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6
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By Annie Gray and Andrew Hann
Published 2020
Soup maigre, or ‘lean’ soup, was intended for fast days, which were the meat-free days promulgated by the Catholic Church during the medieval period. By the 18th century it had come to mean a turnip soup, and was often called ‘soup-meagre’ by the British, who regarded it as evidence of the poor French diet. The stereotype at the time held that the French lived on turnips and the British on beef.