Soup

Soup is the general term for various kinds of salty liquid food, which often also contains solid components, such as vegetables and/or meat.

It it often one of the first courses of a dinner; if it is very rich in components and calories it may serve as a whole meal.

The origin of soup is connected to the development of pottery vessels capable of holding and cooking liquids over a fire without breaking, a technology available in Mediterranean cultures since Neolithic times (approximately 5000 B.C.)

Learning to boil food was advantageous because it meant that certain grains, tougher vegetables and animal bones could be cooked together to add their taste and nutrients to a dish. Once you had a mixture of foods with water, it seems an inevitable development that people would drink the broth[?] as well as eating the cooked items in it.

Also see the Encyclopedian Cookbook.