Soup is a food recipe that is described as a liquid food made from boiling meat, fish or vegetables in water. The consumption of soup is part of a meal. It's usually the starter. Caribbean soup; however, is a complete solid meal that leaves no room for starter, drinks or dessert. This difference is the basis of this article.
The Caribbean soup - the Saturday delight- is a dinner that is prepared from a number of nutritive vegetables and meat cooked together with added flavours to suit the family taste. The soup cooked in each family may have the same basic ingredients but each has a unique flavour and taste. The love of this soup by Afro-Caribbean peoples is one common theme shared by all.
The soup:
Most nationals of St. Kitts may add the following vegetables and ingredients in soup: carrots, breadfruit (7), yam (5), christophine(1),(chayotte, chou-chou), tanya (8), (coco) dasheen (2), (taro, or yautia), eddo (3), pumpkins (4), potatoes (6), sweet potatoes and dumplings made from plain flour, corn flour with or without added coconut. Onions and spring onions, thyme, cloves and salt are the spices that add the flavour. The meat used is either beef, neck of lamb or breast of lamb. Some families use chicken (without the skin) for meat.
There are subtle differences in the art of soup preparation. The ingredients that may have different tastes, consistency or colour that may be observed in families or in different islands of the Caribbean.
Soup making process:
The cooking of soup appears to be an exciting and enjoyable moment as soup is always prepared with the aspiration to be consumed by all members of the family preferably at one sitting, or at each individual's desired moment. But it is always on Saturday. The cooking of soup starts by washing the meat in water with lemons, vinegar and salt, after which it is put in a pot with cold water and set to boil. Boiling of the meat is carried out until the meat attains soft texture.
During this process the meat scum that floats must be removed. There is no set time to boil the meat, as different meat types require different times to cook to softness. Vegetables are added at different times to allow cooking to a desired texture without crumbling to a broth. The hard to cook vegetables like carrots, yam and christophine, are put into the pot first, then potatoes, tanya dasheen, pumpkins and dumpling, that cook fairly fast are added. Some vegetables are cooked to a desired texture, then removed from the pot to avoid changing to mash. Breadfruit, which may take a long or short time to cook, depending on its maturity, is treated this way.
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