Part cookbook, part global cultural history in a pot, this delightful book features more than 100 soup recipes from across the world, with fascinating information about the people and places that produced them--as well as a savory blend of poems, folktales, regional traditions, and other flavorful ingredients.

Throughout history and around the world, soup has been used to bring comfort and ease, warmth and health. Taste a culture's soup and you experience the beauty of its celebrations, life passages, and everyday life.

In 1997, Patricia Solley launched the website SoupSong.com, celebrating the lore and legends of soup through the ages. Since then, the site has been visited by more than 3 million people. Now, with An Exaltation of Soups, Solley showcases more than 100 of the best soup recipes of all time (many never featured on the website), from all parts of the globe, and organizes them according to function (from wooing a lover to soothing a hangover) as well as by the special occasions they help to mark, including Easter, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas, Ramadan, New Year's Day, weddings, and births. There are soups you'll remember as well as exotic soups you'll be curious to try (Hungarian Night Owl soup or Spanish Iced White Almond soup, anyone?).