Some soups are almost a meal in themselves. It is a mistake to serve such soups as part of a substantial three-course meal. Their role is quite different. Serve them for weekend lunches or suppers, followed by a crisp green salad and a piece of fruit, and you have a nourishing and satisfying meal.
Many of these soups are old traditional recipes, brought up to date, and made more in keeping with today’s healthy approach to eating by using a good stock that is prepared in advance, and then only quickly and lightly cooking vegetables. This way you get the maximum nutrition, the minerals drawn out from the long, slow cooking of the bones, and the vitamins retained in the quickly cooked vegetables. Soups taste better for this treatment.
In almost all of these soups a generous handful of parsley or a choice of fresh herbs added to the soup plate on serving can only be an added bonus.