JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Around the globe, from Tunisia to Thailand, there's one answer to aches in your body or your soul. It's soup. Here in the United States, that might mean a huge bowl of chicken noodle soup, but there is a whole world of healing, restorative soup beyond that - something that Genevieve Villamora knows well. She spent weeks chopping, stirring and seasoning her way through pot after pot of healing broth, testing recipes from Spain, Kashmir, Jamaica, Georgia and, yes, Tunisia and Thailand to make them work for cooks here in the U.S. It is part of a project, along with reporter Vicky Hallett, for NPR. And Genevieve is here in the studio with me now. Welcome.
GENEVIEVE VILLAMORA: Hi, Juana. Nice to be here.
SUMMERS: Thanks for coming in. OK, I have to start by just asking you, what does soup mean to you?
VILLAMORA: I think, to me, the base of any good soup is a really delicious, super flavorful broth. And that was definitely true for the soups that I tested for this healing soups project.
SUMMERS: Tell me a little bit about the experience of testing these soups. What was it like? Take us behind the scenes a little bit.
VILLAMORA: It was a fun challenge for someone like me who really loves food and has a broad base of culinary knowledge. But definitely most of these soups were soups I had never heard of before. So where I started for most of them was really just researching the particular soups, looking up any specific, unusual ingredients, and then trying to think of how to translate the soup so that cooks here could replicate something close to it at home.
SUMMERS: These soups come from all around the world. When you were researching them, did you come across any - I don't know - themes or commonalities that became clear?
VILLAMORA: Definitely something that I thought a lot about as I began to cook more of the soups was how some of them have actually very few ingredients, and yet they somehow manage to be so deeply flavorful and really nourishing, like, for example, the goat soup from Kashmir. It basically just has water, goat, onions, turmeric, fennel seeds and cardamom. But it cooks for so, so long, and over that span of time, the flavors transform and deepen so much, and you could really taste how rich and fortifying it was.
SUMMERS: You know, it really strikes me as I was reading through the recipes that they're so intensely regional. They're full of local ingredients. Can you just tell us about one soup that you found particularly memorable?
VILLAMORA: So one of my favorites was the ital sip from Jamaica. It was vegan, which is not particularly how I eat on my own. And it also did not have any salt at all. And it was so flavorful and really super delicious. But actually, instead of listening to me, you could taste for yourself.
SUMMERS: There's - you brought soup. You brought me some soup?
VILLAMORA: I brought you some soup.
SUMMERS: Oh, my gosh. I haven't eaten yet. This is so exciting, and you've been making me hungry the whole time that we've been talking. All right, so I've got this bowl of soup in my hand. Just walk me through what is in this bowl. I just have to say, it smells amazing.
VILLAMORA: So this soup is such a winner because it really builds layers and layers of flavor. So you take a bunch of aromatics - like fresh tarragon, fresh thyme - and you blend them with onions, garlic, and ginger and coconut milk. And then to that you add, like, a whole garden's worth of vegetables - yam, chayote, okra - some of my favorite, favorite vegetables. And then they kind of just hang out and cook down. And there - of course, there's Scotch bonnet pepper in there...
SUMMERS: Oh, yeah.
VILLAMORA: ...As well, so it has a nice, like, kick to it.
SUMMERS: Ooh, my favorite. I love a spicy soup, and I love Scotch bonnets. OK, let's try this. This is really lovely. I really like - there's so many vegetables in it. This is a vegetarian soup...
VILLAMORA: Vegan, yeah.
SUMMERS: It's vegan? OK. A big part of your job, I know, was taking these recipes with ingredients from all over the world, making them accessible to those of us here in the U.S., like me, who might want to try these recipes. Tell us about the process, and give us a couple examples of substitutions that you made in order to make these recipes more accessible.
VILLAMORA: There was a Georgian soup that had, as a main ingredient, cow hooves, which I figured most people - if they don't live in an agricultural area - can't easily get.
SUMMERS: Right.
VILLAMORA: But I think in most places you can get oxtail, either through an international grocery store, or you can really order it online and have it delivered to your doorstep these days. And oxtail has similar qualities to cow hooves in that they are high in collagen, which breaks down into gelatin, which is what makes the khashi soup from Georgia so nutritious.
SUMMERS: If you had to tell us to start with one soup, if we're trying to pick up one of these recipes at home, where would you tell us to start?
VILLAMORA: I have to say, it's no accident that I brought you the ital sip because the ital sip is one of my favorites. It caught me off guard being vegan and totally without salt. And I think that after I tasted it for the first time, I sort of had this very transformational moment 'cause it made me rethink my whole relationship to salt as someone who has been in the restaurant industry where salt is very liberally used. It just made me question, like, oh, if something can be this flavorful without salt, what does that mean (laughter)? Have I been - can I just jettison salt out my kitchen window? It just - it was challenging and surprising in all the best ways.
SUMMERS: Oh, I love that. Well, I will say thank you to you before I pick this bowl of soup back up. Genevieve Villamora is a writer, restaurateur and recipe developer. Recipes for the first six soups are at npr.org now, and there are more to come over the weekend. Thank you so much for coming in, and thank you for this meal.
VILLAMORA: Thanks for having me, Juana.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUP FOR ONE")
CHIC: (Singing) Soup for one, when you're on the run... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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