The magic of chicken soup

It's that time of year. The festival of matzah balls. The time for kneidlach to shine. But they are unable to shine on their own which means one thing, and one thing only, we need chicken soup, and lots of it. Some of us are envious of those who have already made their soup and have it in the freezer. Others are - as I write and probably as you read - standing in front of the stove, peering into a huge pot of fragrant, steaming, simmering chicken soup-in-the-making. Some of us are ordering in.

It got me thinking about our chicken soup. Jewish style chicken soup. We - as a people - have probably been making it for 500 years, give or take. I like to have it in the freezer at any time. Someone’s sick? Drop in some soup. Someone’s sad? Drop in some soup. Someone’s stressed? You get it. But how did chicken soup achieve this cult status as a fix-all? Why the hype? Is it based on fact or fiction? Is it really a cure-all?

I can’t recall a time when chicken soup was not in my life. Golden, clear soup with an abundance of flavour. One sip of a good soup and one can swoon. It’s everything. But it’s not just the chicken. It’s the combination of sweetness from carrot and onion, herbiness from celery and parsley, brightness from dill and rich umami from the bones and fat. Slow cooked and seasoned well. My mum did make chicken soup but it was probably my Aunty Myrna’s I remember the most. She used kosher chicken, lending a deeper and more robust flavour - largely because of the salting in the koshering process.

I ate soup with matzah balls at Pesach, with kreplach (Jewish-style meat ravioli) whenever my mum could source them and with lokshen (long, thin noodles) the rest of the year. My motivation for faking a sickie during the school years? Mum’s chicken soup loaded with white rice. Myrna served hers with eyelach, a Jewish delicacy from the old world. Eyelach are unborn chicken eggs found inside chickens before being laid. They look like egg yolks of varying sizes which are boiled in the soup. I remember them as eggy and rubbery and my family was completely divided as to their deliciousness. I’m not sure if I have nostalgic cravings for those little almost-bouncy yolks or just for Myrna’s cooking.