You'll hardly ever catch me ordering soup in a restaurant – there is bound to be something more exciting on the menu, I tell myself, a bit like a stubborn child who decides he or she doesn't like something without ever trying it.
This is irrational, of course, not least because some of my all-time favourite meals are liquid and come in a bowl: asam laksa, corn chowder, my mother's gazpacho, my dad's cold yoghurty concoctions, harira – I could live on any of those.
I think my prejudice stems from soups that came into being as a way of using up unpopular or leftover ingredients. Many cooks, including some serious chefs, treat the soup pot as a kind of culinary compost heap into which they chuck whatever happens to be lying around in the hope that it will miraculously be transformed. Alas, the transformation that takes place is often one of decent, distinct ingredients into a uniform slosh of no clear nature. I once had a pea soup (in a long-gone restaurant) that nearly put me off that great dish for life – it was so sickly sweet and stodgy I would not be surprised if leftover bits of cake and pastry crusts had been added to the unhappy, thick, grey mass.
A good soup needs to be a well-thought-out affair. It has to look attractive, and balance its textures and flavours, just as any dish does. More importantly – even more so than with solid food – it must clearly taste of its ingredients, leaving no room for niggling doubts about what went into it and why.
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