![[ Soul Soothing Soup: Early Soup ] ~ from Monterey Bay Spice](images/page/soupforthesoul/images/abanner.jpg)
a. the simmering vat
The practice of tossing raw vegetables and meat-on-the-bone into
a vat of simmering water is as old as striking flint against
rock to make fire. Although the one-dish meal was necessary for
survival in households with little food to spare or waste, soup
was equally enjoyed by the wealthy as well as the infirmed.
Soup wasn’t exclusive to any part of the globe either. In
fact, various specialty soups that use ingredients specific to
certain regions began to emerge independently of each
other—French onion, Italian minestrone, New England clam
chowder and Russian borscht, to name a few.
The earliest soups, however, were little more than a runny paste
of ground meal and water. Like your morning bowl of flakes,
these were served cold. But the bowl of steaming hot oatmeal or
wheat farina as we know it today didn’t appear until much
later, when the application of heat and the addition of milk
would transform cold mush into cooked porridge and gruel. In the
spirit of frugality, cooked cereals had staying power even if
they didn’t have a long shelf life. You might recall this
nursery rhyme from your childhood:
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.
![[ Soul Soothing Soup: Pocket Soup ] ~ from Monterey Bay Spice](images/page/soupforthesoul/images/bbanner.jpg)
b. just add water
Incredibly, and because necessity is the Mother of Invention,
late 17th century explorers, travelers and anyone else on the
road with limited access to “modern” accommodations
could carry “pocket soup” to sustain them. These
“just add water” provisions were the precursors to
the instant soup mixes we’re familiar with today.
Pocket soup typically started out as veal “glue”
made from boiling down a leg of beef several hours until a
gelatinous substance remained, which was allowed to harden and
age in a “sweetmeat pot” and then wrapped in paper
until called upon to be reconstituted at a later date. The
latter part of this process is described in The Receipt Book of
Mrs. Ann Blenowe (circa 1694):
"Keep it in a dry warm Place, and in a little time it will be like a dry hard Piece of Glew, which you may carry in your Pocket, without getting any Harm. The best Way is to put it into little Tin boxes. When you use it, boil about a Pint of Water, and pour it on a Piece of Glew about as big as a small Walnut, stirring all the time till it is melted. Season with Salt to your Palate; and if you chuse any Herbs, or Spice, boil them in the Water first, then pour the Water over the Glew."
Although the first dried beef bouillon cube didn’t officially hit the market until 1912, its predecessor emerged with the advent of dehydration techniques, which brought pocket soups into commercial production to supply Union Civil War soldiers with portable rations of dried meat “biscuits.” As a complement to this fine first course, desiccated potatoes and mixed vegetables followed. Production of these items continued after the war, establishing the most famous of all dried soup mix brands that, admittedly, most of us use more often to make vegetable dip than soup. (Answer: Knorr)
