To beat the heat during the dog days of summer, turn to cooking methods that don’t heat up the kitchen and dine on lighter foods that cool us down as we eat them. I can’t think of anything better or as refreshing as spooning into a cold summer soup.
Through the years, cold soups have gained in popularity. They are versatile and unique with bright, fresh flavors. They can serve as tasty starters or full-course meals. They can highlight farm fresh ingredients that are plentiful and inexpensive during the summer months. Growing up a Southerner, my idea of soup was a hot bowl of split pea soup with ham, Frogmore, Brunswick or oyster stew; she-crab soup; fish chowder; gumbo; Spanish or black bean soup or one of my favorite comfort stews -- chicken and dumplings.
The thought of eating a cold soup was foreign to me until I was 18. At that time, I was visiting New York City (my first time out of Florida) and while dining at the famous Rainbow Room, I had my first taste of vichyssoise. It was creamy, yet light and absolutely delicious. That divine cold bowl of soup was the turning point for me; it changed any notion I previously had that cold soups were just plain wrong and swayed me over to the cold side of the soup world. Ever since then, vichyssoise has been my favorite cold soup.
Savory or sweet, spicy or tart, cold soups can offer something for just about everyone. Some of the more familiar cold soups are the Spanish gazpacho, Russian borscht, French vichyssoise (requires cooking before chilling), Scandinavian fruit combos, Mediterranean yogurt and cucumber concoctions, and Latin velvety avocado. There are as many versions of these cold soups as there are cooks who make them.
Just to clarify, cold soups aren’t hot soups gone cold, however recipes for many soups that are traditionally served hot can be converted into cold soups. Cold soups are vibrant and taste fresh, easy to prepare and require very little cooking, if any. Many chilled soups require nothing more than a knife, cutting board, blender or food processor.
The one thing you do have to consider when making a cold soup is chilling time, which means they have to be prepared ahead. But no more than one day in advance, as they don’t hold up well and the flavors can start to diminish. The exception is gazpacho, which improves with time.
Some fruits and vegetables used in cold soups can discolor from exposure to oxygen. You can do a couple things to decrease the chance of discoloration. The first is to prepare the soup using pre-chilled ingredients and serve it immediately or add a complementary acid to the soup such as pineapple juice to a coconut-banana soup or lime juice to an avocado soup.