Soup tureens: What are they and why use them?
Serving Soup Graciously
Warming, soothing soup—winter days are just made for serving a bowl of your favorite concoction of ingredients. The perfect way to serve it up is not straight from a saucepan or soup pot but graciously ladled from a soup tureen, and that is what this presentation is about: finding a lovely soup tureen or two for your table.
How many of us have memories of our grandmothers using a pretty tureen to serve the mandatory first course of hot soup? It was traditional in my Hungarian grandmother’s meals to have a beautiful transferware soup tureen filled to the brim with her wonderful simmering chicken soup. It started some truly memorable meals.
Unfortunately for me, my rambunctious boys broke that old tureen that I inherited, but that doesn’t mean I need ever do without a good lidded container to serve a special recipe for this cold weather necessity. There are so many beautiful choices, and with eBay, even a way to replace a beloved antique. Enjoy the tour through the tureen aisle, and don’t leave without putting one on your list for gracious meals that are in good taste (in more ways than one!).
What Is a Soup Tureen?
The origin of the word tureen comes from the French, who do all things comestible so well. A tureen is a broad, deep bowl shaped container that is used for serving foods such as soups or stews. Often with a lid to cover and keep the contents warm, as well. That, my friends, is the unvarnished way to describe the soup tureen, but the art of serving a good soup has made many tureens so much more than that explanation would imply.
Soup Tureens
Probably the tureen was originally simply an earthenware bowl, which may be guessed from the root of the name in the French (terrine) and even earlier Latin terms for “earthen.” These word roots became terrines or terrenes. Some of the earliest known were made in the early 1700s (the 18th century). They were not only porcelain or earthenware! For the table of the rich, silver serving dishes were also used for the staple soups and stews of the day.
Fine Silver Hollowware
Pair of soup tureens
In France, many of the fine silver tureens of the eighteenth century were melted down to finance wars, and are now, thus, very rare. Today, a modern design is usually made in silverplate for serving soups.
Examples of Metal Tureens
Ceramic and Porcelain
Rabbit-shaped tureen
Graceful swans decorate this soup serving piece.Franz Porcelain “Swan Lake” tureen
Whimsical and Imaginative Designs
There are so many ingenious, even whimsical, designs for serving soup that it may be hard to make a choice! But whatever our dining décor, or favorite motif, there seems to be serveware to match. I had so much fun looking through the wide number of choices available, that it was hard to stop. Do you have a favorite? I still wish I had the brown transferware tureen of my grandmother!
The most common material for these serving containers are a type of ceramic or porcelain material, instead of silver metal, harking back to the original material for which tureens came by their name.
A tureen of either type is a way to ensure the soup stays hot at the table. A custom that might be revived is serving soups in tureens that combine design with clues to the type of soup served, such as a tomato soup in a tomato red tureen.
Or a fish chowder? Yes, there were (and are) covered bowls molded in the shape of fish, a sure giveaway that seafood flavors awaited the hungry diner.
It seems that this particular serving piece retained the freedom of expression that modern tastes left by the wayside in most of the dinnerware designs. Perhaps because the large piece that holds that hot start to the meal doubles as a centerpiece. Few of us manage to create these table decorations for most of our meals, but the decorative holder in the amusing shape or pretty color makes a perfectly acceptable substitution.
https://youtu.be/IK0YCWLygnE?si=SugXWlABWxzIB7d_
Soup tureens range from every-day to decorative.
Recipe 1: German Beef Soup
Ingredients
Method
- Simmer beef slowly in water until almost done.
- Add the vegetables and pickling spices, cook until done. (Softened through)
- Remove spices and vegetables. Add saffron and cook noodles in broth.
- Add vegetables back in and serve hot.
All White Is a Modern Favorite
Wedgwood Nantucket Soup Tureen
Soup for Summer?
People usually think of soup as a winter warm-me-up, and cozy cool weather fare, but soup can be served cold as the perfect dish for a hot summer evening. It is light and filling at the same time. Some classics for summer repasts are gazpacho, chilled yogurt soups, and fruit soups.
There are as many summer recipes as your heart might desire, all of which are great served in a lovely tureen. My Hungarian grandfather loved his cold cherry soup in the morning.
Spode blue Italian soup tureen and ladle set ( Amazon affiliate link may differ in exact style)
Recipe 2: Italian Wedding Soup
This recipe comes from Ina Garten.
Ingredients
Method
- To make the meatballs, combine the ground chicken, sausage, bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, Pecorino, Parmesan, milk, egg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a bowl and mix with hands.
- Drop 1 to 1 1/4-inch meatballs onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for 30 minutes until browned, set aside.
- For soup, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a soup pot. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and saute until softened, 5 to 6 minutes.
- Add the chicken stock and wine and bring to a boil. Add the pasta to the simmering broth and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the pasta is tender.
- Add the fresh dill and the meatballs to the soup and simmer for 1 minute. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust if necessary.
- Stir in the fresh spinach and cook for 1 minute, until the spinach is just wilted.
- Ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle each serving with extra grated Parmesan.
This tureen is one of the finest designs made by the famous Royal Copenhagen company. Flora Danica was made for royalty.
Royal Copenhagen blue fluted mega large tureen<
Royal Copenhagen tureen classic Danish design
The famous blue and white design “Blue Fluted” porcelain is one of the most popular designs and is still hand painted.
The Danish blue and white patterns of Royal Copenhagen are perhaps my all-time favorite designs for porcelain or even any type of ceramic. Its combination of detail with simplicity in what is an ideal marriage of blue and white is a look I keep gravitating to, even though there are so many styles of tableware that I might say I love. ( “That one! No, that one!” mentality is at work here)
But the Danish have been at the art of refining design and picking out the aesthetic essentials for a long time, and it is a design sense that appeals to people living in our hectic modern age. At least, that is my explanation for why this pattern has such longevity and popularity.
“Try this chicken soup, it is just like my grandmother’s.”
— Ilona
Royal Albert “Old Country Roses” soup tureen
Recipe 3: Hungarian Soup (Csirke Leves)
This soup is like one my grandmother used to make.
Hungarian Chicken Soup (Csirke Leves)
Ingredients
Method
- Place chicken in water; bring to a boil; skim.
- Add all vegetables and seasonings.
- Cook slowly for 1 hour or until the chicken is done. Strain before serving.
Notes
This colorful and decorative soup server, in the painting, looks like it is porcelain or ceramic.
Recipe 4: Old-Fashioned Potato Soup
This old-fashioned potato soup is Pennsylvania Dutch style.
Ingredients
Method
- Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until tender, and drain.
- Add 1 quart milk to potatoes and heat. Blend in the salt and pepper.
- Cut butter into flour, and blend in egg and milk, using only enough milk to make the mixture thin enough to drop into the hot soup.
- Drop by teaspoon into hot soup.
- Cover and cook for about 10 minutes. Serve at once.
Notes
Collecting Majolica Pottery
https://youtu.be/hCvMeblKnsg?si=qUGxUyygl3tueFea
Victorian majolica is characterized by having molded shapes that are painted in colorful clear lead glazes. Italian tin-glazed pottery was colorfully painted on a white background. It was also called majolica ware.
<h4>Mock Turtle Soup</h4>
“Beautiful soup, so rich, and green
Waiting in a hot tureen.”
— The Mock Turtle in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
A gorgeous soup tureen
Source: Paul Cézanne
A gorgeous soup tureen
by Paul Cézanne
Transferware Tureens
Transferware refers to patterns applied by transferring the print from a copper plate to a specially sized paper and then to the pottery. Transferware can be in patterns of blue, brown, red, or other colors. Blue is probably the most common.
How About You?
Have a seat at the table, and tell us your memory of soup and how it was served. What was your all-time favorite recipe? And do you have something special to serve out your stews or soups?
© 2013 Ilona Erwin
