Other French Mixed Vegetable Soups

Some soups are designed to highlight a particular vegetable, while others contain assortments of vegetables and sometimes meats. Mixed vegetable soups can range in style from robust affairs containing at least as much meat as vegetable, typical of traditional farmhouse cooking, to delicate consommés of sparkling clear broth with a few angel-hair strands of vegetable, served in china cups. Generous soupes, like potées, pot-au-feu, and garbure, are almost always served as main courses, while delicate potages are served at the beginning of a meal and set the tone, establishing a greater or lesser degree of formality, and alluding to things to come. Grimod de La Reynière, in the early part of the nineteenth century, compared a potage to the overture of an opera, an entrance and a preview.