Ethnic soups

I rarely prepare dishes according to an exact recipe because I never like to cook the same thing twice—I need to invent as I go along, or I get bored. Whether your dishes are authentic or not, you’ll have more fun playing around with flavors and ingredients, adding things here and there, than you will by methodically following a recipe. On the other hand I always adhere to a set of ingredients—a sort of national or regional idiom—so that I don’t come up with a hopeless potpourri of flavors.