Table of Contents
POETIC SOUP
|
Calef Brown’s Soup for Breakfast (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2008) is an illustrated collection of eccentrically delightful poems, among them the soup-themed “Soup for Breakfast.” For more poems and pictures by Brown, see Flamingos on the Roof (2006). For ages 8-12. |
|
Brian P. Cleary’s Rainbow Soup (Carolrhoda, 2004) is a lighthearted collection of illustrated poems, among them the title’s “Rainbow Soup.” Through footnotes, the author explains poetic concepts, types, and terms, such as meter, stanza, rhyme scheme, alliteration, villanelle, limerick, concrete poem, and haiku. For ages 8-12. |
|
Larry Fagin’s The List Poem (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2000) is a book of poetry exercises and projects for aspiring writers. Among these is an activity in which kids write “recipe poems” based on recipe-style lists of ingredients: samples included “Recipe for Martin Luther King, Jr.” (“7 gallons of love/10 cups of courage/10 cups of caring…”) and a recipe for “King Midas Touch” (“1 pound egg shells/2 pounds of mosquitoes (bones removed)/1 purple duck with polka dots…”). Projects can be used with kids of a wide range of ages. Try inventing some imaginative soups. |
| Read the cautionary tale of “Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup” by Heinrich Hoffman. | |
| Poem Origins: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland shows how many of Lewis Carroll’s poems are parodies of once-familiar late 19th-century rhymes. Here the texts of Carroll poems are paired with their sources. “Soup of the Evening” turns out to be a twist on “Star of the Evening,” a considerably less funny poem by James Sayle. See which you like better. |
HISTORICAL SOUP
| The Food Timeline: Soups and Stews has a history of soup in general, information on individual soups (among them alphabet, Mulligatawny, cock-a-leekie, Vichyssoise, and portable), quotations from historical cookbooks and culinary authorities, and resource recommendations. A terrific and informative website. | |
|
Janet Clarkson’s 150-page Soup: A Global History (Reaktion Books, 2010) traces the history of soup from prehistoric times to the present day. Informative and reader-friendly. One of a large series of food global histories; other volumes include Pie, Cake, Sandwich, Cheese, Ice Cream, and Tea. For teenagers and adults. |
|
Victoria Rumble’s 280-page Soup Through the Ages (McFarland, 2009) is a culinary history with many period recipes from the Middle Ages through World War II. For teens and adults. |
|
By Andrew F. Smith, an authority on all things tomato, Souper Tomatoes (Rutgers University Press, 1999) is a history of tomatoes, tomato soup, and the soup canning industry, with a large appended collection of historical recipes. For teenagers and adults. |
| Stone Age soup? Soup just might be at least 20,000 years old. Find out about it here. | |
| From The Nibble, Soup Types has a brief history of soup and an annotated list of dozens of soup types from Aspic and Avgolemono to Winter Melon and Wonton. Many interesting informational tidbits. | |
| The History Kitchen at What They Ate is a wonderful illustrated collection of recipes and background cooking histories. Visitors to the site learn, for example, how to make Charles Dickens’s Smoking Bishop (holiday punch), Abraham’s Lincoln’s Pumpkin Pudding, Civil War Beef Stew, the Salmon Mousseline served on the Titanic, Marilla’s Raspberry Cordial from Anne of Green Gables, and Thomas Jefferson’s White Bean Soup. |
SCIENCE AND SOUP
 |
One of the world’s most famous experiments was performed in 1953 at the University of Chicago when scientists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey mimicked a lightning storm in the environment of early Earth and produced a “primordial soup” of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
From Khan Academy, learn about theories of the origin of life, including an explanation of the famous Miller-Urey experiment. |
| Read about new research pertaining to the Miller/Urey experiment at Primordial Soup’s On from Scientific American. | |
 |
Learn the composition of blood with Plasma Soup. In this simple experiment, kids make candy soup to demonstrate the four major components of blood: plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. |
| From the San Francisco Exploratorium’s Science of Cooking page, Creamy Soups Without the Cream has instructions and scientific explanations for creating healthy and cream-less creamy soups. | |
| From the Garden Science website (where “gardening meets science meets adventure”), Plant Soup is a project in which kids attempt to grow a plant from cooking leftovers in a soup can. | |
| From Spangler Science, see Soup Can Races. Learn all about viscosity with rolling cans of soup. | |
 |
Make DNA from a very thin pea soup! |