SOUP OF HUMAN KINDNESS
When I was growing up, my parents weren’t the ones who’d drop everything and make the world stop to cook a pot of soup at the sight of their little ones falling ill. There’d be fussing, but the route to wellness was always clear and quite Western: go to the doctor, take plenty of prescribed medication, rest until you regain strength. As a bonus, we’d get to choose a treat from my dad (granadilla Yogi Sip, please), and what we wanted to eat for dinner from my mom (dumplings, thanks) — reasons to never want to get well.
So the idea of soup as a remedy didn’t start at home for me. Maybe it was planted by the names of those insufferable self-help books I’d wanted to own when I didn’t know any better. As a young girl, whenever we went to the mall I’d make a beeline for CNA and cross my fingers that the latest permutation of the book series, Chicken Soup For The [insert name of needy group here], wasn’t bound in plastic to keep paws like mine from treating the store like a public library. (Today, Facebook must surely have stolen their entire readership.)
I soon gave up on soupy healing via the writings of Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and my university days were in support of this. As a student, when I found myself weighing up fun and sustenance, I’d bargain with myself saying: “OK, listen, maybe a box of wine for now and nothing but Cup-a-Soup for the rest of the week?” Wrong. Those rest-of-the-week days were torture and there was nothing vaguely restorative about soup — possibly because I’d already sold my soul on the dance floor.
Needless to say I’d totally written off soup for the soul. But what about soup for the body? Mention that you have a cold or something, and it’s soon followed by: “You simply must have soup. Rightthisveryminute!” And when I’m the healthy one, I sometimes find myself offering the same soupy solutions. But it’s odd, isn’t it? How will soup help the germy and the weak? Making homemade soup 1) will take the last drops of energy you have to prepare (before better days of Woolies soup packs), 2) won’t scientifically cure any infection, so 3) definitely won’t make anyone feel better. It may soothe the ache in your throat and temporarily clear your nasal passages, but how about a remedy for the very real gremlins ravaging your immune system?
Last year I managed to pick up the mumps — face swollen to the size of a football under quarantine at home and highly contagious. But my very dear colleague insisted on dropping off a care package. It was a basket straight out of Red Riding Hood (pre-wolf encounter) filled with candy and chocolates, a baby succulent plant, fresh bread rolls — and a big pot of chunky homemade chicken soup! And this got me thinking about how central soup-sharing has been between my wonderful workmates and I: the stealing/exchanging of packets of Cup-a-Soup during dire days; a night of ’80s movies, sofa snuggles and homemade soup in celebration of a new home; said soup being put together in a get-well-soon package to be dropped off to a fallen soldier; sharing readymade butternut soup for lunch here, bonding at Doppio Zero over some warm broth and bread there. It’s truly heartwarming.
Then it dawned on me. Soup really is soulful, actually. My recent experience has shown me that there’s always an act of kindness attached to it, and that’s the stuff that feeds the soul. Turns out Mark and Jack weren’t so far off after all.