Soup has to be one of the easiest, healthiest dishes to cook. Take vegetable soup. Chop all the vegies, chuck them in a pot of boiling water, season and voila. If that alone isn’t exciting enough, you could get creative and add some tomato paste or spice to liven things up. But on the whole, it’s a very simple, tasty and nutritious meal.

I grew up eating vegetable soup with an Italian twist, which basically meant your traditional vegetable soup but with some risoni (rice-style pasta), Italian herbs (oregano, parsley and basil) and parmesan cheese. I used vegies like celery, carrot, leek, potato, cauliflower and broccoli (I usually begin by frying the leek, carrot and celery, because they take a little longer to cook). I find $20 worth of vegetables will make 6-8 serves of soup - which is pretty damn cheap!

Anyway, I have some interesting soupy facts that I’d like to share:

• The first soups date back to 6,000 BC
• Apparently they had hippopotamus in them (although I’m not sure of the accuracy of this fact…)
• The French first used the word ‘restaurant’ to describe a concentrated, cheap soup sold by street vendors - and it was advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion.
• Still on the French, in the French Court of Louis XI, rumor has it ladies’ meals were predominantly soup because they were afraid that chewing would make them break out in facial wrinkles.
• Soup has been condensed since the 19th century
• Andy Warhol said he painted soup cans because he had soup for lunch every day for 20 years. 

If you’re looking for soup recipes, Simply Soups has some great ones!

Filed under: Food & Nutrition