Soup is considered the most important part of a menu by many.

Soup has a history of about 8000 years. The prehistoric man started gorging on soup from the important feat of invention of water proof containers. These containers were used to boil and prepare the delicious food called soups.

The vital feature of soup is that while being delicious, it is also very nutritious. The easy recipe of soup constitutes of mixing and boiling various ingredients together, usually meat and vegetables with stock, water or juices. The solid ingredients are boiled to extract the flavor to form a delicious broth.

Soups are prepared to be either clear soups or thick soups. Clear soups have been made renowned by the French cuisine of bouillon and consommé. Purées are thick soups that use starch as thickening agent. Bisques are thick soups that use cream as the thickening agent.

Recent additions to the tasty soup menu are dessert soups, fruit soups and cold soups which are savored by many all round the world.

The process of canning made the preparation of soups even easier. Canned soups started emerging as a commercial product. It is estimated that in United States of America alone, more than 2.5 Billion cans of pre-processed soup are sold annually. The soup may be canned either in condensed format or as ready-to-eat. While condensed soup needs addition of water, ready-to-eat only has to be warmed.

Prepared from scratch, Condensed or ready-to-eat, without soup dinner will not be dinner.