Who’s the king of soup?

 
The French, the Chinese and the Americans all stake a claim

THIS WINTER IS COLD. Restaurants lie empty. Sales of canned soups are soaring, according to the news I saw on a TV screen in a shopping mall.

Watching with me was a Frenchman, who told me that English-speakers’ ignorance about food stretched to the very words they used for it.

“Would you like a history lesson?” he asked.

“No thanks,” I said.

In 1765, he began, un homme in Paris started selling a type of soup he called a restorer, which is “restaurant” in French. The idiotic English got it mixed up and promptly told the world that “restaurant” meant “place to eat out”.

Germans were dipping sops (their word for chunks of bread) into the warm bowls of restorer.

The idiot English got confused again, and told the world that the new dish was called “soup”.

So the English sentence: “Sitting in a restaurant, I drank some soup” actually means “Sitting in some soup, I drank some bread.”

I was disinclined to accept this outrageous slur on English speakers so I checked Wikipedia. Astonishingly, the Frenchman was right in every detail.
*
Later, I was sharing this news with friends, when a Beijing-born militant raised his head.

“It’s absurd to think that all good things originated from one place, Western Europe,” he said. “The truth is, all good things originated from China.”

He promptly called up a recent news article on his screen. Chinese archaeologists last week unearthed a 2,400-year-old portion of soup, it said. It was so well sealed that it was still liquid.

An American butted into the conversation. “Did the container say ‘Campbells’?” he asked, insisting that a US firm called the Campbell Soup Company invented canned soups. The article didn’t say.

But we all agreed that the 2,400-year-old soup should be sent to foul-mouthed TV celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay for tasting.

If a restaurant serves something even a few hours old he goes mad, cursing and throwing pots, pans and waiters around.

Imagine the scene.

RAMSAY: “@#$%! This soup tastes @#$^ing ancient! When did you brew this up, the @#$%ing Dark Ages?”

ARCHEOLOGIST: “No, Mr Ramsay, it was brewed in China two and a half millenniums ago.”

RAMSAY: “Flush this @#$%ing @#$% down the toilet and make me a fresh one, you @#$%ing morons.”
*
Readers told me that the top soups in South Asia are rassam and mulligatawny.

In Hong Kong, you can click on www.chinesesoup.com and get a portion of “chicken with white fungus” delivered to your desk. I replied that there was already something that could be described as “chicken with white fungus” in the office fridge, but no one would want to eat it.
*
We were all astonished when the American told us that US citizens buy 2.5 billion cans every year of the three main flavors of Campbell soup: tomato, cream of mushroom and chicken noodle.

The Beijing guy said he would ask Campbell for a US$10 trillion royalty payment since they had stolen the idea of canned soups. The best Chinese soup was Sishen Tang, which translates as Four-Divinity Pig Stomach Soup, he said.

“Is it made from a pig’s stomach?” asked the American.

The speaker patted his generous midriff. “Yes. Also it gives you one.”

*
Keep warm. Happy Christmas.
*

Technorati Tags: world's oldest soup,sishen tang,gordon ramsay

Comments

[grandpa]

This is a well known French saying:
<>

It translates like this:
It is in an old pot that we make the best soup

Sorry , it is totally unrelated to the subject, but my mother does ot allow me to explain it here

Merry christmas to you all

[rafanjr]

...Hmmm Bird's nest soup is very asian and is really in time with the cold season...

Happy Holidays!!!

[TS]

I would think that soup outdates nations and even the spread of the human race. Which will make the continent of Africa the originator of soup.

I can even picture the moment.
Bob's wife comes home to the cave after a long day of gathering expecting Bob to have done some hunting only to find him asleep on his favourite flat rock(1).
She kicks him and during the domestic dispute that follows, she accuses him of always just laying sprawled across his flat rock, staring into the fire(2)like a @#$%ing(3) flat rock yam(4).

Anyway, the unnamed wife(5), took all the vegetables she had collected and put it in her Swiss Diamond pot(6) added some water and let it simmer for a few hours.

(1)Couches had not yet been invented.

(2)The precursor of TV.

(3)Contrary to popular belief, swearing wasn't invented by Gordon Ramsay (which I met a at a book signing in London and found him to be a perfect gentleman).

(4)Potatoes had not yet been brought over from America.

(5)Bob just called her: Arrrgg!, talking was invented by women and had not yet taken hold in the male population.

(6)Blatant product placement have always been around.

[Clare]

Actually, all food comes from...India. Have a laugh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4A1xfHjyTA

[Lift Lurker]

I will post like our science genius sej.

Life began from a soup called The Primordial Soup. It happened 6,000 year ago.

Merry Christmas everyone. Peace to all men and women of goodwill.

(Except Elevatoria).

[Angela]

Merry Christmas gang!

brrr.....

Soup was first made in Japan, ancient japan, during the period of the Ryukyu kingdom that was subjugated to the Chinese emperor. Through trading, soup was brought over to China and it was there that the origin of soup was recorded.

Proof: Ajinomoto is made in japan. That's the main ingredient of all soups, especially canned soups.

Sumimasen, Gomenasai! I think I had too much sake.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

[Karuna aka Kaye Moreno]

@Clare, Thanks for the posting. First time I hear about them. These guys are really great.

[Chamin]

@TS: That's a really cool story, with all the footnotes. I'm going to read it again somewhere this holiday :O)

It also reminded me "Flintstones", the famous cartoon series.

[Dancer Arroyo]

Just made leek and potato soup for the Christmas party and it turned out like goob and horrified the guests.

I should have stuck to trusty Campbell.

Happy New Year!

[TS]

I guess that makes Dancer the Queen of Goop :-)

[TS]

Reflections on Christmas

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night
She didn't see me creep
Down the stairs to have a peep
She thought that I was tucked up in my bedroom fast asleep
Then I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath his beard so snowy white
Oh, what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night

Those lyrics have always intrigued me, because I actually did see Mommy kiss Santa Claus.
Even at that very young age, before I knew the truth about Santa, I suspected that daddy most certainly wouldn't have laughed if he saw Mommy kissing a total stranger, under a wreath of a hemi-parasitic plant matter.

That little secret burned on my mind for years to follow until the truth of Santa finally dawned on me.
What a relief, Mommy was kissing Daddy.

Well, I'm back at square one. It turns out that in our family the Christmas duty of Santa did not befall my father, but Uncle Bob...



'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The overshoes(*) were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

(*)Even in Ye Olden Days it was important not to leave carbon foot prints.

[Anonymous]

Santa did not befall my father, but Uncle Bob...

It coulda been worse. You coulda seen Daddy kissing Santa Claus

[Anonymous]

Santa did not befall my father, but Uncle Bob...

It coulda been worse. You coulda seen Daddy kissing Santa Claus

[TS]

It coulda been worse. You coulda seen Daddy kissing Santa Claus

Not really, since Bob was only my fathers fictive brother.
Even if he had been my mothers fictive brother, my family have always been very open minded in that respect ;-)

[grandpa]

What happened o Uncle Nury?
Did he get stuck in a chimney , thinking ha was Santa Claus?

[farah]

Happy New Year guys!!

[Lift Lurker]

I checked all my Lifts and cannot find Uncle Nury in any of them. Must have been Lost due to some other form of flying transportation.

TS, "fictive brother" is new word for me. For anyone else interested it mean: someone very close to the family and considered part of the family even if they are not really blood related. That is, even if they are vampires sired by a different tribe of vampires but we consider them part of our gaggle.

Happy End of Year everyone. (We in Liftuania celebrate end of year, not start of new year -- we made it to end of year).

[Katherine]

i've been drinking bird nest soup every night (i only get the homemade kind back at home). the only reason why i drink it is because it's supposed to be good for complexion.

i’ve been taking the store-bought kind online (e.g. www.geocities.jp/hongkong_bird_nest/index_e.htm of famous branded only of course) which is directly mailed from Hong Kong. this would be at a more affordable price.