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Somehow winter always seems the coldest in early March. Perhaps it’s because March is considered a spring month, even though spring officially doesn’t start until the third week of the month. Those warm and sunny days that we get sporadically are cruel teasers, too, making the inevitable return to frigid temperatures all the more unbearable. Chill early-March mornings are the hardest to take. I stumble blearily into the kitchen, glaring out the windows at yet another gray sludge of a day, shivering at the icy blast that assaults me when I open the door to let the dogs out. Bummer! I have the perfect antidote, though. It’s a breakfast that I can fix quickly and makes me feel happily cozy and warm: a steaming, fragrant bowl of soup. That’s right — soup. Though some Americans may think having soup for breakfast is a little weird, in many parts of the world having soup for breakfast is routine. Breakfast soup really shouldn’t seem that strange: It’s not too much of a stretch to think of cereal with milk as a kind of soupy preparation — certainly not if cold cereal and milk are left standing for any time.
If you’ve ever eaten in a Japanese restaurant, chances are, you were given miso soup at the beginning of the meal. Miso soup is eaten throughout the day in Japan, but to most Japanese breakfast just isn’t breakfast without it. It’s an utterly simple preparation: Miso, a salty paste of fermented soybean, is whisked into hot dashi, Japanese soup stock — about a tablespoon and a half of miso per cup of stock. That’s it. Often a few cubes of soft tofu and some thinly sliced scallion greens or mushrooms are added, but they’re not essential. It’s real comfort food — a Japanese version of chicken soup.
I like morning soups primarily when temperatures are freezing, but they’re breakfast standards in many countries where the weather is hot and steamy. Nowhere is that more true than in the Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford describe the breakfast scene in their anthropologic exploration of Southeast Asian food, Hot Sour Salty Sweet: “Early morning in the village markets in Southeast Asia, there’s a chill in the air and the smell of wood smoke from cooking fires. Women cook at open air stalls, each with a table and a few stools, some bowls and jars of condiments, and a platter of fresh ingredients. In the floating markets of the Mekong Delta, the stalls are small boats, rocking gently. Clouds of steam rise from simmering pots of soup. The details vary, but in all places the soup bowl is large, the broth is hot and aromatic, and there are a few pieces of meat and the occasional fragment of vegetable, lost in a tangle of noodles.”
“Yeah, people at home don’t like to cook in the morning,” confirms native Laotian Win Mahnee, chef/owner of the Mekong Café, “so we go out for breakfast. A lot of times we get pho.” Pronounced “fuh,” it’s often called the national dish of Vietnam: an aromatic (most typically) beef broth tinged with cinnamon and filled with rice noodles, various cuts of beef, and sometimes meatballs. Pho may be the most common breakfast soup in Southeast Asia, but it’s far from the only option. “We also eat many other kinds of soups with different broths and different noodles,” says Mahnee, “and there’s also a thick rice soup.” As with pho, each diner adds vegetables, such as sliced banana flowers, bean sprouts, or scallions; herbs, such as cilantro, mint, and basil; and other condiments to his or her taste. “Sometimes we like to make it spicy with hot peppers and fried garlic or shallots,” says Mahnee. “These soups are eaten at other times of the day, too, but mostly at breakfast.” Mahnee makes excellent pho at the Mekong Café, and it’s on the menu at Little Saigon and the Banana Leaf as well, but none of these establishments is open for breakfast. Congee, a rice soup similar to the one Mahnee describes, is a standard breakfast in China, but breakfast soups aren’t limited to Asia. A New York Times article published in 1884 contains a description of a Spanish breakfast that included soup. Shortly after dawn on Sundays at Chicago’s Mexican-dominated Maxwell Street Market, men can be seen hovering around the birria stall, downing bowls of goat broth. There’s another morning-soup category, although it can’t strictly be called breakfast, at least in the sense of breaking a fast. From a bowl of soupe à l’oignon (a.k.a. French onion soup) at the legendary Parisian bistro Au Pied de Cochon to Mexican pozole (a fantastic hominy-and-pork concoction) and menudo (tripe soup) to a Spanish garlic soup garnished with poached egg, some soups have long-held reputations as hangover cures, something to soothe a queasy stomach after a night of overindulgence. Try it once and you’ll understand why it’s easy to get into the habit of having soup for breakfast. After all, it’s the ultimate comfort food — a warming, bracing, and fortifying way to start the day.
Contact Julianne at realcuisine@insightbb.com.
Sometimes I heat leftover soup for breakfast, but most often my breakfast soup is either the miso soup described above or this easy egg-drop soup. It’s quick, low-calorie, and very satisfying. It was something I made frequently when my kids were young and was one of the first things they were able to prepare by themselves, using the microwave. Chinese-American restaurants usually thicken it with cornstarch, but I prefer this lighter version.
Simple Egg-Drop Soup
Beat one egg in a small bowl. Put 1 cup of (preferably low-sodium) stock, bouillon, or broth in a saucepan on the stove or large mug in the microwave. I almost always use chicken, but beef and vegetable are also good. Bring the stock to a boil, then remove it from the heat and immediately pour in the beaten egg in a stream. Stir rapidly if you want the egg in small shreds or more slowly if you like somewhat larger strands. The boiling liquid will cook the egg instantly, but you’ll probably want to let the soup sit for a couple of minutes so that you don’t burn your tongue. It can be gussied up with a few drops of soy sauce (be careful, though — if your broth or bouillon is already salted, the soy sauce may make it unpleasantly salty). As with the miso soup, a few slices of scallion greens or thinly sliced mushroom can also be added, but it’s awfully good just as is. Beat a tablespoon of Parmesan or Romano cheese into the egg before adding it to the broth and you get straciatella, or Italian “rag soup.” Probably, like pasta, the soup is of Chinese ancestry, originally brought to Italy by adventurers such as Marco Polo.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 5, 2008.
