National Homemade Soup Day is observed annually on February 4th.
Before the era of modern transportation, soup was a product of regionally available foods. For this reason, there are thousands of soup recipes available today.
Many soups also have medicinal purposes. What was once considered a wives’ tale, chicken soup now has the backing of the scientific community with helping relieve the symptoms of the common cold. Scientists believe that a bowl of the soup may reduce inflammation of the lungs. It is thought that chicken soup slows down the activity of white blood cells that can cause the inflammation.
Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm (but may be cool or cold). It is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.
- The earliest archaeological evidence for the consumption of soup dates back to 6000 BC, and it was hippopotamus soup.
- Americans eat more than 10 billion bowls of soup each year.
- Women are twice as likely to order soup for lunch as men.
- When Andy Warhol was once asked why he painted the iconic soup cans, he said: “I used to have the same (Campbell’s soup) lunch every day for 20 years.”
- Soups are classified into two groups: clear soups and thick soups.
- The most popular soup variety in the U.S. is chicken noodle.
- Condensed soup was invented by Dr. John T. Dorrance, a chemist with the Campbell Soup Company, in 1897.
- When foods, including soup, go through the canning process, nutrients are locked in so the amount of vitamins and nutrients in the soup is the same on the day it was canned as it is a year from the canning date.
- Crown’s EasyLift® easy-open ends, revolutionized the food packaging industry by offering significantly improved finger access under the tab to make it easier and quicker for consumers to open food cans.
- Crown continues to refine self-heating can technology that is capable of heating up 8.5 ounces of soup in two minutes with the press of a single button.
- The pop culture catchphrase “No soup for you!”, used as a response to someone’s request or demand that will not be fulfilled, originated from a 1995 episode of the TV show “Seinfeld.”
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