In many countries, one of the traditional first courses served for lunch is soup. This dish is made from a variety of ingredients. The name of the soup depends on what products are included in its composition. Borsch, fish soup, hodgepodge, sorrel, beetroot, cream soup, cheese, mushroom - this is just a small part of the first courses, which is in cooking.
Culinary historians believe that for the first time they began to cook soup (not cook) in ancient times. It was a perishable thick stew of baked on stones, and then crushed cereals and grains.
In the Middle Ages, wine was considered soup with slices of bread soaked in it. This wine prison was a favorite treat of warriors. Guilty, negligent warriors were punished, depriving them of the opportunity to use wine soup for food.
Culinary art historians have several assumptions about when soup became a dish cooked on fire. According to one version, boiled soups appeared when a person learned how to make pottery. On the other - when a person tamed the fire and mastered the technology of cooking. Scientists suggest that for the preparation of the first soup (meat in water), people used the skins of the animals they killed, which they hung over the fire, tied in a special way. According to the data available to historians, primitive people who lived in the Stone Age in the Mediterranean began to cook soups.
Based on the Neanderthal recipe, the Romans began to add vegetables (carrots, onions, garlic) and spices (fennel, coriander, mint, parsley) when cooking soup. The most ancient recipe for the first dish, archaeologists have found in the book of culinary recipes Apikura, which was written in the IV century.
After the fall of Rome, Byzantium continued the history of the soup, enriching it with the traditions of Central Asia, whose peoples widely used various vegetables in cooking.
Poets of the XII-XIII centuries in their works sang mashed soups, the first creamy soups, which are still very popular in modern cooking. Their base is similar in consistency to such a less common dish as cream soup. These dishes are similar to each other only with uniform density, but are absolutely different in composition. Mashed soups are prepared on meat or vegetable broths, and cream soups - on a milk or cream basis.
One of the most inventive peoples in the preparation of first courses is rightfully considered the French, who by the end of the 15th century added more than 70 types of soups to their cookbook . The French peasant ate broth with cereals and vegetables twice a day and considered it the main food. For more prosperous townspeople, the soup base served as gravy for the main, often meat products cooked in it. At the beginning of the XVI century, the French learned to cook the first dishes with noodles, and in Normandy, flour-based soups were especially popular.
Until now, Parisians are considered great lovers of soup, on their table you can often find both a traditional onion soup and a delicious cream of wild mushroom soup with cream.
The first metal pan capable of withstanding high temperatures appeared in France in the 17th century, which allowed culinary specialists to improve their cooking techniques and, in addition to simple soups, more refined and sophisticated dishes began to appear on the tables. During this period of time, meat broths and vegetable broths, which were considered the "elixir of life" and were often prepared for patients, were very popular.
Nowadays, broths and vegetable soups are also often used in diet food. Indeed, such dishes, such as vegetable cream soup , are very nutritious, contain vitamins and are easily absorbed by the body weakened by the disease. And what is important - they are easily and quickly prepared.
Vegetable Cream Soup Recipe
You will need: 200 g of boiled red beans, 100 g of green peas (frozen is suitable), 1 pc. sweet pepper, 2 pcs. zucchini, onion and carrot (one at a time), a clove of garlic, 200 g mashed tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and yogurt, basil leaves and salt.
Coarsely chop the vegetables and put them in a saucepan with peas and beans. Pour 2 liters of water, bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes until the vegetables are soft. At the end of cooking, about 2 minutes before cooking, add oil, salt and mashed tomatoes to the pan. Remove the pan from the heat, pull out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and chop them with a blender. Then dilute the puree thus obtained with vegetable broth to a soup consistency and bring to a boil, but do not boil. Light vegetable cream soup is ready. It is better to serve the dish hot, sprinkling it with chopped garlic and basil, seasoning with a spoon of yogurt.
In the twenty-first century, a busy modern woman came to the rescue with the help of the latest cooking technologies - semi-prepared soups. This invention first appeared in America at the beginning of the 20th century, when Joseph Campbell Canning Company launched the first concentrated soup in dry briquette. This novelty was instantly appreciated by travelers, soldiers and working women from all over the world. Today, in stores, in addition to semi-finished products in bags, consumers are offered a variety of options for first courses - borsch, hodgepodge, mushroom cream soup, ready-made and bottled in individual packaging, which can only be reheated.