Martha Bayne - Soup and Bread Cookbook - Building Community One Pot at a Time

Soup &
Bread

COOKBOOK

Soup &
Bread

COOKBOOK

Building Community
One Pot at a Time

MARTHA BAYNE

DESIGN BY SHEILA SACHS ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL DOLAN

S

SURREY
BOOKS

Chicago

Copyright 2011 Martha Bayne.

All illustrations copyright 2011 Paul Dolan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

Illustrations by Paul Dolan.

Art direction and design by Sheila Sachs.

First ebook edition 2011
ISBN-10 1-57284-689-5
ISBN-13 978-1-57284-689-0

First flexibound edition 2011

ISBN 978-1-57284-119-2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the flexibound edition of this book as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bayne, Martha.

Soup & bread cookbook: building community one pot at a time / by Martha Bayne; illustrations by Paul Dolan.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: A cultural history of soup as a tool for both building community and fostering social justice, with recipes from food activists, chefs, and othersProvided by publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-57284-119-2 (flexibound : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-57284-119-2 (flexibound : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-57284-689-0 (ebook : alk. paper)

1. Soups. 2. FoodSocial aspects. 3. Cookbooks. I. Title. II. Title: Soup & bread cookbook.

TX757.B39 2011

641.813dc23

2011024191

Surrey Books is an imprint of Agate Publishing. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. For more information, go to agatepublishing.com.

For everyone whos ever hauled a pot of soup or a bag of bread,
or just come out to eat with us on a cold winter night.

Thank you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

On a raw evening in Chicago, in the middle of March, the back room of one little bar is a happy mess of connectionssocial networking embodied, no wifi required.

In that room, in the glow of strings of twinkly lights and under the silent gaze of several stuffed and mounted fish, youd find a gardener, a mom, and an actor, a writer and a farmer, a country singer, a social worker, and 75 others eating, talking, and standing in line. A harried bartender is spilling drinks and crumbs are flying as a graphic designer runs a knife through a baguette. A Michelin-starred chef shares cooking tips with a vegan barista. A DJ spins deep cuts of obscure R&B and at least two kidsmaybe more, hard to tellare running around in a ginger-ale-fueled frenzy.

The gardener runs the program at the school where the kids grow peppers. Shes working on a new project with the writer, whos chatting up an editor, and introducing her to the kids mom, who brought her friend the musician. Hes an avid home baker, a loaf of fresh sourdough under his arm, and the actor tries to distract him long enough to snag a bite. Across the room, the social workerwhos friends with the gardeneris chatting with the DJ, whom she knows from back in the day, but shes interrupted by the chef, who is wondering if the DJ does parties.

Faded cotton tablecloths and candles in colored globes dress up tables of varying sizes, and over on a small rolling bar, dollar billsones, fives, the occasional twentypile up in a busted Crock-Pot, vintage 1974. At the rear of the room a hand-painted wooden sign hangs above an empty stage. For now the action is in front of the stage, where two long tables provide the catalyst for all this good cheer.

Behind the tables stand half a dozen apron-clad cooks, wielding ladles and fielding questions. Before them diners file past, clutching paper bowls and jockeying for space.

Whats on the table? On the table is soup.

Now, soup is an all-purpose dish. Its nutritious, inexpensive, and infinitely variable.

It can be an earthy meal in a chipped pottery bowl or an elegant palate cleanser, frothed into a porcelain cup. It can showcase the explosive flavor of fresh spring peas and provide refuge for tired celery and stale bread. It soothes the sick, it nourishes the poorand it can trick children into eating their veggies. But perhaps more than any other food, soup can also be a powerful tool: drawing people together and helping them reach out to others.

Youre probably familiar with the stone soup fablethe tale of hungry townspeople who feed themselves when each contributes a measly carrot or potato to the pot. I think I first heard it in preschool, when it served as the foundation of a lesson in cooperation and sharing. As an adult Ive come across it in multiple cookbooks, where the moral of the story skews more toward the way cooking can create dishes that are greater than the sum of their parts. The true power of soup, I believe, falls somewhere in the middlein its ability to serve as both potent metaphor and cheap, tasty dinner.

I began to learn this firsthand a few years ago, after I had left my job as an alt-weekly editor on the food beat, moved to Wisconsin, and tried to write a book about an experiment in sustainable agriculture and its effects on a tiny island community. That didnt work out so well, and by the winter of 2009 I was back in Chicago and tending bar at the Hideout, a ramshackle, Depression-era tavern on a dusty industrial street.

The Hideout is one of the citys coziest and most eclectic music clubs, showcasing everything from country punk to experimental jazz on the little stage in the back. But early Wednesday evenings, when I was on duty, there wasnt anything to do but polish the pint glasses. Garbage trucks and snowplows lumbered down Wabansia Street round the clock, en route to a city garage, but what little happy-hour business I saw came mainly from shoppers at the nearby Home Depot. But that winter the recession hit the city hard, and even thirsty home remodelers were scarce. It was cold. I was lonely. And then one night it occurred to me to serve soup.

I asked around and some friends said suretheyd come out on Wednesdays if there was food. So I thrifted a bunch of mismatched bowls and started a blog and a Facebook page to get the word out. Thanks to my work as a food writer, I knew a lot of cooks, professional and not, and I hit them up to contribute. Bring a couple gallons of soup some Wednesday, I said. Any kind of soup at all. Well have day-old bread and hot soup and itll be fun, and well take a collection for a good cause. Its called, Soup & Bread.

On the first night I wasnt sure what to expect. It was the Wednesday after New Years, it was snowing, and a gas main had broken down at the corner. A friend had surprised me with a load of secondhand slow cookers at Christmas, and when I showed up to plug them in the entire block was lousy with fire engines and hazmat trucks. But despite this confusing scene a handful of determined diners navigated the roadblock and found their way to the bar. They shook off the snow and perched on stools to slurp soups donated by one of the other bartenders, by a friends pastry chef sister, and by a nearby caf. The food was free, but we put out a bucket for donations, and we collected more than $100 for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It wasnt a disaster. In fact, it was kind of a hit. Even the gas company guys came by for a bowl.