Sunday Notes
From my world to yours, things filling my mind, body and soul in the past 7 days, sparking joy and bringing comfort to my week. Enjoy x
Episode 3
Today I am talking soup, eating it, buying it and making it.
Soup
I was brought up on Heinz soup, along with homemade chicken soup, which was always made from the chicken carcass left over from the weekend. No Sunday roast for us, we had ours at lunchtime on a Saturday for some reason. Brought up by my grandparents, there were many ways their thinking differed from that of the modern world. Don’t get me started on ‘not submerging oneself in water during your time of the month’. I kid you not! Anyway, I digress and am in danger of putting you off my topic, sorry.
I am still a big soup fan, it’s filling, which is a great start. It can also be very healthy or marginally healthy if you include lots of oil, cream and croutons, but even then, it can still cover your 5 a day. I do buy tins of soup, but I also make my own, usually on a Monday morning, and have enough for lunchtimes throughout the week. I prefer making my own as it can be done at a fraction of the cost of a tin and, equally importantly, I can usually eat twice as much for the same calorie count as shop-bought!
I question whether soup is still as popular as it was or has it been substituted with raw vegetable juices and shots by the rising generation. I think there is definitely a place for both, but for me the pure comfort derived from hot soup cannot be replaced. If you are feeling unwell, it just wouldn't be the same if visitors came to your sickbed and handed you a cold cup of beetroot juice, well it wouldn’t for me anyway! Additionally, soup retains more fibre as you are consuming the entire vegetable, helping with digestion and keeping you feeling fuller for longer and usually contains less sugar than juices which, let's face it, is required to make them taste a little more palatable. Of course, some nutrients can be lost during the cooking process of veggies, but they will still retain a wide range of vitamins and minerals.
On the negative side, the time taken to prep soup ingredients can be a bit of faff, it takes time to cook and then, if you prefer, a smooth texture, it needs to be blitzed down. Whereas juicing is quite quick and easy and doesn’t require any further processing, so it can be consumed immediately or on the go.
Thankfully, the varieties of soup on offer have developed considerably in the last decade or so. Henry J. Heinz may have chosen 57 to add to his marketing slogan back in 1896, but that was a nod to the number of products he had on offer, not the number of soup varieties he produced. Of course, the growth in flavours has led to the need for more and more elaborate ingredients and this, along with the humble tin now fighting against much more elaborate packaging, has pushed the cost of soup up, but for most people I think it still represents good value for money. Certainly, when compared to the price of a ginger shot!
I think from my writing my bias towards soup shines through quite clearly, although I would never ever order it in a restaurant, but then again, I wouldn’t order a juice either!
Let me know your thoughts on the subject. Do both still have their place? Do you see them as totally different entities? Is it a generational thing?
Speak soon
Jayne x