An Exaltation of Soups: The Soul-Satisfying Story of Soup, As Told in More Than 100 Recipes

by Patricia Solley

Throughout history and around the world, soup has been used to bring comfort, warmth, and good health. A bowl of soup can symbolize so much—celebrations, major life passages, and the everyday. Inspired by Patricia Solley’s website, SoupSong.com, and organized according to function—soups to heal the sick, recover from childbirth, soothe a hangover, entice the object of your affection, and mark special occasions and holidays— An Exaltation of Soups showcases more than a hundred of the best soup recipes of all time,

• Festive Wedding Soup with Meatballs from Italy

• Egyptian Fava Bean Soup, made to give strength to convalescents

• Creamy Fennel Soup with Shallots and Orange Spice from Catalonia—perfect for wooing a lover

• Hungarian “Night Owl” Soup, designed to chase a hangover

• Spicy Pumpkin and Split Pea Soup from Morocco, served to celebrate Rosh Hashanah

• Tanzanian Creamy Coconut-Banana Soup for Kwanzaa

Spiced with soup riddles, soup proverbs, soup poetry, and informative sidebars about the lore and legends of soup through the ages, An Exaltation of Soups is a steaming bowl of goodness that is sure to satisfy.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food

384 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2004

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked out this fantastic book from the library, but now it's what I search the shelves for first whenever I get into a used book store. It's organized by kind of festival, most of them markers of life-changes (birth, death, marriage, etc.) or religious events. Within each section, there are recipes and the folklore for several soups from different cultures. Those recipes are easy to follow, and the few soups I've had a chance to cook have turned out marvelously. The Turkish Bride Soup has become a new staple in our house, perfect for a cold Minnesota winter. Some of the ingredients are a little arcane, but that's to be expected when trying to recreate traditional tastes from other cultures, and if the ones I've tried already are any indication, those ingredients will be well worth searching out. As a true lover of soup, this has nicely exploded my current possibilities.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has a nice background about the soup - if it is part of a ceremony or ritual. There are soups from all over the world and some of the ingredients are hard to get or expensive and Solley gives some good ideas for substitutes.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many great recipes in this book, my family and I have been loving them. I will be using it over and over.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has a nice background about the soup - if it is part of a ceremony or ritual. There are soups from all over the world and some of the ingredients are hard to get or expensive and Solley gives some good ideas for substitutes.