- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
- 49
-
Sparkle (1)
I was thinking about soup this morning, and decided I am a soup snob.
Ah, soup. Surely it was one of the first foods cooked by early man, after the bloody haunch of giant elk began to get monotonous. Some soups can qualify as super-foods, with all the vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants any nutritionist could ask for.
Soups can be humble, yet unmatched in deliciousness. It doesn’t have to take a lot of expensive ingredients to make soup, so they can be extremely economical while feeding a crowd. Of course I’m not opposed to elegant ingredients such as nice herbs, crab or wine. I grow a few of my own herbs, and I am lucky to live near the coast where I can catch my own crab—or get it fairly cheaply at the fish market. The wine used in a soup doesn’t have to cost more than a few dollars a bottle.
I was a sous chef in a restaurant many years ago, and I learned to make truly great soups. Not just blowing my own horn—I have a gift when it comes to making good soup. My soups get raves from friends and family. They beg me to make soup. I even dream about leaving teaching for a career operating a soup truck.
Have to say, with the general warmth of menopause, I haven’t made a whole lot of soup lately, but when the weather cools a bit, I’ll get back into soup mode. I don’t have much choice.
The problem is, because I have an intimate knowledge and understanding of good soup, I can’t order soup in a restaurant. Most restaurants, I am sad to say, turn out salty, glumpy, inedible, sorry excuses for soup.
I’ve found I should not even try to eat restaurant soup. It only hurts my feelings when I dip my spoon in hopefully, only to taste salt, maybe some flour, and little else. Many restaurants are serving soup literally dumped straight from a can into the soup warmer. Can the downfall of civilization be far behind?
This makes me morose, because if I want soup, now I have to make it myself. I’d like to be treated to a bowl of soup that I didn’t have to make with my own large and capable hands. But I can’t lower my soup standards! I’d rather do without.
How about you? Are you a snob about any foods, refusing to accept anything less than your standard of deliciousness or the brand you insist is the best?
Melanie
Image Credit: www.worththewhisk.com on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license
