A tale of two soups
Experts in etiquette tell us that we ‘eat’ rather than ‘drink’ soup because it is part of the meal.
As explained by John Ayto in his book ‘An A-Z of Food and Drink’, “The etymological idea underlying the word soup is that of soaking. It goes back to an unrecorded post-classical Latin verb ‘suppare soak’, from it was derived the noun suppa, which passed into French as soupe. This meant a piece of bread soaked in liquid and, by extension, broth poured onto the bread. Until the arrival of the term soup, such food had been termed broth.”
Interestingly, we now toss pieces of toast known as croutons into the soup.
We know then that the word ‘soup’ is derived from the old French word ‘sope’ and ‘soupe’. Up until the end of the middle ages, the French derivative was called and used in England as ‘sop’…and with good reason.
Eleanor and Terence Scully, in their book ‘Early French Cookery’ shed more light on the use of the word ‘sop’. “When cooks in the Middle Ages spoke of soup, what they and the people for whom they were cooking really understood was a dish, comprising primarily of a piece of bread or toast soaked in a liquid or over which liquid had been poured. The bread or toast was an important, even vital, part of the dish. It was a means by which a diner could consume the liquid efficiently by sopping it up. The bread or toast was, in effect, an alternative to using a spoon. Soups were important in the medieval diet, but the dish that the cook prepared was often a sop that consisted of both nutritious liquid and the means to eat it”.
Thankfully, sop has been restored to been called in its original form as - ‘soup’. Which makes sense, because; nowadays a soup is certainly not a sop.
Andrew Martin in his article ‘Why Thomas Edison required job applicants to eat soup In front of him’, tells us how the inventor of the movie camera, phonograph and alkaline storage batteries, to name but a few of his many inventions, hired the best employees to help him in his research labs. In order to assemble a large and talented staff, and to make certain that he was hiring the ‘right’ people, Edison, who was there to personally select staff whenever a new position opened, had a unique way of picking the ‘right’ person. His way was to offer them a bowl of soup and observe how they ate it - before they were considered fit for the job.
As Martin explains “The reason for this soup test was that the famous inventor wanted to see if the applicants added salt and pepper before tasting what was in their bowl or if they waited until they tasted it before proceeding with the seasoning. This was not a situation where candidates, interviewed in an office, suddenly had a bowl of soup thrust in front of them. Instead, they were invited out for a meal and soup would be ordered for those present, putting the applicant under the spotlight to unwittingly show their true colors by how they went at the starter”.
Those who seasoned the soup before even tasting it were immediately rejected. Edison did not want people who had pre-conceived assumptions, where he felt that the absence of curiosity, the willingness to test the water or ask questions were barriers to innovation. For Edison, the best employees were those whose second nature it was to be consistent with how they approached life. If they showed impatience or a rush to judgment in eating, imagine the damage they could potentially cause with the many projects they would be entrusted to develop and bring to fruition.
Salting a perfectly seasoned soup before trying it might result in a completely ruined meal and those who did it – especially in front of Edison, found out that it was a high-risk strategy and as we all know, the world wasn’t built by people who always played it safe. Edison’s soup test may be out of the ordinary, but then again he was not looking for the ordinary, and his method worked well. His record of innovation where he obtained 1093 patents speaks for itself.
The next time you are called out to have a meal during an interview for a job, be careful about how and when you season your food, and of course make sure to use the soup spoon when eating, (yes, not drinking)… the soup.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier.
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