Soup Season

Soup’s on! 

This historic phrase is synonymous with the clanging of a triangle dinner bell on the farm. As the summer gives way to fall – cooler nights, drifting leaves, and the inevitable return of riding boots-clad ladies clutching PSLs – comfort foods, warming foods and drinks, and soup come to mind. Simply Recipe’s website recently ran sixteen (!) soup recipes in anticipation of the fall. Let’s take a look at the role soup plays at Bex. 

Doing Things from Scratch 

Fall squashes and gourds make great soups for the season! They are not just decorative flourishes, but a great way for the fruit and vegetable abundance of summer to continue into fall, albeit with new fruits growing: those curved, earthy, colorful, and bumpy produce known as winter squashes. Squash is eaten in different seasons, but when the fruit is mature and the rind is hard, we call them winter squashes. Chef Becky’s pastry chef Carol noted: “Using pumpkin is a lot of work, because Chef cuts no corners, and wouldn’t even consider canned pumpkin. We break the pumpkin down from its natural state to use, like for a Pumpkin Latte which goes great with any of our pastries.” With a little elbow grease, once past the protective outer coating lay moist and complex meats and seeds inside.  

Zhushing a Stock

We deepfroze some of the shells from our successful Clam Bake community event back in September and colder weather is the perfect time to make a soup stock. “Coaxing flavor out of ingredients is a constant activity of a Chef,” Chef Becky says. “When you’re starting from scratch, add a little vinegar to the seafood shells or animal bones you are turning into stock, as it helps draw out the minerals. Like bone broth, you can toss in those little things in your fridge that haven’t gone bad but are like orphaned ingredients that seem to have no purpose: carrot stem leaves, garlic skins, outer layers of onion – the kind of things that are great compost but still have usefulness in them. They all contribute to flavor.” 

Stone Soup

A perennial children’s book favorite that weathers social change and trends that pop and fizzle out, Stone Soup, derives from a folk story that can be interpreted in several ways. Some readers find the traveling soldiers (or wanderers) who convince a small town to make soup out of some rocks and water as a cautionary tale about confident men or grifters, while others see it as a heartwarming tale of a disparate village coming together for a common purpose. Still, others see it as making do with what you have, in the famous words/philosophy of Eleanor Roosevelt. Regardless of viewpoint, at its bare bones, the tale is about the joy of cooking and starting from simple ingredients to something surprisingly tasty, done with teamwork. Whatever your take on the narrative, one thing all agree on is the soul-comforting nature of warm soup on a cold day. Soups are one of the most forgiving of dishes since if it’s dry you add liquid, if it’s watery you add solids, if it’s x you add y. Soup is a great learner vehicle. 

Dig in! Soup’s on.