Soups and Stews: Twentieth-Century American Soups and Stews

Many twentieth-century soups and stews derived from non-English culinary traditions that entered the United States with immigrants. Many of these dishes straddled the line between soups and stews; these include minestrone, a thick Italian vegetable soup, and menudo, a thick, spicy Mexican tripe-based soup or stew. Others were clearly soups, such as Eastern European borscht, generally a beet-based soup; the Mexican sopa de albóndigas, or meatball soup; Japanese miso soup, made with miso (a paste made from soybeans and rice), tofu, and, occasionally, vegetables; and Chinese hot and sour soup, composed of various ingredients, including tofu, corn starch, soy sauce, mushrooms, chili sauce, and meats. These stews and soups proliferated with the success of Hungarian, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, Jewish, and Chinese restaurants and cookbooks, few of which were published in America until after World War II.