I remember as a kid sitting at the kitchen table at lunchtime slurping Campbell’s tomato or beef and barley soup and munching on Cheez-Its. It was always those two soups. None of that cream of mushroom, cream of potato or cream of celery stuff. That would have been akin to eating paste (and I would know; I once ate paste in kindergarten when the teacher left the room for a minute).
I was reading about soup trends, and interestingly, adults eat more soup than kids do. Teenagers are the least likely to eat it, because in their independence, why would they choose soup when they could have pizza, tacos or burgers? Turns out, adults like it for how easy it is to prepare and for its perceived healthfulness.
It’s only easy to prepare if you get it out of the can. Making it from scratch is an art a chef would love. I talked to some chefs about making potato soup who see it as an art – and a science. It becomes a science when trying to balance the thickness with the particular type of potato at hand. Starchy potatoes make a thick soup. Waxy ones break down and don’t provide the same consistency in thickness. It’s especially difficult to know if the potato is starchy or waxy when you get beyond red and russet potatoes and delve into Yukon golds, purple Peruvians and fingerling potatoes. The chef I talked to puts the potato in a brine of 1 part salt to 11 parts water by weight. Waxy potatoes float; starchy ones sink. Ahh. Then he knows.
Pasty potato soup can be avoided with interesting contents (sausage, cheese, bacon). But can also be helped with fun toppings. But that’s the end of the story. To get the whole story, you can read my article Haute Potato Soup, which was published in the October issue of National Culinary Review. It’s to the right.
Jody
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