Just curious to know what various expectations might exist in different places for something commonly offered with soup
This might be either just a conventional default pairing - soup and a bread roll would I think be the default offering in my part of the world (England), and this would either be served as a starter before a more substantial main course or courses, or perhaps as a very light lunch or supper.
But that’s really the base level offering. In a cafe or informal restaurant serving a variety menu, I think I might expect to see one or more of:
Soup and a sandwich (often cheese)
Soup and a toastie (toasted or fried sandwich, most often cheese)
Soup and a sausage roll (skinless sausage in crisp pastry)
Bonus question: what even is soup where you live. Here it can be anything from a clear liquid broth to a smooth puree to chunks of meat and/or vegetables immersed in a liquid - almost always hot, almost always savoury, but exceptions exist (and I’m not talking about that nonsense where cereal is soup) - there are chilled soups and there are fruit soups, but they are the exception. Soup is not synonymous with stew, neither is it distinct. They overlap.
Sandwich was the first thing I thought of, which you already covered.
I think a salad would the other thing often paired with soup around here (California) that you didn’t mention. Olive Garden has their soup/salad/breadsticks combo (which is a nationwide thing, not limited to CA).
There’s a seafood restaurant down in Santa Barbara where clam chowder is one of the signature offerings. They’ve got a salad and a bowl of chowder combo on the menu. I imagine a lot of people go there specifically for the clam chowder (myself included), but want more than just the soup, so it makes sense to offer it with a salad.
The salad would be a house salad: lettuce, tomatoes, dressing, maybe some other greens.
I don’t know how Olive Garden serves it; I rarely go there and it’s been ages since I was last there, and I never ordered that specific combo when I was there.
It’s been a few years since I was last in Santa Barbara, too, so I was was unsure if Brophy Brothers (the seafood place I mentioned) served the salad before the soup or alongside it, but I went through reviews looking at pictures until I found one of the salad/chowder combo. It looks like they do serve the salad alongside the soup. Let’s see if I can link to a specific picture on TripAdvisor…
ETA: Yay, that worked. Click the link above and you’ll get a picture of the soup served alongside salad.
Here in the Ocean State soup is clam chowder, served with clam cakes. Other places serve something called clam chowder but it’s not as good as we make it. Other places serve something they call clam cakes but they aren’t worth eating. Of course plenty of places here serve sub-standard versions of chowder and clam cakes too.
But what is soup? Generally something that has to be eaten with a spoon and can’t be eaten with a fork. There will be exceptions, and there is an ambiguously defined line between soup and stew to work out. But I don’t think what soup is in general is open to much question. What kind of soup is preferred by an individual or regionally is a much different matter.
What is soup ? Soup can be eaten with just a spoon - if it needs a fork or a knife, it’s stew.
Soup can be served as a starter , in which case it might be on the table at the same time as the bread. But it’s not uncommon for restaurants to include some sort of combo on a menu, particularly a lunch menu. Sometimes it’s like Panera with their “you pick two” where you choose two items from salads, soups, sandwiches, wraps etc. Sometimes it’s like a lunch special I used to see at Applebee’s or Fridays - unlimited soup and salad with a choice of 3-4 different salads and a similar number of soups. There are still places ( everything from Brazilian BBQ to inexpensive steakhouses like Ponderosa ) where you can get just the soup and salad bar as your meal.
I said can - I’ve seen people eat pho your way or with a spoon or with a spoon and chopsticks ( the method every Asian-American I know uses). But I have never seen anyone use a fork or knife.
I’m an outlier. Last night I baked stuffed pork chops. My gf used a knife and fork. I used a knife and chopsticks. The only meal I eat with a fork & spoon is spaghetti.
In Pittsburgh, there’s Tram’s Kitchen. I haven’t been there in ages, but it was such a cool story. The guy who started the restaurant was a Vietnamese immigrant who lost an arm in the war. He started a tiny restaurant and used his profits to bring other family/friends to Pittsburgh.
At the time his was the only Vietnamese restaurant. Every time I went there was a long line of people waiting for one of the 4 or 5 tables. He eventually moved to a bigger location, all the while bringing more friends over.
Cool guy. He would run around with menus/napkins/etc under his stump, doing more than I could do with two arms.
Thanks for this. Soup and salad as a combination seems so strange to me (I’m not complaining - this was exactly the reason I started the thread); do people eat the two parts separately, one after another (I am assuming the salad is not consumed in immediate combination with the soup, or is it?)
Rice, pickled veg. A fish or meat. And a set of side dishes. As in ichijū-sansai (one soup, 3 side dishes), the common Japanese meal. Miso soup, for me.
Otherwise, bread, for instance with butternut soup, which is often the “default” soup here in South Africa.
If I’m eating soup & salad I prefer both on the table at the same time and I alternate. My gf is more of a traditionalist and prefers to eat her soup, then move on to her salad, or to have a salad followed by her soup.
I think probably the reason salad seems strange to me is that there is a subtly ingrained contract where I come from that whatever you serve me alongside the soup, I’m going to put it in the soup or at least dunk it.
That’s what i was going to say. Stew can have a lot of broth, and soup can be thick and chunky. But you can eat a soup by putting some in a bowl and then spooning it into your mouth.
If you want to drape it over rice, it’s stir fry, even if there’s a lot of sauce. If you need to cut the pieces, it’s stew.
Ditto.
I’m not certain it counts as soup.
you don’t need a fork or knife
Soup and salad is a common combo in the US, but I’ve never seen anyone dunk the salad into the soup.
On the other hand, soup and sandwich is also a common combo (and grilled cheese is a common sandwich to serve with soup) and while I’ve heard of someone dunking his grilled cheese into his tomato soup, I’ve never seen anyone do it, and it’s not an appealing notion to me.