Remove and discard the skin and bones, and chop up the meat. Return the meat to the liquid (you can add extra meat if you have leftovers), add the mirepoix, rice, and salt and pepper, and cook per directions above.
Note 2: If you want Chicken Noodle soup, replace the rice with noodles and reduce liquid by one cup.
Note 3: We made this recipe with turkey. We simmered the carcass of our Thanksgiving turkey for three hours with a couple of bay leafs to make a simple stock (no mirepoix). When done, we gleaned the loose scraps of meat seen in the photo. The stock and meat were refrigerated for several days before making the soup above. Perhaps the turkey was content we wasted so little of his sacrifice.
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