For the extraordinarily on-line amongst us, it’s been practically not possible to overlook the rise of soup as the newest embodiment of our collective want for consolation. It arguably started in late 2021 with the “soup lady” phenomenon, which gave us viral TikTok audios like “attractive, attractive ladies love soup” and “good soup.” Extra just lately, the New York Occasions meals tradition reporter Kim Severson used her annual development predictions to crown soup as 2024’s “dish of the yr,” calling it “bone broth’s extra fascinating youthful sibling and the right automobile for cross-cultural mash-ups.” Soup even got here out on high within the Nationwide Restaurant Affiliation’s annual What’s Sizzling Culinary Forecast, which pegged soup as each a “social media sensation” and the “final consolation meals.”
However if you wish to maximize your soup consumption this yr, you really want a soup mug.
Once I’m consuming soup at dwelling, it feels counterintuitive to sip it daintily from a low-lipped, ecru porcelain bowl, spoon raised to the lips the best way Emily Submit instructed. It likewise feels virtually disrespectful to relegate it to the identical day-in, day-out bowls that maintain the whole lot from raisin bran to triple-scoop butter pecan ice cream. That is soup, dangit — it’s virtually medicinal in its therapeutic properties, each bodily and psychological. You wouldn’t dollop caviar with a steel spoon or pour an IPA right into a champagne flute, so why shouldn’t soup be granted the dignity of its personal devoted vessel?
With their chunky form and suffer-no-fools visible heft, soup mugs are hearty vessels paying homage to the mid-Twentieth-century, an period when America’s consolation meals was unabashedly unsexy and had cookware to match (suppose: aspic needs and Corningware desires). With a large backside for stability, a taper across the rim to carry in warmth, a deal with that permits for portability, and a quantity that screams “full meal” and never a starter course, a soup mug takes soup severely. Consuming it from a daily bowl feels shallow and unsatisfying by comparability.
Due to the ingenuity of the soup mug’s deal with — some variations of which even characteristic a small resting place to your thumb — you may go cellular along with your mug for a cold front-porch souping session. Want to achieve the ultimate bits of carrot and potato on the backside? Merely tip the mug and slurp the whole lot down — it’s been completely engineered so that you can get each final scrap of warming goodness, no awkward spoon clanking required. A moveable soup mug and thermos combo is good for out of doors adventures, primed for full-belly heat by the campfire and toting alongside, spill-free, whereas birdwatching. (It beats a flimsy ham sandwich and bag of chips by a protracted shot.)
There’s additionally a soup mug fashion for each cozy persona. Should you’re feeling Seventies retro, look no additional than Ebay or Etsy for soup mugs with severe kitsch. (Some even have soup recipes printed on the facet!) Childhood nostalgia can play a task in soup mug design, so for those who’re aiming to reconnect along with your elementary college years, go for a classic E.T. lunchbox and soup mug or compact half-thermos, half-soup-cup. One-of-a-kind stoneware soup mugs abound, and native hand-thrown potteries throughout the nation specialise in these homey items of crockery: a few of my favorites are made by Salvaterra Pottery in Weaverville, North Carolina.
So, go forward: splash, slurp, and scoop up some extra. Soup isn’t a meal meant for daintiness or taking a tough line about manners. It’s all about consolation, and the common-or-garden, stocky soup mug is the emotional assist vessel you want.
Sarah Baird is a Kentucky-based journalist and creator whose work seems often within the New York Occasions, GQ, Saveur, the Believer and past. A 2019 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard College, she writes often about cultural points impacting rural America.
