Library serves up soup

It might look like your average cookbook about soup but it’s really filled with one big recipe for relationships.

“To my mind, it’s more a book about the process of creating a real strong feeling of community,” Maggie Stuckey explained. “Soup is just simply a vehicle to do that. It’s much more than a cookbook.”

Stuckey is the author behind Soup Night, a new book that has nearly 100 soups to try out and a number of plans and ideas for how the comfort food can inspire the same kind of community-building the City of St. Albert tries to promote through its ongoing Block Party campaign.

Soup Night “is really a book about how getting together for a regular, very simple meal – in this case, a soup supper – has a way of bringing people together when they don’t know each other and creating a real strong feeling of community among people who otherwise don’t have much of a natural connection to each other.

“Soup has this cozy feeling that goes with it,” she continued. “It’s very warm. It’s the ultimate comfort food, but it’s also easy to make. It’s a very inexpensive way to feed a lot of people. There’s something about soup itself. I often see people … they sit down with their bowl. They put both hands around the bowl, warm their hands. You see them lean over and smell the soup. This peaceful expression comes over their faces. You see them relaxing into a nice, warm evening with their friends.”

She said that she has seen this happen on many occasions. It all began when she was invited to a soup night in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. It was a very urban neighbourhood, she described, “the kind of place where normally people don’t know their neighbours because they’re all so busy with their own lives.”

A simple pot of soup changed all that.

“I saw what they had created and how much delight they had in coming together,” she said. “On this one block, they’d been doing this soup night, getting together once a month for several years, they’ve created what’s really like a small town right in the middle of a big city. It’s absolutely amazing to watch!

“The first time I was there, I stood back in the corner and just watched all what they did. People were so happy to see each other. They’re talking about what they’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, how the kids are doing in college, who’s been sick, who’s having a baby, a grandchild. It feels like the way the world used to be in the 1950s.”

She discovered that there are numerous places through the United States that have been doing the same thing: hosting a neighbourhood soup night out of the basic desire to build connections between neighbours.

“One guy said, ‘It’s like the way the world was when I was growing up.’ These neighbourhoods where everybody knows everybody, the parents don’t have to worry because they know the kids are safe because everybody’s watching out for them.”

“I think what’s happening is everybody is so busy and so stressed out and worried about things that the opportunity to just be a part of a community and meet your neighbours and have a pleasant evening without any stress or worries or obligations … people just really respond to that. People want to know their neighbours and be a part of a community. There’s a yearning to be a part of something. The world that we live in seems to work against this unless a couple of people make a little bit of effort to break through that barrier. And when you do break through that barrier, you find people that are just eager to be a part of it. They were just waiting for you to come knocking on their door.”

This kind of event is exactly the sort of thing that the library is all about, according to public services manager Heather Dolman.

“The library is all about cultivating community, and so there is a great fit between Maggie Stuckey’s book and philosophy, and what we try to do here,” she began.

“As Maggie says hosting a soup night isn't hard … but her book gives lots of tips on organizing gatherings and making sure the night is a success. I think once people have heard about the idea behind soup nights and the benefits it can bring, St. Albertans will be keen to adopt this innovative way to develop their neighbourhood relationships.”

It already has one big fan with Suzan Krecsy, the director of the St. Albert Food Bank. She will be hosting Stuckey during the afternoons leading up to the library events so that she can cook her soup in the popular community kitchen. The soup will be served during her evening presentations. She’ll even be borrowing crockpots, soup bowls and utensils from the facility.

Krecsy hopes to take the Soup Night concept and offer it on a monthly basis to this community. She said that people who want to demonstrate their favourite soups could reach her at 780-459-0599. Details will appear on the food bank’s website at www.stalbertfb.com.

The idea should be a perfect fit with the community kitchen, especially since it has been offering ethnic cooking nights for several months now. People can demonstrate or show up to learn about new soups and experience the camaraderie of the kitchen, building up a new community of friends through food.

“We’ve never done anything like [a soup night] before. Our cultural kitchen is just amazing,” she said, mentioning that a recent Filipino cuisine night saw two-dozen attendees. Upcoming themes include Canadian, Syrian, Korean, Vietnamese and French Canadian. December will feature a potluck night where attendees will each bring a dish and explain their traditions to all.

In this city, public reception to the soup night concept has already proven to be so positive that the library filled out its initial event and quickly decided to add a second night. Stuckey was delighted to hear the good news. It means another reason to share a bowl of soup with some new friends.