soup kitchen
A soup kitchen or people's kitchen is a public food service for the needy, free of charge or for a small fee. There is mainly soup or stew , hence the name soup kitchen.
history
Soup kitchens, formerly also known as soup establishments , emerged as secular counterparts to the feeding of the poor in monasteries and existed in many major European cities as early as the 18th century, as the entry in the Economic Encyclopedia by Johann Georg Krünitz shows. The best known "standard soup " of these establishments was the Rumford soup , the recipe of which was devised by Benjamin Thompson , Earl of Rumford, around 1790 . It was cheap to prepare and was also considered nutritious. Alternatives were potato or cabbage soup .
For the 18th century, Krünitz names Hamburg , London and Munich as role models for poor relief through public kitchens. In 1797, Rumford soup was introduced in Munich as the ideal dish and was adopted a little later in Hamburg. One serving cost less than seven pfennigs to prepare. According to Krünitz, the first European soup kitchens were built in England ( souphouses ). An 1800 London report said:
“Although there was no particular tribulation in the winter and spring of 1798 and 1799, no less than 1,232,254 meals or Winchester pints were given to arms in the soup houses at Spitalfields , Clerkenwell , Southwark and Westminster [...] and it suffers There is no doubt that if all the new facilities designed are adequately equipped to distribute soup, over 40,000 meals or pints (one pint = half a liter; corresponds to two plates of soup according to today's understanding) can be distributed to the poor every day at half the price . "
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Initially, such facilities only existed in most cities during the winter, from 1801 in Berlin. In Hamburg, however, it existed all year round from the start. About the Berlin soup kitchen, Krünitz says:
“Every poor person who is suitable for this support receives a stamp from this institution, which he fetches beforehand, a portion of well-cooked nutritious soup every day during the four winter months, on Sunday with meat. [...] The meal was Rumford soup , gruel , lentils , peas , beans , pearl barley , semolina , millet , buckwheat groats , potato soup , meat with pearl barley on Sundays and feast days, and pea soup […]. "
Church organizations as well as private charitable foundations and associations operated soup kitchens that gave working-class families, the unemployed and other poor people one cheap or free hot meal a day. Some of it was picked up there in its own pots and then consumed at home. The Salvation Army played an important role, especially in England. In Germany in the 19th century, it was mainly the women's associations that served soup. In the “famine years” of 1813 and 1816 , many German cities set up people's kitchens for the first time. According to Meyer's Konversationslexikon , the first financially independent German soup kitchen was built in Leipzig in 1849 . Dresden followed in 1851, Berlin in 1866.
An example of socio-politically motivated initiatives are the Volksküche in Berlin , which Lina Morgenstern founded in 1866. Christian-oriented communities like the Salvation Army , on the other hand, usually pursued missionary goals with the distribution of food.
“In all people's kitchens, an average of 1 liter of vegetables is cooked in bouillon and about 1/12 kg of meat is given, the prices for it fluctuate between 15 and 25 pfennigs. [...] Experience [...] has shown that half servings are perfectly adequate for women and children. "
Since the beginning of the 21st century, soup kitchens and similar establishments in Western Europe and also in the USA have been growing in popularity again. In addition to warm meals, donated clothing is sometimes given out. In the United States, numerous popular kitchens opened during the Great Depression of the 1930s before the US government decided on state aid programs for impoverished families. In the US, the private organization Feeding America - formerly America's Second Harvest - operates the largest network of soup kitchens.
Today there is no longer only soup or stew in popular kitchens, but also other inexpensive dishes.
The ark, the contemporary children's and youth work , is also called the children's soup kitchen .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Economic Encyclopedia von Krünitz, article Speiseanstalt
- ↑ Meyers Konversationslexikon, approx. 1895, article Volksküche
- ^ Article Soup kitchen in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture .
