This Week’s Soup: Classic Chicken Noodle

Tantalizing aromas of rosemary and tarragon, tender morsels of chicken, the comfort of egg noodles, and a rich and flavorful broth. Good for what ails us.

But oh, the idle shit-talking.

It’s so easy to criticize. Today at Soup Group, I once again was the subject of a dozen needless second-guesses.

When I say that the Soup Group made “Classic Chicken Noodle Soup” today, please understand that “Classic” is a marketing gimmick.

After all, “Classic” is a fairly meaningless term when it comes to a dish like chicken soup. Whose “classic”? My “classic”? Yours? My “classic" very easily could be different from your “classic”, if your mama is from Sweden and my mama’s from South Louisiana. Both you and I think our mama’s “classic” chicken noodle soup is delectable. And potentially we’re both right.

Meaningless term.

But the word “Classic" adds a little something, in the eyes of our customers. More than a year ago, we realized that our “Beef and Vegetable Soup” didn’t sell nearly as well as our “Hearty Beef and Vegetable Soup” sold. Our customers appear to be drawn to an embellished title just like they're drawn to our international titles, like “West African Chicken Peanut” and “Moroccan Lamb Harira”. Good sellers all.

Responsive producers that we are, Soup Group has taken to employing descriptive language for promotional purposes. We’re using adjectives to sell soup.

Classic Chicken Noodle Soup. Good enough.

Leave it alone, Soup Group.

But no. They want the word “Classic" to be prescriptive.

Tomatoes? In the “Classic” Chicken Noodle Soup? they scoff.

For my part, I'm not going to get caught up in what "Classic" means, what I mean by Classic, versus what you mean by Classic, or what our customers might think of as Classic. I don't need to get caught up in that. I'm prepared to deliver on a more fundamental level. Our recipe will deliver on what is promised by every concept of “Classic": This chicken noodle soup will feel familiar, it will be delicious, and you will find it deeply satisfying.

Leave it alone, Soup Group.

They don't leave it alone. They make little comments, they express little doubts, and the way they finally make peace with each little criticism is to say to themselves, and each other, “Well, if that’s what the recipe says...”

I’m not above employing it myself. “Well, that’s what the recipe calls for...” I’ll say. Jalapenos? they'll ask. Why jalapenos? “It’s in the recipe,” I’ll murmur. And they are comforted.

It’s entirely true that it’s in the recipe. But what they don’t seem to understand is that I am the one who makes the recipes. It’s part of my set of weekly duties that include recipe selection and conversion and dissemination. In addition, I try to make sure that our recipe is accurate and delicious.

For some reason, when I started doing the recipes for Soup Group, accuracy in recipe conversion was my first goal, and it took some time to achieve it. It took time to get my brain to do math again (fractions!), and it took time to develop sufficient attention to detail, including a triple-check protocol, to ensure that our time in the kitchen wouldn’t turn out drastically screwed up in expensive and embarrassing ways.

Soon enough it became apparent that accuracy alone wasn’t the whole story. Some of our soups turned out better than others, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out which elements made for a tastier final product - browning, for example. Fresh herbs. Homemade stock. But even after I knew better, I’d follow a recipe exactly when I was converting it to bulk.

I’d be thinking to myself, “That would taste better if you browned the onions”, or “Why doesn’t this recipe call for a can of green chiles to add a little character?” At home, I would follow my instincts and cook it differently when I was making food for Handsome or guests. But when I was making recipes for Soup Group, I’d go ahead and copy the recipe’s instructions as they were written.

Our customers weren’t having it. I noticed in pretty short order that it was the recipes I’d had doubts about that resulted in disappointing sales.

Time to start doctoring it up, I decided.

These days, I go through the original recipe and think about cooking it, step by step, and consider what might be missing, what might be overdone. I think about what I’d do at home, and I make adjustments accordingly.

(While I view this approach as an investment in our future success, I'm also trying to spare myself the criticism that invariably comes my way when the soup doesn't turn out well.)

Many of my Soup Group friends still get nervous on the journey. That’s why they take refuge in the idea of a recipe, I guess. And why they can't stop voicing these little criticisms.

I, however, reject the notion that some cookbook is necessarily more valuable than our Soup Group's years of experience cooking our soups, in our kitchen, with our shoppers, and our cooks, and our skillets and pots and spatulas and ladles. At some point, even I have to give myself some credit for our body of work, this hands-on experience. Seems to me that trusting yourself and trusting the food should trump using a recipe as anything more than a guideline. We're making soup, here. There's a lot of room for success.

So leave it alone, Soup Group.

By the way, I was totally vindicated in that today's soup is delightful.