Bread Soups

Appears in

Published 2000

About

Unless I’m serving a very formal dinner (which is rare) with delicate little cups of cream soup or consommé to lead into more substantial fare, I always serve soup with some kind of starch. Occasionally rice or noodles sneak into or around the soup, but more often than not a crusty loaf of French bread—which I like to slice in front of the guests—is resting on a cutting board somewhere on the table.

A European tradition is to put a thick slice of stale bread in the center of the bowl and then pour the soup over. I usually approach it somewhat differently and keep a slice of bread on the side, which I tear into sections and dip into the soup— hunched over inelegantly to keep the mess to a minimum. A French dinner partner once remarked that this habit was acceptable only à la maison; elsewhere the pieces of bread should be delicately—almost surreptitiously—stuck on the end of a fork before being plunged into the soup.