October has arrived and it finally feels like fall in Florida. Well, as “fall” as we get down here anyway. Temps are around 70, it’s a little overcast and breezy, and football is underway. The trees are shedding leaves, or pine needles. The air conditioning is turned off and the windows are open. So naturally, I am thinking about soup. There’s something comforting in a cloudy day with soup on the stove. Polish soup or hillbilly soup, it’s all tasty.

I grew up eating potato soup, soup beans, and vegetable soup. My dad would make the soup; he was the cook in the family for the most part. He would slowly simmer a pot of soup on the stove all day long and we’d smell it throughout the day, thinking about how good it would be later on. Of course he made cornbread to go with it because the two go hand in hand. Dad’s favorite was buttermilk cornbread, and I must say I concur. It’s not sweet, but rather just a little bit tangy from the buttermilk. Sweet cornbread to me is almost a dessert, and not to be crumbled in a steamy bowl of soup. Buttermilk cornbread though, just a little dry, is perfect for folding in to a bowl of pinto beans or thick potato soup. Everything my dad did had a process. He had his regimens. If he were going to make pinto beans he would soak them overnight the night before, softening them to cook. Then he’d add his own blend of seasoning, onions, and a little bacon grease (pretty much the ingredients in any of his soups aside from the main part). He’d bring the beans to a boil first, and then let them simmer all day long, cooking them slowly and infusing the flavors while he occasionally stirred. He was the master of pinto beans and cornbread. If we were really lucky he fried up some potatoes on the side. That’s a hearty meal, and one that I loved growing up. Potato soup was pretty much made the same way, slow and deliberately. Vegetable soup was the same, with V-8 and all the veggies. My Mammaw (my dad’s mother) made a delicious vegetable soup with an assortment of vegetables canned fresh from her garden; I’m sure that’s where my dad learned how to make it. Dad always liked to start cooking in the morning and then cook all day. Our house would smell wonderful as the hours went on and the soup got closer to being done.

There were a few times Babcia made soup as well. She would make rosol, a Polish chicken soup. The chicken pieces are boiled whole in a pot, and when softened, vegetables and spices are added. Lastly egg noodles are added. This makes a delicious chicken noodle soup. Even I liked it, and I wasn’t a huge chicken noodle fan, at least not the canned kind. Rosol is delicious broth flavored goodness that warms you from head to toe. Carrots, onions, and celery complete the flavors. I even remember my Dziadek (grandfather) making rosol when we visited. It was a meal that I connected to my Polish roots. Simple and very tasty.

I know that the memories of these soups, as well as the soups themselves, taste even better knowing where the recipes come from. They come from my dad, my mother, my grandmother, and my Dziadek. They came from the hearts of people who loved me and wanted to see me fed. They fed me with hearty soups, love, stories of the past, and tradition. I made soup when my daughter was growing up, using their recipes which were handed down to me. My daughter now makes soup… she makes a mean chicken noodle and a potato soup by taking our recipes and adding her own take on them. Soup ties us all together. Soup nourishes us. Now with her own little one coming in December, the tradition will continue as he eats his mama’s soup and knows the feeling of home and family. Just think, all that history and love in a little bowl of warm soup. Time to make a big pot of something delicious.