Tomato soup is a staple in many cultures, with recipes ranging from hot to cold, mild to spicy. Tomatoes are grown worldwide and used in various cuisines, with early Spanish tomato soups served cold. In the US and Western Europe, tomato soup is typically made with tomato puree and water, sometimes with added milk or cream.
Almost any soup with tomatoes as the main ingredient can rightly be called tomato soup. Some of the more familiar tomato soups are simply pureed tomatoes, often with added chicken stock, water, or cream. However, there are several versions of tomato soup. Almost every culture in the world has some sort of recipe for tomato soup. From hot soups to cold soups, mild broths to spicy stocks, there’s a tomato soup to suit almost every palate.
Tomatoes grow well in almost any climate. They are grown all over the world and have become an important part of many different national cuisines. From ripe tomato pizzas and fresh sauces in Italy to tomato stews of North Africa, the quintessential British breakfast of eggs and tomatoes, and the steak tomatoes so frequently found atop American hamburgers, tomatoes are ubiquitous. The same goes for the prevalence of tomato soup. It wasn’t always like this, however.
The first tomato plants grew only in the limited area that stretches from present-day central Mexico to mid-Brazil in South America. Spanish explorers and settlers arrived in this part of the world in the 1400’s and the tomato plant was one of the many things they brought with them to Spain. Tomatoes soon spread throughout Western Europe, the Spanish trade route and the spice route, and from there to most points of the globe.
It appears, therefore, that tomato soups have been a staple of many cuisines of different cultures for hundreds of years. Most soup recipes combine tomatoes with other locally available ingredients and produce. The tomato soup popular among the Aztecs and other native inhabitants of Latin America often featured corn, chiles and onion, for example.
Some of the earliest tomato soups of Spanish origin were served cold. Tomatoes are typically at their ripest in midsummer, and the Spanish climate can be quite hot at that time of year. Early Spanish cooks first added tomatoes to gazpacho, a traditional cold soup made with beans, broth, and cubes of stale bread.
Cold tomato soup preparations are also common in African cuisines. Many recipes from this region include native vegetables, such as potatoes and peppers, along with local fish, rice, and spices. There is a great deal of variety in how tomatoes should be prepared for these soups. Whether left whole, peeled and seeded, roughly chopped or pureed, different tomato treatments and textures will produce very different types of soups.
In the United States and much of Western Europe, tomato soup is usually much simpler. Often, the soup in these places is little more than tomato puree, tomato paste, and water. Some cooks add milk or cream, but for the most part, the ingredients are tomatoes and very little else. A reference to “classic tomato soup” most likely means this very simple and very simple type of preparation. This type of tomato soup is usually fairly easy to make at home, although condensed tomato soups, typically sold in cans, are very popular, particularly in the United States.
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