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My Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Is Having an Identity Crisis
I made the noodles and the broth, and now it wants to be Tex-Mex, Asian, Moroccan, or maybe even Italian
When was chicken soup invented? There is no way to come up with a definitive answer, but the advent of combining ingredients in a pot to create a nutritious, filling, easy-to-digest meal (“soup”) probably occurred some moments after the discovery of fire, or perhaps more precisely, when prehistoric man took that first step in learning how to cook — discovering how to boil water.
And, after that momentous step, man made another discovery. Boiling foods not only makes them taste better, but also creates new flavors. Cereal grains and some root vegetables, when heated in water, break down, soften, and release starchy granules. These starches then thicken the cooking liquid, the flavors of the individual ingredients combine, and soup is created.
A Rose by Any Other Name
Sop was the name given to the thick gruel made in that first cooking of grain or vegetables with meat and water. The “wealthy” made sop with broth poured on sliced bread.
Many nations have sops (soups) that they have claimed as their own — Spanish gazpacho, Scottish (mutton) broth with…
