THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ALL THE SOUPBROS OF THE WORLD!

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Soup noun: “a liquid dish, typically made by boiling meat, fish, or vegetables, etc., in stock or water.”

I want you to imagine a delicious bowl of soup. I want you to really visualise it; there should be a clear image of SOUP in your brain (unless you’re someone who can’t conjure up images in your head, in that case, sucks to suck). What kind of soup do you see? Creamy lobster bisque? Silky egg drop? A smoky salmorejo? No matter the soup, I’m hoping that just thinking about it is bringing you a warm, comforting, and satisfied feeling. 

Soup Confessional Time–

I personally am a big soup fan. In fact, my real name isn’t even Sophie, it’s actually Soupie. I like telling people that my favourite food is just “soup”, because it’s such a broad category. But I really mean it! Soup is the perfect meal because it isn’t too heavy, but is still pretty filling. It’s also one of the most underrated comfort foods out there–usually people tend to pick carb-heavy or richer foods, but soup has been quietly warming up our souls for centuries now. There’s a reason we drink soup when we’re sick…it’s a magical dish. Well, maybe not magical, but it is a pretty effective way to ingest medicinal herbs and spices that can help speed up the healing process of an illness or ailment.  It’s also a really great way to sneak like, a lot of veggies into your diet, especially if you’re blending them all up into a delicious purée. In the same vein, you can use a ton of leftover or about-to-go-bad vegetables in soups because you’re boiling everything down anyway. The best part of soup is that there are seemingly endless varieties–there is a soup for EVERY occasion. 

Soup is a really great category of food because it’s one of the few that is basically universal across all cuisines. All of the humans in all corners of the world independently realised that, hey, heating up some water and adding a bunch of stuff in it makes for a really tasty meal! To celebrate the ubiquity of soup, I’m going to be showcasing three soups from each continent (minus Antarctica, humans never made it there so I don’t know what the soup situation is like but I can’t imagine it being anything more than snowmelt and ice).

South America 

Encebollado – Ecuador

• FIsh stew from Ecuador that is made with albacore, pickled red onions, and boiled cassava. It’s also Ecuador’s national dish!

Locro – Andes Mountains

• Thick and hearty stew made from either squash, corn, potatoes, beans, or pumpkin.

Tacacá – Northern Brazil

• Northern Brazilian soup made from jambu (type of fruit), tucupi (tapioca  broth), yellow pepper, and dried shrimp

North America

Soup joumou – Haiti

• Soup made with winter squash, beef, potatoes, and carrots

Kak’ik – Guatemala

• Soup with dark turkey meat in a spicy red broth

Menudo – Mexico

• Soup with cow’s stomach in a red chilli pepper broth

Europe 

Meggyleves (sour cherry soup) – Hungary

• Cold soup made from sour cherries, sour cream, and sugar.

Kjötsúpa – Iceland

• Soup made from lamb, potatoes, and carrots

Revithia – Greece

• Hearty chickpea soup

Africa

Chorba frik – Algeria and Tunisia

• Soup made from lamb or beef, a bunch of veggies, and frik, which is a type of wheat

Ofe Onugbu – Nigeria

• Soup made from bitter leaf juice, corn, and fish

Cassava Leaf Soup – Central Africa

• Soup made from cassava leaves, beef, and onion

Asia

Thukpa – Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan

• Noodle soup with chicken, but can be made vegetarian

Aush reshteh – Iran

• Soup made from beans, lentils, noodles, and a bunch of different herbs

Tinola – Philippines

• Soup made from chicken, papaya, and chili peppers in a ginger broth

And now, for possibly the most exciting portion of the article, the long-awaited results of my very professionally-conducted Evolution Crew Soup Survey. It really wasn’t much of a survey–I just went around and asked second-year Radio Arts students what their favourite soups were and compiled them into this neat little list. WIthout further ado, here are the preferred soups of the Evolution Crew:

• French onion soup
• Cream of mushroom
• Ramen
• Pho
• Sopa de tortilla
• Carrot soup
• Doukhobor borscht
• Creamy potato soup
• Gumbo
• Caldo verde
• Cream of broccoli
• Wonton soup
• La Mian soup

We got a great variety of answers here! Clearly, we are very serious about our soups here at Evolution. I will say, we had one person who admitted that they just didn’t like soup at all, which was a bit crazy. In conclusion, soup rocks, it’s really tasty, and I’m going to go have some right now. Soup you later!