Apple Soup—Better than Snert!
Friday, 10 January 2014 17:43
Most every restaurant will offer soup, but not every “restoring shop” will have a uniquely delicious apple soup. Says this expert, they should.
By Wendy Brannen
Did you know that restaurants and soup are synonymous? According to my favorite modern source—Wikipedia—the word restaurant, or “something restoring,” was first used in France in the 16th century to refer to a highly concentrated, inexpensive soup sold by street vendors and purported to be an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in these soups, which prompted the use of the modern word restaurant.
Their histories intertwined, it seems no mistake that one is hard pressed to find a decent restaurant that does not serve soup in some form—piping hot or chilled, clear bouillon or thick bisque, vegan or loaded with savory chunks of meat. The preparation and serving choices are as diverse as, well, alphabet soup, as are the regional varieties of this comforting staple, which range from “she-crab” in the Carolina Low Country to something called “snert” served with a sausage over in the Netherlands.
So, if you are a chef seeking your own twist on a signature soup, where do you start? Might I suggest at the beginning of that alphabet soup of options? And, “A is for apple,” after all!