I have been reading one of the most thought-provoking (and appetizing!) books I've picked up in a long time: Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time by Martha Bayne. It's much, much more than a collection of recipes.The concept is bringing soup to either give away in a spirit of community or solicit donations for a worthy cause. This idea would be wonderful for Baltimore and really, all over Maryland. The birth of this movement was in Chicago, building on the ancient "stone soup" folk story: everyone in a poor village brings a scrap of something to put in a pot and soon, you have something delicious.
The concept spread across the US. It's different from the concept of a soup kitchen, which originated with the Church in the Middle Ages and became visible during the Great Depression. The model with "Soup & Bread" and another project in Chicago, "Re-Thinking Soup" at the Jane Addams Hull House, is that soup brings all kinds of people together, not merely out of charity. Hull House had served soup a century ago -- and resumed in this century in part by Sam Kass, who is now personal chef to President and Mrs. Obama -- to luminaries such as Gertrude Stein, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, as well as hundreds of immigrants. One had to either "sing for one's supper" in some way, such as conduct a scholarly lecture, or pay a nickle. Today, the soup is free. A-list chefs and scholars give lectures on such topics as sustainability in food.
The recipes are varied, but not overly expensive to make. After all, they're designed to feed huge crowds. However, in a spirit of brotherly love, they aren't dirt cheap, either. The ingredients are supposed to be tasty, though the book discusses donations of rotting veggies made by a certain Whole Paycheck. That's like giving stained, torn clothes to Goodwill.
I would totally go to a place in Baltimore that would have a monthly lunch of free soup and topical lectures by prominent foodies. I'm sure my dining companions would be varied and come from all walks of life. In talking to different people about this book, it was like a magnifying glass into their hearts. Some people seemed to be quite energized and interested in the concept. Others kind of smirked, as in, "You're the type of person who likes the whole world." You could hear their brains figuring out my voting patterns, etc.
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