Does anyone know why diners in the Chicago area (and elsewhere for all I know) offer 2 choices of soup on most days of the week but only offer cream of chicken with rice soup on Sundays? The few diner waitresses I’ve had the courage to ask don’t know. Internet searches didn’t turn anything up. When I searched for “Diner Sunday soup”, Google asked if I meant to search for “Diver Sunday soup” (whatever that might be). Oddly, you can find cream of chicken with rice soup referred to as “Sunday soup” on some recipe sites, and there are sites that rate the best cream of chicken soup at area diners, making a point of saying it’s usually a Sunday special, but no info on the origins.
A most interesting question to which I have no answer. However, it did provoke another one in my mind. I remember having a bowl of cream of chicken with rice soup at least thirty years ago in a diner under the Thorndale L. I was so taken with it that I decided to buy some the next time I went to the store. Lo and behold, you cannot buy cream of chicken with rice soup in a grocery store. I’ve searched for it high and low for the past three decades and it’s nowhere to be found in retail. You can get cream of chicken or chicken and rice but for some reason you can’t have both together. I wonder where on earth diners find the stuff.
Most of the places where I go around here do always have cream of chicken rice soup on Sundays, but they usually have at least one other soup on Sunday, as well.
Cream of chicken and rice is generally available from Greek Joints only on Sunday. No idea why. Greek joints are sit-down restaurants, owned by Greeks, with extensive menus available from breakfast to dinner. Except for cream of chicken and rice soup, which you can only get on Sundays because it is ambrosia and other days are not worthy.
–Hey, maybe we’re onto something here! You don’t suppose that diners go through the fridge on Sunday mornings, take all of the leftover cream of chicken soup from the days it was served during the week, and all of the leftover chicken with rice soup from the days it was served during the week and… well… you know….
My take is that it’s a “local” thing and a case of “same as it ever was”. Case in point, I live in Northwest Indiana. At every single one of the several dozen family restaurants in the region, you will find chicken lemon rice soup on the menu every single day of the week. Why? I don’t know, but it’s what we always order, and most of us “region rats” have become connoisseurs of said soup and everyone has a preference of local restaurant based on whose chicken lemon rice soup they like best.
