Seven Wonders of the Soup World
From wild African mountain slopes, across the towering Tokyo skyline and back round to the Central American rainforests of Nicaragua - all nations share one thing in common and that’s soup as a dietary staple.
As a nation, traditionally we are quite conservative with our soup flavours, with Heinz selling over 8.2 billion tins of tomato soup in the last 100 years - that’s enough soup to stack to the moon and back again!
However, naturally, such an old dish has seen enormous variation over the years, with each culture placing its own spin and ritual upon it.
Couple that with a culinary age which strives to constantly push the boundaries of flavour and presentation, and it’s a recipe for some bizarre and spectacular results.
Join us as we bring you some of the quirkiest soup recipes the world has to offer with a countdown of our seven favourites.
Ancient, cutting-edge or homely, some may seem delicious, others inedible and some nothing like the soup you know and love at all! But would you dare to try them all?
1 Haejang-guk: Korean Hangover Soup
Also called sulguk, this soup usually consists of dried Napa cabbage, vegetables and meat in a hearty beef broth. One variation (Seonjiguk) includes sliced congealed ox blood which is similar to black pudding. Another (Sundaeguk) includes a kind of blood sausage of intestine stuffed with pig’s blood.
2 Chlodnik litewski: The Pink Soup
This ancient Lithuanian soup is famous for its vivid pink colour which is traditionally eaten during summertime. It’s made from young beets, their leaves and stalks, buttermilk, acid beet juice, freshly chopped dill and chives, chopped cucumber, and hard boiled eggs. A century ago the soup was usually served with crayfish tails and veal meat, though nowadays this is a luxury. Today the most popular accompaniment to the soup is hard-boiled eggs or potatoes.
3 Lotte Chocolate Soup
This inexpensive Japanese soup features the usual combination of chocolate with noodles and combines sweet, salty, chocolate and spices. The dish originated as a celebratory soup for Valentine ’s Day, made by Japanese confectioners Lotte and the chocolate brand, Ghana.
4 German Beer Soup
Served with bread for breakfast, this soup was invented in Germany during the Middle Ages and quickly became popular throughout Europe. The main ingredient in the soup, of course, is beer to which you add fried flour.
5 Kiburu Soup
Originating from the Chagga tribe, who reside at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, this soup is made of sweet bananas, beans, earth and bits of twig. The earth is meant to give the soup its traditional salty taste. The African tribe depends on agriculture for their livelihood focusing on bananas and coffee.
6 Dragon-Tiger-Phoenix Soup
This ancient soup is a traditional part of Cantonese cuisine, exclusive to southern China. It’s legendary ingredients listed in the title are a metaphor - with snake meat as the dragon, cat meat as the tiger, and chicken as the phoenix. The popular recipe helps fuel China’s ye wei (exotic and wild animal) trade.
7 Iguana broth
In Nicaragua this soup is a typical weekend meal, perfect for after church. It features nearly its entire body served in the bowl - minus the head and feet. Beef with crab is another popular variety. The soup is served with chunks of starchy root vegetables, like carrots and potatoes, and the meat reportedly tastes like chicken. A large serving goes for about 100 cordobas, or £2.64.