What could be more comforting than a steaming bowl of soup on a cold winter day? And who better to savor it with than a group of friends? You may not have known it, but Saturday, January 21, was National Soup Swap Day. It is a holiday that began in 2006 in Seattle, and it is celebrated on the third Saturday in January.
Kathy Gunst, Resident Chef for NPR’s Here & Now, has been participating in soup swaps for several years — and not just on a single Saturday in January. Soup swaps have become a winter-long tradition for her and a group of friends.
A friend approached her six years ago with the idea. Soup swaps are simply parties where soup is the star. The host provides a salad, some bread, beverages, and a dessert. Everyone else prepares a large pot of soup to share and brings assorted containers to take home leftovers. During the party, guests describe their soup — perhaps sharing what inspired it, where they found the recipe, or why it is a dish they enjoy — and everyone tastes all the different soups. Afterward, all the guests divide up the leftovers, and everyone leaves with several different soups to enjoy.
“You cook once, but you go home with eight to 12 different meals,” Gunst explained. It has become a tradition she looks forward to every winter.
“We started six years ago and it’s been fantastic,” she said. “It’s been six winters of sharing soup with friends and neighbors and really getting very close as a community.”
That’s one of the unexpected bonuses she discovered after attending a few soup swaps — soup is a great vehicle for fostering relationships and building community. This could be because soup is the ultimate comfort food and is enjoyed in every culture. For many people, it brings back warm memories of meals enjoyed throughout their childhood, whether it was a favorite canned soup or a batch of homemade chicken soup eaten when they were sick. It is also a food that we tend to eat more slowly allowing time to really savor the meal.
Making Soup Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated
Soup swaps are easy to organize, and the soups don’t need to be complex. When Gunst’s group first began swapping soups their recipes were very basic. She suggests soup swaps as an easy way to entertain guests in your home.
“I think a lot of Americans have become really fearful of inviting people over to share food at their table,” she said. “I think that we have seen too many food shows on TV and too many magazines where the table is perfect.”
Her new book, Soup Swap, shares tips and instructions to organize a soup swap. Packed with more than 60 soup recipes from around the world, she shares how to make everything from basic stocks to flavorful chowders. And many of the recipes are perfect for beginners, like Stracciatella, an Italian comfort soup from Rome. It takes about 15 minutes to make and contains only four ingredients: chicken stock, spinach, eggs, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
She also provides tips for transporting the soups and storing the leftovers, and she offers recipes for side dishes and soup garnishes — another one of her secrets for taking a basic soup recipe to the next level.
The key to a great soup swap is to have fun. “Don’t worry about perfection,” Gunst said. “Realize that if you cook once, you are going to go home with many meals, and that is a win-win!”
Read more from Kathy Gunst on Here & Now, or on her website. Listen to past episodes of Here & Now online.