In winter, I often feel like soup, and I love the graphics
on the cover of Martin Lederman’s 1956 “Slim
Gourmet’s Soup Book – Five hundred soups from five cans” but I had never used it, as his recipes are a bit vague (more on that in a moment) and call for
canned soup, which I don’t love. Nevertheless, I decided to try a few because they
were all quick recipes I could make after work, and we all need more quick
go-to things to whip up while we’re still able to stand after a long day. The
more I read, the more fascinated I became with “The Slim Gourmet” and his
wheels, which remind me so much of art school! I tried three of the 500 soups,
and despite my suspicion of cans, and of sensing a metallic taste in one of the
soups (corrected with a couple turns of the pepper grinder), they are quite
yummy and he is actually on to something here!
This is a gourmet cooking book that just happens to feature
cans, because the time it was written was the dawning of the processed food
industry, when we celebrated their glory: Economical! Never spoils! Clean, tidy
and measured! One certainly cannot mistake this with “white trash” cookery,
because he instructs you to add sherry, minced aromatic herbs and fine cuts of
meats (even lobster!) to the cans to create versions of many existing soups, or
variations on themes. Mr. Lederman calls this “upbreeding” (!!!) and suggests
the idea came from mixing gin with juices to create cocktails, thus raising the
gin to a higher level as a new creation. (Ahhh, gestalt theory in food!)
This was the best soup - from the Chicken Soup Wheel: Chicken Broth / Mushroom Soup / Asparagus Tips and (my eternal fave) Worcestershire Sauce. Add a bit of fresh ground pepper and good bread and it tastes better than canned soup, that's for sure!
Mr. Lederman, who is “deeply in love with soup”, presents more
of a CONCEPT than a recipe (yeah, man, a concept album…) in which you start
with one of 5 cans of soup, match it with ½ from another can and then follow
the spokes of the wheel out , adding according to the path you selected from
one of five “Soup Wheels” and reducing the quantity by ½ each time. Very clever
and artistic as a concept, but totally foreign to someone used to cooking with only
fresh ingredients. His very introduction praises the canned soup industry and
delights in the fact that 20th century cooks need no longer make
their own stocks or soup bases anymore, thus saving time by using cans. His
point was very au courant, but now we are in a time of severe processed food
backlash, we “revolt” by insisting on performing every step in the cooking, and
shun processed food. Hello, generation gap!
This soup was pretty good; Chicken Broth / Sherry / Bacon and Parmesan. I added fresh Parsley as a garnish, which is a restaurant trick to "liven" things up if not super fresh or if lacking in any way.
The final soup I made began with Consomme and then RED WINE. It was so weird, I still can't quite get over it...
Beef Broth / Red Wine / Asparagus Tips / Mushrooms = JUST WEIRD