"This is my favorite soup!"
January 6, 2022 8:16 AM   Subscribe

 
The last lines resonate with me:

"Now there's no outsourcing my favorite soup
I have to make it myself
Well,
might as well make a lot"
posted by brainwane at 8:17 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]


Today I learned that "OG" actually stands for Olive Garden, despite what Urban Dictionary says. ;-)
posted by dywypi at 8:20 AM on January 6, 2022 [14 favorites]


Lol. This is too real with childhood favorites at chain restaurants.
posted by ellerhodes at 8:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


About five years ago I went back to my college town and to the soup place I loved, and had a soup I'd never had before--Three Sisters Soup, based around squash, corn and beans in a tomato-y broth. I loved it, and started making a verison of it at home.

I went back to the soup place a year later, and told the cashier that I loved this soup so much I started making it myself. And she told me that she hoped it was terrible so I would keep coming back to the store, never mind that I lived six hours away. Which was a deeply weird thing to say, I thought.

Anyway, we started adding chipotle peppers to ours and now I like our spicy version better. So we make a lot of it.
posted by thecaddy at 8:41 AM on January 6, 2022 [15 favorites]


The quality of food at American restaurants has been dropping steadily for 30 (40? 50?) years.

Like with everything, companies are looking to cut profits in any place they can, and so replacing "classics" on their menu with a similar, but sub-par menu item, has been common for a long time.

It's been going on so long I've experienced the replacement of the original being replaced.

It doesn't taste the same because it isn't the same. Capitalism took your memories and smashed them for profit.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:41 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]


My family's favorite Chinese restaurant shut down, sigh, almost 10 years ago now. One holiday season, a couple of years later, I did a Christmas Eve family dinner where I did my best imitation of several family favorites. It wasn't quite the same, and it was a lot more work, but that's life sometimes.
posted by notoriety public at 8:44 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


Onions, potatoes, sausage and kale sound like caldo verde to me = my favorite soup too. It's never quite the same outside of Lusitania, but then again it's never the same inside Lusitania either and alllll good.
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:51 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]


I've been going through this a lot in the last few years, revisiting childhood favorites only to discover that they're not really great for my adult palate.

One of my early pandemic projects was learning how to make the Americanized Chinese food I loved as a kid in a way that'd better match what I expect as a grownup. I can now happily make the kung pao chicken and broccoli beef of my dreams and my fried rice is extremely passable.

My next hill to climb is teriyaki chicken, my all time "favorite" dish, except that with rare exception I can't find one that matches my taste memory as a kid. I live in Portland now, and teriyaki is apparently a thing here, but 96% of it seems to be extremely mediocre. I've gotten the flavor of the sauce right, but can't quite nail the consistency yet, somewhere between a thick glaze and a corn starch thickened "sauce" that's in no way corn saucy. I think the key is reduction, but it's going to take several more tries to nail it.
posted by mikesch at 8:54 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]


I am, in fact, eating a soup right now. It is (essentially) root vegetables, greens, legumes, and chopped sausage. This must be the 'universal grammar' of soups.
posted by eclectist at 9:04 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


Seems like Zuppa Toscana to me.
posted by chavenet at 9:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


mikesch, you could try using a little powdered unflavored gelatin instead of corn starch to create a silky glaze.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I had a friend whose mother, a fierce old Persian lady, would go out to restaurants. If she liked a dish, she would reproduce it, go back and order it again, then reproduce it exactly. It was amazing. He also invented a bunch of us to his mom's place for brunch. I said, "there are 6 of us; won't that be an imposition?" He said "she's usually cooking for 30-40 family members, so you'll be OK."
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]


can't quite nail the consistency yet, somewhere between a thick glaze and a corn starch thickened "sauce" that's in no way corn saucy

The teriyaki-like thing I make has an embarrassing amount of sugar in it, and just cooking that down until it's damn-near gone just about does it for me. I'm usually aiming more at "food court bourbon chicken" than actual teriyaki, but it's a similar beast.

Anyhow, this comic for-sure resonates with me. I don't do fast food very much anymore, but my daughter is of an age where sometimes it's fun to say, fuck it, we're eating Whoppers today. I think my biggest shock has been realizing how sweet everything is. There's no reason for a hamburger roll to be that sweet! It's not even good! Was it always that way?

I still love a Whopper, don't get me wrong. But man, does it not stand up to the nostalgia.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]


thecaddy, does your Three Sisters soup have winter squash or summer squash? Either sounds good, but I am curious!
posted by Daily Alice at 10:17 AM on January 6, 2022


Looks like summer squash.
(#TIL)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:30 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I have a habit of learning how to make something well and then both refusing to order it, 'cause I can make it better myself, and also never actually getting around to making it 'cause it's a pain in the neck. I make better pad see ew than any restaurant I've been to in the US east of the Rocky Mountains. But I never actually make it, 'cause it requires an hour and a half to make what should be a quick snack. Whether you make your own noodles or spend half an hour elbow-deep separating greasy store-bought ones, it's never actually worth the effort. I make better corned beef hash than any restaurant I've ever eaten at. But, it's just not worth the effort and washing up. (Which is almost certainly good for my health.) Letting the perfect become the enemy of the good is a cliche, but it's also a real impulse. That it's okay to buy things even if you could make it better is something I constantly have to remind myself of.

The one item from a now-closed restaurant that I've never yet managed to get right is a sweet, ginger chicken stir fry dish from a Vietnamese place. Neither intuition nor recipes have managed to capture the original and I've never seen anything quite like it anywhere else. Perhaps I should try to find business license records and figure out who owned the place.
posted by eotvos at 10:46 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]


I rarely go to Italian restaurants because most Italian cooking involves good recipes, some kitchen techniques, and fresh ingredients. I can whip up a lot of pasta dishes in my own kitchen in less time than it would take me to get to a restaurant for a fraction of the price, and it will be almost as good, if not maybe better. French cooking on the other hand, I'll go out for -- I don't have 3 days to simmer a sauce. (Although there is some great French rustic food that is quick and easy.)
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I have had the exact same revelation about the exact same soup, but over a much shorter time period. Like, maybe 2010 having it for the first time at OG, and 2012 for the last time?
posted by supercres at 10:57 AM on January 6, 2022


Today I learned that "OG" actually stands for Olive Garden, despite what Urban Dictionary says. ;-)

I think in this context -- "I have terrible news" "The OG soup is bad" -- it's both.
posted by supercres at 11:00 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]


A lot of foods I can make much better myself, and I'm (sometimes) willing to go through the time- and labor-intensive process to do it. One big exception for me is eggplant parmesan - I like it, but it's a PITA to make and not a lot better than restaurant-made. (If anyone can make it much tastier home-made, please let me know your secret!)
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:03 AM on January 6, 2022


Ages ago now, a friend related a story to me about how he saw Spaghetti-Os on the shelf while shopping with his wife, and said "I used to love those", and she replied "So did I." And then there was this once-upon-a-time-in-the-west tumbleweeds-and-whistling moment where both of them were staring at each other thinking, who's going to say it? Are we going to do this?" And then they both nodded, and put it in the cart and brought it home.

I remember him saying: It tasted exactly the way I remember it tasting, and it was terrible.

As I get older, I think about that a lot.
posted by mhoye at 11:04 AM on January 6, 2022 [28 favorites]


I remember him saying: It tasted exactly the way I remember it tasting, and it was terrible.

For me, it's canned ravioli, and it goes like this:

Me 1: Hey, that stuff!
Me 2: Yes....
Me 1: I used to love that!
Me 2: Sure did.
Me 1: I should buy a can and taste it again!
Me 2: Do you want to destroy one of the last precious memories of my childhood? DO YOU!?!
Me 1: *backing slowly away from the canned pasta aisle* No.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:18 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]


My parents have told me that one of the things they loved most about coming to visit me in New York was that it was one of the rare few places they could go where they could go to a restaurant, have a meal, and walk out without thinking "well, hell, we could have made a meal just as good as that at home."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:19 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]


thecaddy, does your Three Sisters soup have winter squash or summer squash? Either sounds good, but I am curious!

As made at the store, summer squash. As made in our kitchen? Dealer's choice, depending on what we've got in the pantry / from the CSA!
posted by thecaddy at 11:20 AM on January 6, 2022


Hey, if you poke around enough on the tumblr, she gives the recipe:

Zuppa Toscana
Ingredients
6 russet potatoes, sliced into half circles
1lb sausage (hot italian sausage recommended)
32 oz chicken broth
1 yellow onion, cut however you want
Garlic - think “what’s a lot of garlic?” double that amount, minced
1 bunch kale - stem removed, tear it up (can be larger than “bite sized pieces”, as they will wilt)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Seasoning - I do not measure these and I never will. Season to taste.
(Paprika, Salt, Pepper, Oregano, Bay Leaves, Cayenne, Cumin)
Instructions
In a large soup pot, brown the sausage and break apart/crumble as it cooks. Throw the onion and spices in there, mix that all up and cook till the sausage is cooked thoroughly. Add minced garlic, cook for 1-2 min.
Add chicken stock and potatoes. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. I let it simmer for about 15 min, longer (maybe 25-30?) if you want the potatoes to break down more and create a chowdery texture.
Add the kale. Stir it in until wilted and doesn’t seem like too much kale anymore. Maybe 2-3 min.
Turn off the stove. Add heavy cream a little at a time while stirring it in.
Serve and top it off as you see fit. I like shredded parmesan and red pepper flakes
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:37 AM on January 6, 2022 [30 favorites]


I remember years ago, someone here said they almost never eat out because they can cook better at home than what they can get out at most restaurants. As a pretty novice home cook at the time, I sort of goggled at the skill/confidence, but now after about a decade of consistent home cooking, I get what they mean. Once you learn enough about technique and flavors, you can make MOST foods yourself at home, and even better, you can cater those foods to your own taste. Which of course, do change throughout your life.

I used to think Pad Thai was one dish I'd never be able to make at home, but now I live in a neighborhood which has many great food options but no Thai restaurants I love. And then the pandemic hit, and I discovered that if you have a good wok and are willing to to make your own tamarind extract/juice (which is kind of fun), it's not really that hard to make, and you can make it to your own specifications. I like my Pad Thai to be very tamarind-y but not super sweet, and I can do that! It doesn't even take much time! Honestly, it still feels like magic.

The quality of food at American restaurants has been dropping steadily for 30 (40? 50?) years [...] It doesn't taste the same because it isn't the same.

Nothing tastes as good as my memory of McDonald's cheeseburgers from my childhood, but especially not McDonald's cheeseburgers today.
posted by lunasol at 11:42 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]


Seems like a lot of potato to liquid, but hey if it tastes good, I'm not going to complain.

And I've found, revisiting products from my childhood, just how unbearably sweet they are. I wonder if that's both a shift in palate (I like black coffee and hops, so bitter's just fine with me) and the increasing tendency to throw sugar into anything pre-packaged?

I tried Spaghetti-Os about a decade back and the sauce was candy levels of sweet to me while being acidic yet insipid.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:46 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


Our taste buds change over time too right? Like getting more sensitive to sweet and less sensitive to bitter. So it might not even be restaurants skimping on quality and hoping you don't notice but simply us tasting things differently.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:56 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


yeah, they absolutely do. Palates tend to shift from heavily sweet focused to less so and more receptive to bitter. Lots of evolutionary biology thoughts about that, but then again how much of it is hogwash? :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:20 PM on January 6, 2022


And I've found, revisiting products from my childhood, just how unbearably sweet they are. I wonder if that's both a shift in palate (I like black coffee and hops, so bitter's just fine with me) and the increasing tendency to throw sugar into anything pre-packaged?
posted by drewbage1847

Our taste buds change over time too right? Like getting more sensitive to sweet and less sensitive to bitter.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm


A little bit of both, I think!

I've read this to be the case, and my own experience echoes it - our palates are a lot more sensitive to everything when we're kids. That's one reason why we tend to season things a little more as we age - we're trying to wake our palate back up. (It's also why I actually really liked salad without dressing as a kid - really fresh vegetables have a taste, and that's what I wanted to taste - most dressing tasted to me like this super-hyper-ultra-seasoned glop that kept me from tasting the carrot or the celery or the cherry tomato or whatever.)

Also, a lot of things started getting high fructose corn syrup snuck into them in the mid-80s because of government farm subsidies - not just things that usually were sweetened, but also things like bread (because HFCS also extended the shelf life of mass-produced breads). So depending on your age, the version of a thing you eat now may empirically be sweeter than the version you ate as a kid.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:20 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]


Re: quality eating at home vs out— agree that it completely depends on location. In Philly i was a pretty solid home cook but I still had my pick of places that I couldn’t hope to recreate at home, everything from pizza to pub food to the more obvious massive spectrum of east-, southeast-, and south Asian cuisine.

Now living in a smaller town it’s a lot more about the convenience factor. I’d take my Detroit pizza over anything in town but do I want to spend half a day, on and off, on the dough? Not usually.

I really can’t wait to be able to make it up to Vancouver BC on a day trip…
posted by supercres at 12:23 PM on January 6, 2022


Just on the deterioration of things: I liked Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies when I was a kid. They'd gone downhill, but Gold Emblem (the CVS house brand) was comparable to the good old cookies.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:05 PM on January 6, 2022


Good old burger and fries is what I buy out, or rarely, chili verde nachos, sometimes BBQ, when you can find it well made. Otherwise I make a lot of stew thickness soups. You can always blend cooked potatoes for making creamy soup without the fat from heavy cream, you can add in a handful of nuts or pumpkin seeds some salt to approximate the cooking pbysics, and comfort needs of colesterol rich creaming ingredients. With the exception of pinto beans and ham hocks, the soup of my childhoox was Campbell's. Oooh but World Market in SLC put on a great Friday Cioppino. I used to buy two pints witb sourdough and head for my fiends house in the afternoon, after work.
posted by Oyéah at 1:11 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm happy to make myself almost anything home - except - deep fried things and desserts. (I do like baking pies and what not, but yeesh the work)
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:38 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


...one of the rare few places they could go where they could go to a restaurant, have a meal, and walk out without thinking "well, hell, we could have made a meal just as good as that at home."

That's one of the things I love about Toronto (and something I used to love about travelling...)
posted by mhoye at 1:53 PM on January 6, 2022


i was raised vegetarian for the first 7 years of my life; which, during the 60s, was pretty hard to find in restaurants. my parents fed me and my sister grown-up foods. they didn't allow sugar, only honey or maple syrup. i grew up eating avocado toast, bananas with milk and honey, vegetarian lentil soup, and lots of salads (lemon juice and a dash of safflower oil, a bit of salt, a bit of pepper - no gloop). and, my mother was a brilliant cook. the childhood foods i can never find are my mother's cooking. i just cannot get her eggplant Parmesan right - a perfect balance of crisp, cheesy exterior and creamy interior.

i am grateful that Spike seasoning is still made, not just because it reminds me of childhood, but because it is really good. it's also the reason i came to understand loss, and change: one day when i was out with my mom and little sister at the health food store, there was a product she wanted (i can't recall what it was) that had been discontinued. i was shook! it was a sudden, clear realization of the impermanence of things. i asked her if that was what death was; we had a long talk about it, later. but, we did get our Spike, which was... reassuring. even now, whenever i buy it, i think of that moment.

during my years between being 7 and a tween, we were back to being omnivores. there was one sandwich shop we would go to that simply made the best sub sandwiches i've ever had. but then we moved away, and then i moved even farther away. but i would dream of these sandwiches, try to replicate them, visit sandwich shops hoping i might find one that could match this memory. i ate some really good sandwiches, but have never found another like those i remembered.

a decade ago, i briefly moved back to a place near the old sub sandwich shop. i looked it up, and it was still open! so i convinced a friend to go with me - it was a bit of a drive and i didn't have a car - and we made the pilgrimage. i was anxious, not just that it wouldn't be as good as i remembered, but that i might have set up a friend for dissapointment.

you know what? it was exactly as i remembered it,and it was fuckin' DELICIOUS! my friend was astonished how good his sandwich tasted - the place is just a tiny little storefront, tucked away in a small, slightly run down strip mall. we sat right down on the sidewalk curb out front, eating our subs in the stunning heat of the summer sun. it was exquisite. since then, he regularly takes his kids there, and sometimes reports back to me that the submarine sandwiches remain utterly delicious.

when the pandemic lockdown hit, it took me a couple months, but i looked up the shop online - as i did, just now, hah! - and it's still open, still hanging in there. i gotta go back.
posted by lapolla at 2:45 PM on January 6, 2022 [24 favorites]


And I've found, revisiting products from my childhood, just how unbearably sweet they are. I wonder if that's both a shift in palate (I like black coffee and hops, so bitter's just fine with me) and the increasing tendency to throw sugar into anything pre-packaged?
posted by drewbage1847

Our taste buds change over time too right? Like getting more sensitive to sweet and less sensitive to bitter.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm

A little bit of both, I think!

I've read this to be the case, and my own experience echoes it - our palates are a lot more sensitive to everything when we're kids. That's one reason why we tend to season things a little more as we age - we're trying to wake our palate back up. (It's also why I actually really liked salad without dressing as a kid - really fresh vegetables have a taste, and that's what I wanted to taste - most dressing tasted to me like this super-hyper-ultra-seasoned glop that kept me from tasting the carrot or the celery or the cherry tomato or whatever.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos


You start life with 30,000 taste buds and a decent sense of smell. Kids don't perceive sweetness as strongly as adults because they perceive bitterness, saltiness, tartness and umami so much more. They often crave sweetness to dampen down other flavours the way an adult may add sugar to not quite fully ripe enough strawberries to cut the tartness.

By the time you are an adult you are usually down to 10,000 taste buds. If you make it to 85 years old you have lost so many that you may not be able to tell spoiled food from food that hasn't gone bad. This is a serious problem with older seniors who can easily forget the chicken in the back of the fridge has been their three weeks already. "Didn't I get that at the beginning of this week...?" *sniffff "Yeah, It's fine."
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:50 PM on January 6, 2022 [12 favorites]


Metafilter: no gloop
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:50 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]


I found a recipe too. It's slightly different than the one posted above, so, presented for the purposes of choosing whichever one sounds like your favorite, here are the ingredients:



6 oz bacon, chopped
1 lb Italian Sausage, The "Hot" variety
1 medium head garlic, 10 large cloves, peeled and minced or pressed
1 medium onion, finely diced
4 cups chicken broth/stock, (32 oz)
6 cups water, (48 oz)
5 medium russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/4" thick pieces
1 kale bundle, leaves stripped and chopped (6 cups)
1 cup whipping cream
Salt and black pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese to serve, optional
posted by amtho at 2:56 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]


I realized that "Now there's no outsourcing [thing I love]; I have to make it myself; Well, might as well make a lot" inspires me in the way that it takes a journey from reluctant realization to going all-in. If I want the comedy or the documentation or the art that I want to exist in the world, then maybe I need to make it myself. OK, then, here I go!
posted by brainwane at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]


TIL Lusitania is more than a British liner torpedoed in the First World War.

It's another name for Portugal, after a Celtic tribe that lived there in Roman times.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:26 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]


I clicked on this link hoping it was this classic about how to make kale and sausage soup but even though it wasn't it's kind of a coincidence that it's kinda the same soup.
posted by weewooweewoo at 3:27 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


Anyone looking for lost restaurant recipes might find them with Uncle Phaedrus (previously).
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:49 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]


When my father passed away, I was lucky enough to stay home for a month to settle all of his affairs and, goddamnit, clean out the house he’d mostly abandoned. It was the first time I’d spent any significant time back in my hometown since I left at 17, and had been living in Japan with a year spent in China since college. One day, after spending all morning sorting through what to sell and what to toss, I remembered Great Wall of China, the Chinese restaurant that I had absolutely adored as a kid. I mean, everything about it was so fascinating to me, starting with the restaurant’s facade: crushed red glass covering the whole of the outside, glistening in the sun. I was so excited to have some of the wonderful stuff I’d had as a kid, and after staring at the menu for about five minutes, I went with chicken and snow peas, and I cannot begin to explain how disappointing it was.

I realized that it didn’t actually taste any different than I remembered. That’s the key. It was exactly what it had always been, which was mediocre emblandened protein and veg mixed together in a corn starch slurry, with a barely present dusting of black pepper for “flavor.” Never meet your idols, and never go back to your favorite restaurant from when you were a kid.

As a kid, especially a Midwestern kid, you likely grew up with an incredibly limited palate, reinforced by the general blandness of everything around you. As you grow up, maybe you are lucky enough to be exposed to new, complex flavors, which push your palate, developing it, showing you the world of flavor out there. That favorite restaurant from your childhood, it likely hasn’t kept up with where you’re at now, and it’ll just replace another cherished memory of the past with the cold reality of the present.

Excepting, of course, a proper American diner breakfast. Those are just as wonderful as they ever were.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:50 PM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]


As a kid, especially a Midwestern kid, you likely grew up with an incredibly limited palate

Every kid with immigrant parents strenuously disagrees with this statement!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:23 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I grew up in a few places in the US, including the Midwest, and I had immigrant parents. My palate was limited.... my parents had their preferred South Indian food and beside that they ate franchise American fast food that was guaranteed vegetarian (particular Subway sandwiches, for instance). The *dining hall food* in college was a revelation because it was so varied compared to what I ate growing up.

Ghidorah: I am glad you were able to clean out the house.
posted by brainwane at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


Every kid with immigrant parents

I tried to make exceptions, and I realize this doesn’t fit everyone’s life experience, but there are enough people who’ve grown up with meat, starch, veg with salt and pepper as the seasoning to make it a thing people (frequently, and justifiably) dunk on.

And on the opposite side, I imagine kids of immigrant parents have their own “this food is strange and unappealing to me” tender spots with unfamiliar food.

All I know is that my understanding of goulash is utterly at odds with most people who grew up in the Midwest. It wasn’t until I read it somewhere on this site that I learned most people grew up knowing it as a use-the-leftovers kind of casserole, while I was lucky enough that my mom’s next door neighbor growing up was an old Hungarian woman that shared recipes with her. I could never figure out why people let out sympathetic groans when I excitedly talked about my mom’s goulash.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:55 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]


Well, this is weird because I just made Zuppa Toscana a couple of days ago, and it was deeeelicious, but I don't make it often because it's a bit of an effort. The reason it's complicated is that we don't have Italian sausage in Greece, so we have to make our own, and that requires 12 spices, including grinding fennel seeds, and at least 12 hours of refrigeration. So it requires forethought: not my forte, but really, most of the effort is just fishing all the spices out of my spice drawer, which is chaos.

But whoa, is that soup good. I have no idea how it stacks up to Olive Garden, since I've never been to one. (Olive Garden wasn't even a thing when we still lived in the US.) But I doubt theirs is better than ours, because I can't really imagine how ours could be better. This is the recipe I use, roughly, though I definitely add more liquid. I actually have three or four different recipes for this, but they're all pretty much alike, so I just kind of mash them up. A LOT of kale is key. If you look at it and go "is this a crazy amount of kale I'm putting in here?" it's probably the right amount of kale.

Also, I skirted disaster this time when I discovered I was out of basil (needed for the sausage), and covid means NOT popping out to the grocery for one ingredient, and NOT going round to the neighbors to see who has the missing ingredient to lend. At the last moment I remembered I actually had basil paste in oil in a jar in the back of a shelf. Zuppa Toscana RESCUED. and so, so yum.
posted by taz at 8:19 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]


This soup — likewise heavy on the kale, garlic and onion — and it’s variations is my go-to make-a-lot-and-freeze-some soup. I use a slow cooker and often switch it up with chicken instead of sausage and cannellini beans instead of potatoes. Different flavor, but same basic concept. It’s my favorite comfort food, and seeing several additional servings neatly tucked away in my freezer is almost as satisfying as the soup, itself.
posted by darkstar at 9:56 PM on January 6, 2022


Must be Zuppa Toscana… I make it all the time at home and have never had the OG version, but my homemade version is pretty darn good. And if you want a lower carb thing, you can use turnips instead of potatoes and it’s still very yummy and satisfying.
posted by k8bot at 10:31 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I dunno why, but I was expecting this to be an allegory about media that has aged badly. I'm pleasantly surprised that it's literally about soup, though there's plenty to read into it.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:19 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


That is a good comic and I'm glad I got to see it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:36 AM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]


Today I learned that "OG" actually stands for Olive Garden


(Commences gangsta rap about unlimited breadsticks.)
posted by mikeand1 at 10:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]


The quality of food at American restaurants has been dropping steadily for 30 (40? 50?) years.

I was recently made very aware of this during a home town Christmas visit after a couple of years away (one of the best eating cities in the U.S., truly, even the fast food is more tasty there). It's why we order take-out almost entirely from locally-owned restaurants now, they seem to be the only ones that care about how the food actually tastes.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:43 AM on January 7, 2022


mikeand1, maybe I'll beat you to it:


My name is [NAME] and I'm here to say
That bread as sticks is the sickest play!
I spread 'em with butter, I dip 'em in soup
And I play lightsabers like Mace Windu!
If the sticks run low 'cause my crew blew through 'em
Then they gotta bring us more, or else we'll sue 'em!
Well I'll back off of that, I'm not that litigious.
But damn, these breadsticks are crazy delicious!
What else in life is good and forever?
That's why my crew is tethered to the heaven
Of unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden.
(Plus the one we go to is sh** at cardin'.)
posted by brainwane at 10:57 AM on January 7, 2022 [8 favorites]


[Probably heavily influenced by the Hamburger Helper compilation.]
posted by brainwane at 10:59 AM on January 7, 2022


My wife and I were like this with Chili's Chicken Enchilada Soup. We got a recipe that seemed close enough, and we like it. It was good enough that we realized we didn't really like much else on the menu. So we don't go for several years.

For some reason we go back after a long time and we were curious how ours stood up to the original. We liked ours better. We had slightly tweaked it over the years and ours was different enough in the right ways.

We also make a knock-off of Don Pablo's Chicken Tortilla Soup. Don Pablo's no longer exists, so we won't be able to compare. The only drawback with this soup is that in its early stages it smells awful.
posted by Badgermann at 11:16 AM on January 7, 2022


Badgermann,

Could you please share the Don Pablo's chicken tortilla soup recipe? I miss it, and while my own CT soup is pretty good, it's different from theirs. It's been so long since I've had it that I don't trust my memories enough to try and replicate it.
posted by indexy at 12:46 PM on January 7, 2022


This was fun. Thank you for sharing.

"So, I had to peel all the goddamn garlic" truly resonated.

My secret is to just buy it pre-peeled. Or roast it and squirt it out of the skins. Makes a difference when you are making, say, 100-Clove Garlic Soup
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:36 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]


The quality of food at American restaurants has been dropping steadily for 30 (40? 50?) years.


In desperation to leave the house yesterday — this two years of remote work and isolation is getting OLD, y’all — I went to McDonalds for the first time in many years. I bought an order of Chicken McNuggets, which was the first time I’d had them in probably 30 years.

I was taken aback at how bad they were. Half of them is breading, the chicken is low-grade, it just seemed like the lowest common denominator of a chicken nugget. Like, it was something we’d find in a bottom-tier, aluminum-tray TV dinner back in the 70s.

I don’t remember them being like this at all. Am I just mis-remembering? Or did something happen to them since 1990?

I’m disappointed that either they were always pretty rough and I just didn’t notice it through all the honey mustard sauce I used to use with them, or that I really am living in the end times, amid the slow decay of many of the things I used to enjoy.

(At least the video games are better now!)
posted by darkstar at 11:19 AM on January 8, 2022


I had a similar thing at Mc Donalds recently. I ordered a Big Mac, which I loved as (a clueless) child. I had just taken my dad to urgent care and he was transferred to the hospital. The first bite seemed really sweet. And the "meat" patty? Crumbly and mealy. I don't think I'll be getting McD's again any time soon.
posted by kathrynm at 4:44 PM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]


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