Readers Digest - The Ultimate Soup Cookbook

All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited. Readers Digest and the Pegasus logo are registered trademarks of The Readers Digest Association, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The ultimate soup cookbook : 943 one-pot meals of comfort and joy /The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. ; [editor, Neil Wertheimer]. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7621-0727-8 (hc.)
1. Soups. 2. 2.

One-dish meals. I. Wertheimer, Neil. II. Reader's Digest
Association.
TX757.U48 2006
641.8'13--dc22
2006001068 Address any comments about The Ultimate Soup Cookbook to: The Readers Digest Association, Inc.
Editor-in-Chief, Books
Readers Digest Road
Pleasantville, NY 10570-7000 To order copies of The Ultimate Soup Cookbook, call 1-800-846-2100. Visit our website at rd.com Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 US 4820/IC The Aroma of Home My wife and I have a lot of cooking gear.

But none provoke as many memories or are as cherished as our soup pots. Each one has a story. Theres the 70-year-old, impossibly heavy Griswold cast-iron pot, pulled from a hidden, hay-covered corner of an old Pennsylvania barn (the owner, a friend of ours, was moving and let us search her barn for old furniture and castoffs). After much cleaning and conditioning, the pot has become the perfect host for short ribs and chiliwhat must be hundreds of gallons over the years. Then theres the sturdy 12-quart aluminum pot my parents bought themselves shortly after their marriage in 1950 and which I nearly destroyed in my youth by repeatedly burning popcorn in it. They recently passed the pot to mealong with the original lid and a few remaining specks of diamond-hard popcorn carbon on the bottom.

Somehow it seems morally wrong to cook chicken soup in any other vessel. Theres another one. My father had a short, failed venture in the restaurant business back in the 70s. One of the only remnants is a professional stockpot he gave me from the place that is so massive it comfortably holds gumbo for 40, crab legs whole. It looks awkwardly large on my home stove top, sitting atop two separate burners, but nothing makes me as happy as seeing it up there. It might be my imagination, but the soups and stews that emerge from our favorite old pots seem to have more flavor, more personality, more love than almost anything else my wife and I cook.

Some of that is our romantic attachment to the pots. But even more are the aromas, textures, and colors of the foods they contain. What is more satisfying for a cook than to look into a gently simmering pot of soupcarrots and onions and barley in constant motion, herbs and oils bubbling thinly at the top, a well-cooked bone sticking out above all else? Even serving soup seems specialdipping a ladle deep into the pot, searching out a nice morsel of meat or fish, and pouring its rich, chunky contents into a wide, worn ceramic bowl. Soup is extraordinary food. It is rich with history, culture, and personality. It is fast to make and soulfully good to eat.

Good cooks can work subtle magic with the flavors, and new cooks are all but guaranteed to be successfulwhat is more forgiving for a beginning chef than a big pot of soup? Best of all, soup fills a home with blessed aromas that cheer you up on even the coldest, most gray day of winter. Readers Digest has always celebrated the family, and with The Ultimate Soup Cookbook, we particularly have family in mind. These 943 recipes, gathered from sources far and wide, are all well tested and proven to fill your house with the aromas of home. Children will love them, spouses will cherish them, and friends and visitors will be comforted by them. So get out your favorite pot and start cooking up some new family memories today. With The Ultimate Soup Cookbook, a happy, well-fed, even-better-loved family is only the next meal away.

Neil Wertheimer
Editor in Chief, Readers Digest Books