Chicken soup for a cold

“It’s literally the easiest thing in the world to cook. You just put stuff in a pot and walk away.”

Leah Koenig - Modern Jewish Cooking

But what stuff? That's always the question isn't it? And how long do you walk away for?

My man has a cold (and cough) and is feeling miserable with it, so I thought I would make chicken soup for dinner. After all I don't have much choice of vegetables in the fridge, it's the end of an exhausting week and soup would just hit the spot. Chicken soup because he's sick with a cold and chicken soup is supposed to cure colds. And yes I will be making it, not simply heating up a tin - and that picture is not even a real tin - it's Andy Warhol's painting of the tin. What a nerve - you have to admire him for the nerve don't you? And tinned chicken noodle soup is big business - maybe that's why Warhol painted it.

"During America’s inexorable march toward processed food, chicken soup became something to buy, not something to make — Campbell’s alone produces more than 50 varieties — and many cooks simply don’t know how satisfying a project it is." New York Times

In fact although my mother did make her own chicken soup she also frequently served us the tinned version, or the dried version too. For I'm sure it's also one of the favourites in the dehydrated Cup of Soup offerings too. I don't know why she did this. Maybe it was when she was working and no longer had the time to make it from scratch. I resorted to takeaway when that was me, she resorted to tins.

I have actually already written another post today - should make up for all those days I missed. For in the process of researching the subject I found somebody else had written a much more comprehensive article on the subject - more interesting too and it also covered comfort food. I thought it was worth a post of its own, so check that one out too. The author's name is Hattie Garlick and her article is here on the Talking of Food website.

Chicken soup is one of those infinitely variable recipes. I'm sure whole books have been written on the subject - and if not you would have to wonder why. For there must be thousands, literally, of recipes for chicken soup. Every nation, and every chef has one. Indeed a recipe was written down as far back as the 12th century by the Egyptian Jewish physician/philosopher Moshe ben Maimonides which he recommended for respiratory tract problems. So it has a long history as a cure for colds. And it seems that the legend/theory has been vindicated scientifically - well sort of. Back in 2000 Dr. Stephen Rennard of the University of Nebraska researched it and published his results in CHEST - one of those highly regarded Elsevier Journals. Here is the abstract of the article.

"Chicken soup has long been regarded as a remedy for symptomatic upper respiratory tract infections. As it is likely that the clinical similarity of the diverse infectious processes that can result in "colds" is due to a shared inflammatory response, an effect of chicken soup in mitigating inflammation could account for its attested benefits. To evaluate this, a traditional chicken soup was tested for its ability to inhibit neutrophil migration using the standard Boyden blindwell chemotaxis chamber assay with zymosan-activated serum and fMet-Leu-Phe as chemoattractants. Chicken soup significantly inhibited neutrophil migration and did so in a concentration-dependent manner. The activity was present in a nonparticulate component of the chicken soup. All of the vegetables present in the soup and the chicken individually had inhibitory activity, although only the chicken lacked cytotoxic activity. Interestingly, the complete soup also lacked cytotoxic activity. Commercial soups varied greatly in their inhibitory activity. The present study, therefore, suggests that chicken soup may contain a number of substances with beneficial medicinal activity. A mild anti-inflammatory effect could be one mechanism by which the soup could result in the mitigation of symptomatic upper respiratory tract infections." CHEST Journal (American College of Chest Physicians)

Here is the man himself with somebody making a big pot of the soup. A canny choice of research you would think - it got an awful lot of publicity - every article I read on the subject of chicken soup referred to it either directly or indirectly. He is a pulmonologist and doubtless does a lot of good work in his field, but this study is what made his name and for which he and his university are most well known.

Going back to the research. In simple terms it seems to ease inflammation of the respiratory tract and also prevent too many white cells getting in the wrong place. Not sure about that bit. I said, 'sort of' when I mentioned the research's positive results, because they actually don't know why it works - what bits of the soup make the difference. Which, of course leads many to say that it's healing effects are actually psychosomatic. The hot beverage thing I spoke about the other day. At it's most corny its effect could be the following:

"Soup soothes and strengthens, and is the very definition of true love." Yotam Ottolenghi

Not sure that my man will see it as the very definition of true love, even though that might be what it is - well almost. A symbol of care anyway.

So how do you make chicken soup - the one that cures colds? Well as always Felicity Cloake gives it a good hot go. She begins with Claudia Roden and the Jewish version, and then proceeds through a number of others, including Heston Blumenthal. I also had a quick look online and found that Nigel Slater had a version, as did Donna Hay, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, but curiously - not Delia Smith. The main differences seemed to be: whether you just put it all in a pot and cooked it or whether you sautéed any of the ingredients first, and whether you cooked the whole bird in with the vegetables and water, or whether you used various chicken bits. Wings seemed to be a preferred choice here. Then there's the vegetables that go in it - though these were curiously stable - carrots, celery, leeks were most used, plus to a lesser degree other root vegetables such as parsnips or swedes, and something green like spinach, peas or the ever popular kale. Parsley was the most popular herb with thyme a distant second.

So what shall I do? Well I am using a chicken breast - because that's what I have. I don't want to make a huge amount so rejected the whole chicken idea. I also have some home-made chicken stock which I shall use instead of all water, carrots, leeks, celery, parsley, maybe a swede and/or some peas and a few leaves of spinach. Plus some soup pasta - I think my current variety is very small macaronis. And it will be accompanied by salad and a lovely Coles/Laurent rustic baguette. And let's not forget a glass of Loire valley white wine (not Sancerre) from Aldi. I'm hoping it will look something like this. If it cures David's cold that would be a bonus.