Soup

I am extremely steamed up about soup... pun intended. I just ate yet another disgusting bowl of what was labeled as "soup" at a restaurant in the Dallas airport.

Some higher power needs to inform America's restaurants that soup is a liquid, not a solid. Of course, carrots, clams, noodles, mushrooms and other lovely things can float in the liquid. Nevertheless, soupiness is what makes soup soup.

Soup is one of my favorite types of food, and I have been privileged to eat delectable soups all over the world. No where but in American restaurants is soup reduced (literally reduced) to the consistency of half-congealed plaster of Paris.

I try to be a polite person. The only way I can protect myself from solid soup is to ask the waitperson gently, "Will a spoon stand up straight in the middle of your soup?" Most waitstaff under age 20 are clueless about what I'm asking... they've all been raised on stone soup.

I believe this sad culinary state of affairs came about because of America's need to take everything to ludicrous extremes. (For example, if a car is good, a SUV is better.) As a result, cream soups have been made ridiculously thick. When a restaurant serves me a slab of that stuff for a first course, I know immediately there is no one in the kitchen who deserves to be called a chef.

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