Is it time to grow up? Poor pea soup keeps getting ignored just because its color has squeamish connotations that date back to childhood. How I got the courage to dive in and discover a dish that’s really quite delicious.
Some foods have a hard lot in life. Pea soup is one of them.
It’s sad, because pea soup is just as good as any other of the creamy vegetable soups like corn, broccoli and tomato. But I doubt there are many among us who are so evolved from our 10-year old roots that we can ignore the resemblance between pea soup and you-know-what.
I was surprised at the effort it took just to buy box of pea soup. A bright red flag on Imagine’s Creamy Pea Soup boasted “New Look! Same Great Taste.” But the box was still a distinctively suspicious green color, and the bowl of soup on the front was still a matching hue of green, a fact that couldn’t be hidden even by the sweet garnishes arranged on top.
Nevertheless, being an open-minded foodie, I magnanimously set aside my prejudices and bought a box. (Didn’t hurt that it was on sale!) And just last week I plucked it from cupboard for lunch. (Didn’t hurt that I was starved after a workout and the frig was uncharacteristically void of any leftovers.) It took conscious effort to quash the giggles and automatic “eeew” response, but once past the first bite, the going got easy, quickly. The soup was quite tasty.
I found it helped to add roasted yellow and red peppers (frozen from last year’s farmers market), not only for color but also texture. I imagine that baked and diced potatoes or sweet potatoes, roasted carrots or thin strips of sun-dried tomatoes could be similarly helpful.
So happy pea soup as we head into the season of spring peas! I might actually try to make a batch now.
P.S. One more reason to get past your green soup hangups: one cup of soup contains a whole serving of vegetables. So the bowl of soup I had for lunch delivered a total of 3 vegetable servings: 2 servings of peas (in 2 cups of soup) + 1 serving of peppers.
1 thought on “Pity Poor Pea Soup”