Understanding Cold Soups

Soups are filling and economical. Throughout history, many people traditionally ate soup year-round because it was what they could afford to make. When the weather was too warm to eat hot soup, they served it cold. Thus, cold soups were traditionally a feature of peasant cooking.

Some cold soups are merely hot soups that are chilled before serving. However, there is a category of rustic cold soup made by chopping and pounding a mixture of juicy raw vegetables and enriching them with olive oil or fermented dairy products. These could be prepared by farmers in the fields or by shepherds in the pastures because they required no cooking.