Never underestimate the power of a bowl of soup

By Maria Millers 

Before there were flags,
before there were passports,
before maps stitched borders
across mountains and seas,
there was a pot.

From a bowl or mug to a fine porcelain tureen, from a home kitchen to a Michelin star restaurant or classy dinner party, soup is present in many different forms.

Soups are a favourite when the wind howls and the temperature struggles to reach double digits.

Each kind of soup reflects the history, geography and culture of its origin country simmering together in a pot.

Its ancient beginnings stretch back to times before pottery to when it is believed that animal hides and watertight baskets of reeds or bark were used to carry liquids which could then be warmed on hot stones. It’s easy to imagine how grasses, herbs and leftover bits from the hunt could have ended up in the bags, resulting in soup.

The ancient Egyptians, known for their advancements in many areas, were also culinary innovators. Their diets frequently included a variety of soups made from onions, lentils, and garlic, ingredients still beloved in soup recipes today. In ancient Greece, a simple broth known as ptisan was made from barley, demonstrating the use of grains in early soups.

Long before the current ‘food as medicine’ movement the Chinese had a long history of using soups for health purposes, with recipes specifically designed to heal and rejuvenate the body. The concept of ‘food as medicine’ was deeply ingrained in these cultures, and soups played a pivotal role in this philosophy.

Trade routes like the Silk Road brought new spices and herbs from the East as did later the explorers of the New World in 15/16th centuries. Ingredients we now see as everyday staples like potatoes, tomatoes and corn allowed the development of soups like Minestrone, Gaspacho and the humble Potato and Leek.

It’s fascinating, how despite the changing diets over the centuries, soups have remained a constant and are still in many cultures not just an entrée but the main meal.

The power of soup lies beyond its ability to nourish. Soup for most of us is associated with being cared for, particularly when sick or vulnerable. We all know how chicken soup often referred to as Jewish penicillin feels restorative and healing when suffering from some dreaded winter lurgy.

And there’s something about how a warm serve of say a hearty Pea and Ham or rich Tomato Soup has the ability to bring people together, offering not just nourishment but also comfort, community and connection.

This is the underlying message in the folk tale The Stone Soup, perhaps the most famous symbolic soup narrative. It tells how a group of weary hungry travellers convince a village to contribute ingredients to a soup supposedly to be made from a stone. As one by one the villagers, intrigued by how a soup can be made with a stone, contribute various ingredients: an odd onion, a potato, a handful of herbs, a nourishing soup emerges to be shared by the whole village. A metaphor for collaboration and social trust

Today it’s also a reminder to us, living in a society where food waste is high, that there are many still going hungry. And that any leftover vegetables, bits of bacon, cheese rind or whatever lurking in your refrigerator or vegetable basket don’t need to be thrown away, simply transformed quickly and easily into a hearty what I call a Frig Soup.

“First-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting” Abraham Maslow.

Soup has always been a way of stretching limited resources and during famines, wars and migrations it is often seen as a symbol of survival and resilience. Today it is an economical way of providing a nourishing winter warmer for families.

Distinct ingredients retain traces of their identities while contributing to something larger than themselves. Because of this, soup is frequently used as a metaphor for communities, cultures, and even personal identity – many parts coming together to create a coherent whole. This is a strong metaphor for our Australian society as we embrace the different cultures making up modern Australia to create a new vibrant society.

The onions came from one garden,
the carrots from another,
the stock from a bone
someone might have thrown away.

Even the recipe
arrived by way of a grandmother
whose name I never knew.

I carried the bowl to the table
and understood at last:

nothing that truly nourishes us
is made alone.

The communal pot can be seen as many individuals becoming part of a greater whole.

As illustrated in the Stone Soup tale, soup can symbolise mutual support and collective wellbeing. There are many organizations church based or otherwise that have soup days that bring people together not just to provide a meal for the hungry but to also strengthen community and create a sense of belonging.

At the soup kitchen, the poor don’t ask what religion the soup is.

The traditional soups of England, Ireland, and Scotland reflect centuries of rural life, cold climates, and the need to make nourishing meals from inexpensive ingredients. Many of them have a Stone Soup quality – using whatever vegetables, grains, and scraps of meat were available.

The smell of soup cooking is often tied to childhood memories and represents family traditions and cultural identity. Whether it’s Nanna’s Pea and Ham or Potato and Leek, Nona’s Minestrone, Teta’s spicy Lentil s and Cumin soup. Babushka’s beetroot and cabbage Borscht, Yiayia’s Avgolemono, or the garlicky Sopade Ajo of a Spanish Yaya.

Kings left monuments,
generals left battlefields,
but grandmothers left recipes
written nowhere
except in memory.

Today we have grandmothers from further afield all adding to the rich variety of soups in Australia. Many Australians are now enjoying the vibrantly fresh Vietnamese Pho or Malaysian fragrant Laksas.

Many modern poets suggest that recipes are a form of literature and the recipe becomes a poem carried in memory.

American poet Joy Harjo has often suggested in her work on food, family, and indigenous traditions, that sharing a meal is one of the oldest ways human beings say: You belong here. As does Naomi Shihab Nye in Red Brocade:

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

For poets, that is the enduring power of Stone Soup – the idea that in times of drought, fire, flood, war, or social crisis, what saves people is often not abundance, but the willingness to share what little they have.

One of the most famous food scenes in literature is in the Dickens novel, Oliver Twist. It involves boys in a workhouse receiving meagre gruel (a thin porridge-like soup). When Oliver asks for more, the moment underlines the social injustice of hungry children at that time. And reminds us that there are still hungry children in the world today and in our own backyard.

The harrowing ordeal of families on the road in search of work in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath shows how shared simple food like soup helps survival under hardship and engenders collective resilience.

Stories like these helped establish soup not merely as food, but as a literary symbol of care, poverty, endurance. The food is rarely luxurious; its significance lies in sharing.

Many contemporary writers use Stone Soup without retelling the whole story. It has become shorthand for: war recovery, economic hardship, environmental disasters, community activism and social justice.

One could argue that the most Australian version of Stone Soup is not a soup pot at all but a community barbecue after a disaster: No one person provides everything, yet the community is fed.

For those balancing tight budgets soups provide the best option for winter meals. Soups can be loaded with lentils chick peas and other pulses to provide a cheaper source of protein.

The Stone Soup folktale teaches a quiet philosophy: the idea that soup is not merely food, but a symbol of community, memory, migration, hospitality, and the transformation of many small contributions into something much bigger.

Never underestimate the power of a bowl of soup.