Hulin - The Everything Soup, Stew, and Chili Cookbook (Everything)

THE

SOUP, STEW, & CHILI
COOKBOOK

Dear Reader,

Writing this cookbook has been a happy adventure. Usually, when I share the subject of an in-progress cookbook with family and friends, they demand recipes. Or cooking tips. However, when I told people I was writing The Everything Soup, Stew, & Chili Cookbook, the tables turned. Instead of asking for recipes, everyone wanted to give me recipes. Over and over I heard, My grandmas chicken soup is the absolute best or Here, youve just got to include my rabbit stew or My uncle gave me his green chili recipeyouve never tasted anything so good!

Of course, most of the recipes shared were more like compass points than actual roadmaps. Thats because soups, stews, and chilies are among the most flexible and personal of dishes. The same recipe can vary based on the mood of the cook, the availability of fresh ingredients, the amount of liquid added, and the time available for simmering. Having been raised on my mothers heirloom gumbo and fricassee recipes and my fathers ever-evolving chili pot, I can attest to the joy of anticipating the nuances of every batch.

In this book youll find recipes that represent the culinary heart of many different cultures. One cooks strange new curry is anothers family comfort food. Follow the recipes as given or use them as a starting point for your own explorations. Either way, my great hope is that youll find recipes youll embrace and want to share.

Belinda Hulin

Welcome to the

Series!

These handy, accessible books give you all you need to tackle a difficult project, gain a new hobby, comprehend a fascinating topic, prepare for an exam, or even brush up on something you learned back in school but have since forgotten.

You can choose to read an Everything book from cover to cover or just pick out the information you want from our four useful boxes: e-questions, e-facts, e-alerts, and e-ssentials. We give you everything you need to know on the subject, but throw in a lot of fun stuff along the way, too.

We now have more than 400 Everything books in print, spanning such wide-ranging categories as weddings, pregnancy, cooking, music instruction, foreign language, crafts, pets, New Age, and so much more. When youre done reading them all, you can finally say you know Everything!

Answers to common questions	Important Snippets of Information	Urgent Warnings	Quick handy tips

PUBLISHER Karen Cooper

DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITIONS AND INNOVATION Paula Munier

MANAGING EDITOR, EVERYTHING SERIES Lisa Laing

COPY CHIEF Casey Ebert

ACQUISITIONS EDITORS Katie McDonough, Katrina Schroeder

SENIOR DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Brett Palana-Shanahan

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Hillary Thompson

EVERYTHING SERIES COVER DESIGNER Erin Alexander

LAYOUT DESIGNERS Colleen Cunningham, Elisabeth Lariviere, Ashley Vierra, Denise Wallace

Visit the entire Everything series at www.everything.com

THE

SOUP, STEW
& CHILI
COOKBOOK

Avon, Massachusetts

To my daughter Sophie and son Dylan, who
never tire of helping me stir the pot.

THINK OF IT AS comfort in a bowl. Soups, stews, and chilies certainly provide an economical source of nourishment. But these creations are so much more than the sum of their ingredients. No two batches can be exactly alike because each carries the terroirthe flavor signaturesof its components, captured at the moment of preparation. In addition, each version of a soup, stew, or chili recipe is influenced by the whim, the mood, the loving hands of the cook.

A good recipe can ensure a good dish, but it cant predict the grace notes added by time, place, and human expression. A bumper crop of fresh zucchini, a particularly fragrant bunch of basil, a dish of savory leftover pot roast; such variables are what make any slow-simmered jumble of ingredients a wonderful, original work of art.

Anthropologists quibble over where and when the first pot of soup or stew appeared. Some credit the Neanderthals with softening foods in water in a hollowed bit of bark. Others note later evidence that African and European tribes learned to cook meat and plants together in the sealed stomach cavities of animals, while South American tribes used hollowed turtle shells as soup and stew vessels. Purists date the first real soups and stewsand in South America, where peppers were thrown in, chiliesto around 10,000 b.c., when ceramic pots appeared on the scene.

References to soups and stews appear in the earliest surviving cookbooks, including some dating to the third century. By the Middle Ages, sages and essayists were recommending chicken soup as a cure for all manner of infirmities. Early American writings on food trace recipes and soup customs with English, German, and French origins. Added to that early melting pot were offerings from Native Americans featuring tree nuts and wild greens. Journal entries from the colonial period make clear that soup, then as now, was considered a community-building dish that required both generosity and sharing.

Soup became a lifesaving elixir during the Great Depression. Beginning in 1929, churches and charities opened makeshift dining halls serving hot soup and bread to anyone who lined up for a meal. Eventually, soup kitchens cropped up across the U.S., with bean and chicken soups being ladled out in most cities and towns. Many were operated by the Volunteers of America, some by municipal governments and nonprofit groups. Al Capone even opened a soup kitchen in his hometown, Chicago.

Modern households appreciate these ancient dishes for the same reasons as our ancestors; namely, sustenance and satisfaction. However, in addition, weve learned that soups, stews, and chilies can be an easy and accessible way to sample the flavors of other cultures, to expand our own culinary horizons, and to entertain friends. A hearty Louisiana gumbo, a delicate ginger-scented broth, a fiery but rich Thai coconut chicken soupthe varieties of soups, stews, and chilies in the world are limited only by the collective imaginations of cooks.