Soup Appreciation and Discussion thread

[Scarecrow71]

@Mr. Kerbin

How does on eat something "as a vegetable"?  Is it a specific way of preparing it?  A certain mindset?  Particular time of day?

[Mr. Kerbin]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

@Mr. Kerbin

How does on eat something "as a vegetable"?  Is it a specific way of preparing it?  A certain mindset?  Particular time of day?

uhhhh… Wikipedia???

and

The Bottom Line. Tomatoes are botanically defined as fruits because they form from a flower and contain seeds. Still, they're most often utilized like a vegetable in cooking. In fact, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1893 that the tomato should be classified as a vegetable on the basis of its culinary applications.

[Mr. Kerbin]

I didn’t copy that from google, you did!

Edited 17 hours ago by Mr. Kerbin
BTW J O K E

[Scarecrow71]

Botanically defined as a fruit.  Meaning, it isn't a vegetable.  You literally proved my point that it is a fruit, which brings into question of whether or not tomato soup is soup because it is a fruit.

Now you being into it the whole eating as a vegetable thing, which I refuse to buy into.  How you eat something doesn't define what it is.  And the fact remains that the tomato is a fruit.

To stay on topic, I think soup needs to be reclassified because of some of these ambiguities.

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

So does that turn all smoothies into soup?  Fruits are taken as is and then liquified without other processing.

The definition you posted stated soup uses meat or vegetables, so no.

7 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

What about fideo soup then?  Fideo is a warm broth with noodles in it.  Noodles are neither fruit nor vegetable, and they are processed to become noodles.

Noodles are not what make fideo soup soup, otherwise any noodle dish served in liquid (like ramen or soba) becomes a soup.

Fideo soup uses a stock or broth. Because the stock/broth is created using meat and/or the bones of the meat as is, stock could be defined as a soup ingredient. This is probably what makes it a soup. However, because fideo soup is a foreign dish it is possible it is defined using a different definition from Spanish.

6 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Egg Drop Soup

Consume

Cream of Mushroom

Legume based soup

Egg drop soup is a foreign dish and is difficult to quantify because the common definition used across the Sinosphere for “soup” is actually defined as any liquid made using an ingredient that was once solid.

Consommé also uses stock or broth, which are each made using meat or vegetables.

Mushrooms are considered vegetables under the same guideline that considers corn a vegetable, so it is a soup insofar as tomato soup is a soup.

Likewise for legumes. They are considered vegetables using the same guideline that makes corn and tomatoes vegetables.

6 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm just trying to find out where the arbitrary line is being drawn.  And so far, I can't seem to figure that out, mostly because one argument for something not being soup seems to forget about all the other things that would become soup using that same logic.  Which defaults me back to my original statement where I said we need to define what soup is before we can appreciate all of its awesomeness.

The line is pretty clear. If it is eaten as a vegetable or meat and is used in the soup it becomes soup. If it isn’t something you would call a vegetable or meat, it isn’t soup.

Noodles aren’t vegetables and cornflakes aren’t vegetables. Just like how popcorn isn’t a vegetable. So the presence of a noodle or processed food created using vegetables does not make it a soup.

Mushrooms are vegetables, tomatoes are vegetables, chicken is a meat. Using these ingredients in a liquid dish qualifies it as soup, including using them to create stock or broth (the liquid).

Where the line isn’t clear is with foreign dishes, because these come from cultures with different definitions of soup. In fact they arguably don’t actually have “soup,” they have their own thing that is more broad. Calling their dishes soup is a trash translation because even if the word sounds similar the definition in the other language may be different.

The line will always be arbitrary because language is a human creation. One can’t draw a literally permanent line in the same way you can say that this thing is hydrogen and this thing is oxygen. But words can still be defined that separate cats and dogs clearly, and so too can soup and other foods featuring liquid.

One doesn’t have to follow that convention… but should be aware they might end up joining the ranks of people who call submarines “ships” one day.

[Scarecrow71]

36 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The definition you posted stated soup uses meat or vegetables, so no

Sp then tomato is not a vegetable, but a fruit.  The definition is gave does not say "eaten as a vegetable" but just made with vegetables.  By your statement, tomato is not a soup as it doesn't use vegetables.  It also doesn't use stock or broth.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Mushrooms are absolutely not vegetables.

The posited definition obviously fails to encompass soup. 

Saying so things is a foreign dish and therfore exists as some kind of nebulous outlier is asinine. Soup exists across an array of culture.

Those that truly love soup do not usually stop there, it extended to bisque, chowders and stew. Consume as well as Gazpacho.

As proven by the very inadequate definition, all the above is *qualified* by the accepted lay meaning of soup.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Sp then tomato is not a vegetable, but a fruit.  The definition is gave does not say "eaten as a vegetable" but just made with vegetables.  By your statement, tomato is not a soup as it doesn't use vegetables.  It also doesn't use stock or broth.

https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Why-does-the-ChooseMyPlate-gov-website-include-tomatoes-and-avocados-in-the-Vegetable-Group-instead

Your definition does not say "vegetables defined as vegetables eaten as vegetables" but nor does it say "vegetables defined botanically as vegetables."

If you think any food that has a vegetable as an ingredient counts as a vegetable, including cornflakes, I must ask... what do people around you think when you come back from the movies and say "I had a large bag of vegetables while at the theater?"

Cornflakes are only vegetables if popcorn is a vegetable. No one seriously thinks popcorn is a vegetable and neither have I ever heard anyone seriously say "cornflakes are a vegetable."

25 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Mushrooms are absolutely not vegetables.

They are not vegetables, but not "absolutely not" vegetables.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7869438/

26 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

The posited definition obviously fails to encompass soup. 

Saying so things is a foreign dish and therfore exists as some kind of nebulous outlier is asinine. Soup exists across an array of culture.

Those that truly love soup do not usually stop there, it extended to bisque, chowders and stew. Consume as well as Gazpacho.

As proven by the very inadequate definition, all the above is *qualified* by the accepted lay meaning of soup.

It does indeed create outliers because the English definition provided by Scarecrow71 does not align with the definition of the word that is translated as "soup" in Sinosphere languages like Japanese.

Let's examine a source other than Wikipedia: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soup

A second definition of the word is provided stating that soup is "something (such as a heavy fog or nitroglycerine) having or suggesting the consistency or nutrient qualities of soup."

So literally anything can be called soup if it is soup-like, but it is not a true soup because it simply "has the qualities of soup." Cereal is only soup insofar as heavy fog is soup.

True soup indeed requires meat or vegetables (or fish according to this source).

As I said before, no one has to follow the existing conventions on "soup-like" things vs. true soups. In the same way a person can call a submarine a ship or a smilodon a "sabre-toothed cat." But this is entirely their own perogative and has nothing to do with the actual definition of things, which has already been decided by the powers at be.

[timmy kerman]

There, Now there’s a clear definition of soup for the purposes of this thread in the original post. Also, tomatoes are an exception and we are going with the 1893 court reading here.