Metaphors in the soup pot
Home KitchenIf it’s fall, it’s soup time!
Autumn calls us to come in, take out those warm wool and socks from the bottom drawer. When it gets dark earlier in the day, the soup calls.
The history of a good soup, in its first round pots or in today’s gleaming fully lined flat-bottomed brands, remains a favorite subject of story writers the world over.
When the aroma of fresh vegetables simmering for soup fills any everyday kitchen, the aroma indicates a sigh and a sense of “coming home.” That familiar smell brings a kind of satisfaction and tranquility about food and eating, of course. But it is also a satisfaction about life in general. a pot of soup Y a good story can do that.
The soup awakens the literary in us.
Tea soup pot Y melting pot they are often used interchangeably as overloaded metaphors for two seemingly opposite truths:
• Soup ingredients can be stewed together and processed into a thick, flavorful liquid, much like the crucible soup image of early America.
• Or, ingredients, such as vegetables, can be added to a broth, remain distinct while contributing to the overall rich flavors of the soup. This version is also called America’s melting pot, but with respect for its many different contributions.
Soup pots are a popular metaphor because there have been stories and myths about food being created (or invented) in a large pot, probably since the dawn of time. And food has always been a popular theme for stories, whether it’s telling, reading or watching a story.
Ancient storytellers composed myths to conjure up ways to answer the big questions: why is the sky blue, why are the seas salty? Any one of these myths about salt, however outrageously illogical, leaves one with a newfound respect for the magic of this simple compound element of salt. No soup can work without it.
Perhaps without praising the wonders of salt, the poet Owen Meredith praised the power of good food way back in 1860:
We can live without friends; we can live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooking.
You can live without love. What is passion but nostalgia?
But where is the man who can live without eating?
The old soup pots, with round bottoms, are making a comeback here and there today. And the old soup stories are even more abundant. There must be thousands of versions of stone soup – said in schools, churches, homes – all for the sense of community that making soup creates.
Today’s food writer Calvin Trillin used one of his stories to introduce his full-blown campaign to make “spaghetti carbonara” the national meal over the regular turkey on Thanksgiving. In his story, Trillin provides hilarious supporting evidence in his descriptions of Christopher Columbus, being from Genoa and all, savoring the fine flavor of cheese, pancetta, bacon, and pasta.
Stories sprout in kitchens. The stories land in the middle of the conversations at the table. A natural conversation starter is often “can I have the recipe for this delicious dish?” But while a great recipe is a treasure, what’s most entertaining and enlightening is the story that surrounds it.
The next time you make soup, tell your family a story. Or read one: Calvin Trillin’s “Spaghetti Carbonara” is a good start.
Or read the old culinary story told by the 18th-century English essayist Charles Lamb about the history of the roast pig. His story delights in describing a certain eldest son of a Chinese man, 60 or 70 thousand years ago, who accidentally set fire to the pig house and took delight in licking his fingers after pulling a pig out of the fire. Accidental fires could no longer be the only way to roast pigs, so soon people began mining iron and molding it into cauldrons and pots.