The word soup comes from French soupe ("soup", "broth"),
which comes through Vulgar
Latin suppa ("bread soaked in broth")
from a Germanic source, from which also comes the word
"sop", a piece
of bread used to soak up soup or a thick stew.
Evidence of the first preparation of soups can be
found as far back as about 20,000 BC. Boiling did not become a common cooking technique
until the invention of waterproof containers such as clay cooking
vessels. Prior to this, animal hides and watertight baskets of bark or reeds
were used to boil the water over hot rocks.
Oddly enough,
the word restaurant (which means "restoring")
was first used in France in the 16th century, to refer to a
highly concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors, that was
advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in such
soups. This prompted the use of the modern word restaurant for the eating establishments.
Here in the U.S., the first colonial cookbook was published by William Parks in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1742, based
on Eliza Smith's The Compleat
Housewife; or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion and it included several recipes for
soups and bisques. A 1772 cookbook, The
Frugal Housewife, contained an entire chapter on the topic. English cooking
dominated early colonial cooking; but as new immigrants arrived from other countries, other
national soups gained popularity. In particular, German immigrants living in Pennsylvania were famous for their potato soups. In 1794, Jean Baptiste Gilbert
Payplat dis Julien, a refugee from the French Revolution, opened an eating
establishment in Boston called The Restorator, and became
known as "The Prince of Soups". The first American cooking pamphlet dedicated to soup recipes was written
in 1882 by Emma Ewing: Soups
and Soup Making.
Portable soup was devised in the 18th century by
boiling seasoned meat until a thick, resinous syrup was left that could be dried and
stored for months at a time.
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