Benchmark Resorts & Hotels and Personal Luxury Resorts & Hotels Celebrate "National Soup Month" in January

January is National Soup Month, celebrating a dish that is as old as cooking itself. Chefs from restaurants at Benchmark Resorts & Hotels® and Personal Luxury Resorts & Hotels® provide striking new takes on this iconic comfort food. Their recipes from around the country rely on local ingredients combined in fresh, flavorful and healthy ways. With virtually every culture in history having its own versions of this culinary classic -- from delicate bisques to hearty stews - today craft beers add unique flavors to soups made of local cheeses, and Florida Stone Crabs, trout fresh from mountain streams, Atlantic clams, spiny lobsters, California sunchokes, Tennessee salsify, as well as Southwestern corn compose soups in Benchmark kitchens across America, making National Soup Month a celebration indeed.

Soup goes back over the millennia. First boiled in leather pouches over hot rocks at the end of the Stone Age, in time soup was on in pots throughout the ancient world, and the human race never looked back. How did soup go from primitive man boiling a bone to Seinfeld's Soup Nazi and Andy Warhol's iconic soup cans?

From ancient times, soup was recognized for its healthy, restorative powers. The Greek physician Hippocrates touted the benefits of lentil soup and soon it was sold in the streets of Athens. Beloved by patricians and peasants alike, recipes for vegetable soups are found in records from ancient Rome, Egypt and Byzantium. In the late 18th Century, Captain Cook set sail for Australia with stops in Alaska and Hawaii carrying 1000 pounds of dried soup. In America, Lewis and Clark's provisions for their storied expedition included packs of dehydrated soup. Then in 1869, soup was condensed and canned with the launch of the Campbell Soup Company. The late 19th Century and early 20th saw huge numbers of immigrants come to America's shores, bringing their native soups with them -- German potato, Italian Minestrone, pea soup from the Netherlands, Russian Borscht, French Onion, Beef & Lamb stew from the British Isles, Afro-Caribbean flavors of Gumbo, Hot & Sour soup from China, and the ultimate comfort and curative, Chicken Soup. Over time, uniquely American soups evolved, such as infinite varieties of New England clam chowder, consumed from Maine to Manhattan. Today, Americans enjoy soup in settings that range from home kitchens and fast food outlets to fine dining restaurants serving innovative new versions of classic soups.

Click here for the soup recipies