Are they ever. Soup is hot. Piping. It may even be the new coffee. In Snohomish, Wash., an hour north of the mecca of java, Seattle, a former espresso bar is now the Sourdough Soup Co. ““We thought, wouldn’t it be great if you could go somewhere like McDonald’s for soup?’’ says Erica Owens, 27, who opened Sourdough with her husband on Oct. 1. ““Maybe, like, a week and a half later we saw the Soup Nazi episode on “Seinfeld’.’’ They copied the no tables/no chairs look, rotate four soups a day and draw local and long-distance customers from Bellingham and Seattle on weekends.
Soup mania is simmering on the West Coast, but in New York it’s boiling over. Among the two dozen fast-soup joints that have cropped up in the city in the two years since that infamous ““Seinfeld’’ first aired: Souperman, Fashion Soup, Daily Soup, Zoop Soup and the Soup Nutsy, which just signed a deal to supply the TCBY yogurt chain with its steaming hot fare. The founders of New York’s five Hale and Hearty soup bars seem more motivated by Starbucks than ““Seinfeld.’’ ““We’re looking at doing the same thing with soup that Starbucks did with coffee,’’ says Andrew Schnipper, 30, who opened the first Hale and Hearty with his brother Jonathan, 32, two years ago. ““All of our conversation when we were designing our business plan was “It’s like a coffee bar with soup!’ ’’ And like coffee, soup is cheap to make–and make a buck on. At Hale and Hearty’s Wall Street location alone, 850 customers a day spend an average of $5.50 a pop on soup or a soup-and-soda combo.
Also like ““gourmet’’ coffee, soup can be foodie-fetishized almost beyond recognition. Instead of a ““double decaf low-fat light-froth latte,’’ soupies seek out Senegalese chicken or Tuscan white bean with spinach. Hale and Hearty’s Jonathan, a soup savant who stays up nights watching the Food Channel and poring over recipe books, now has more than 200 confections in his repertoire. Borrowing a page from Ben & Jerry’s, he’s found that the weirder the ingredients, the better: macaroni-and-cheese soup, chicken-potpie soup. The Schnippers do brisk business in the vegetarian and low-fat offerings, but the best sellers come laden with shrimp or lobster. In other words: fat-filled bisques that pack as many calories as a Big Mac.
That’s the other great thing about soup: it looks and tastes healthy, even when it’s lining the walls of arteries. ““You have no idea how much fat is in the heavier soups,’’ says Marion Nestle, New York University’s top nutritionist. ““If they’re sneaking in huge amounts of fat, then it defeats the purpose.’’ But ““overall,’’ she concedes, ““soup would beat anything I can think of for lunch.’’ Which is why most upscale soup-bar regulars have become addicted. Dining alone at one of Hale and Hearty’s midtown Manhattan locations, Wendy Subotich, a 24-year-old recruiter for Deutsche Bank, confesses, ““I’ve always liked soup, but I didn’t consider it a meal.’’ Now a bowl of three-lentil chili is all she can imagine needing for lunch. ““Vegetarian, low-fat and dairy free,’’ she beams. Tim Zagat, publisher of the eponymous dining guides, has an acronym for the phenomenon: BATH, as in Better Alternative to Home.
At the New England Soup Factory in Brookline, Mass., outside Boston, owners Marjorie Druker and her husband, Paul Brophy (both culinary-school graduates), insist that their success is a matter of taste. ““Soup is full of so many good ingredients that all combine to make you feel better,’’ Druker says. The secret to most of their soups is adding a few ingredients at the last minute. That way, Druker explains, ““you don’t get that washed-out taste that so many soups have.’’ The couple plans to open two more Factories. In Washington, D.C., Natural Jack’s Mineral River Soup Co. is making similar inroads.
As soup mania spreads–the Midwest is still wide-open territory–there will, of course, be a backlash. Andy Ferguson, a D.C.-based writer-curmudgeon, bemoans the ““Yuppification’’ of an American staple. ““These bunko artists not only jack up the price, they also don’t sell you normal soup,’’ he complains. ““You have to get “chicken with basil fennel vinaigrette and a splash of soy sauce.’ I want pea soup with a ham hock in it. I don’t want pea soup with marjoram and saffron rice.’’ There’s always Campbell’s.
Inevitably, America’s gastronomic quest for novelty will mean that if soup is, in fact, the new coffee, something else will come along claiming to be the ““new soup.’’ It may be happening already. A few blocks from Al Yeganeh’s Soup Kitchen International, a tiny lunch counter run by another surly proprietor has already been dubbed ““The Falafel Nazi.’’ Don’t tell Seinfeld.
Senegalese Chicken Soup (serves 6-8) 1 Large onion, diced 4 T Olive oil 1 tsp Chopped garlic 6 T Curry powder 2 tsp Cayenne pepper 2 tsp Ground coriander 5 cups Basic chicken broth 2 cuts Tomato puree 2 cups Crushed plum tomatoes Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cup Smooth peanut butter 1 lb Chicken white meat, diced 1 cup Scallions, sliced thinly Chopped peanuts and cilantro
Cook onions in olive oil until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook two minutes. Add curry powder, cayenne pepper and coriander and fry for an additional two minutes. If dry, add a small quantity of olive oil until moist.
Add chicken broth and scrape bottom very well with wooden spoon. Add tomato puree, crushed plum tomatoes, salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. Stir often and scrape bottom every few minutes. Do not boil.
Combine peanut butter and 1/2 of soup in blender or food processor and puree, adding small quantities of broth as necessary if too thick. When smooth, add puree to remaining soup and stir well. If soup seems thick, add broth to taste.
Cook chicken in boiling water until done (approximately 15-20 minutes). Drain and add to soup. Add scallions to soup, cook 5 more minutes and serve. (Note: sprinkle chopped peanuts and cilantro for garnish.)
