I stared in consternation at the liquidiser.
It contained the reddest of red soup: tomato and chicken left over from yesterday, created out of leftovers from the day before. It had fulfilled a purpose twice, but now outlived its usefulness.
Its consistency was not solid, yet not liquid: an unsettlingly moveable anti-feast.
There were two possible ends this substance could meet.
Outside in our back garden, if you want to brave the penetrating Autumn damp, there is one of those recycling green cone things. All things foul find their way in there.
On the occasions I choose the cone, I hold my breath and look away while I open the lid and wave a receptacle in the direction of the opening, feeling it get lighter and trying not to think about the whole semi-solid business too much.
The other option is simpler, but has quite far-reaching medium term implications.
And that is to feed the entire sorry mess to the dogs.
My dog Macaulay is a super-efficient waste disposal machine. The soup – should I choose to dispose of it down him- would disappear in the wag of a tail.
But those medium term implications I speak of: they can be severe. They compound the already heady scent which emanates from his small wiry coat with air staleners so powerful that multi national air freshening corporations would blanche and quake at just a few molecules of donated air.
The liquidiser was still waiting.
I thought of the damp journey out to Maggotland-Le-Cone and I weakened. The future meant nothing to me now.Let the dog take care of it.
Except that today there are two dogs. We returned home from holiday to pick up our resident four-legs and A.N.Other: my sister’s collie, Clover.
Clover is a complicated soul but her attitude to food is simple and voracious. It involves ensuring she gets all food immediately, irrespective of neighbouring canine competition.
She is an Exocet. A missile guided straight to the doggie bowl. No negotiation, no sit politely and wait, just push everyone out of the way and get to the food source and gollop it down.
Even Macaulay moves aside, usually, for her extremely focused approach.
I grasped the nettle, aka the liquidiser, strode towards the dog bowl, emptying a goodly amount into it and standing back.
I had not troubled to predict what would happen when I did it.
Both dogs shot to the bowl and neither would relinquish their pitch. Two heads, bowl height, pushed as far into the bowl as they could go, each too intent on imbibing old chicken and tomato soup to growl each other away. If one growled, the other would get more to eat. So there they stood, in urgent uneasy truce, gulgulpgulpgulpgulping for their lives.
They might as well have worn the bowl as a joint nose ornament.
I shall pay for that, later. We shall all pay.
However, the soup is gone, long live the soup. Bubbling on the stove was a fresh grade-A chicken soup for everyone’s dinner.
Soup is the order of the day.
Because on Wednesday my daughter was fitted with a new set of inhuman rail track braces, and they’re hurting like heck. She’s on kiddie Nurofen and sympathy.
As a gesture of solidarity, I put all the dinner in with home-made chicken stock and simmered for England.
The result must have been acceptable, because everyone was very quiet at the dinner table, consuming this new phenomenon, the liquid dinner.
After about three minutes Felix the Inquisitive broke the silence. “Mum,” he asked, “who invented the first soup?”
I had no idea. So I opted for lyricism. “Son,” I advised sagely, “they’ve had soup for as long as they’ve had stories.”
I liked the sound of that. Very grand.
But not true. Because stories predate soup. Soup, and the act of boiling food, could only take place once someone in a cave somewhere, or roaming about some desert, had invented the waterproof container.
Word – or rather, Wikipedia- has it that waterproof containers did not happen until around 9000BC. Ceramics appeared around then; animal skins were used as well, it seems. Archaeologists have found traces of soup in digs which date back to thousands of years before Christ.
The Romans called it suppa, or bread dipped in broth. As we dipped our rolls in companionable silence, the dogs observing beadily from a respectful distance, we did not realise that we were doing something which gave soup its name.
The meal is finished. It just remains to wait: will the soup fill the family up in the same way a plate of food would? Will the dogs’ digestions handle the freestyle challenge I have thrown brazenly down?
I am brothless with anticipation.
The image is not my soup: everyone ate that up. This soup comes from here. The final gag is not mine either: the copyright for that one-liner goes to Phil Shrewsday….
Kate Shrewsday 
Dogs are the most cuddly garbage disposals. Best to leave them to it and save yourself from the other fate.
Hope Maddie adjusts quickly to the braces.
They are cuddly, but their processing system has terrible side effects…as I discovered when Mac slept in the bedroom last night…..
Thankfully, not a drop was spilled! 😀
No: it all went somewhere, to an appreciative audience 🙂
Suppa story – poor Maddie, but it will be worth it in the long run.
I’m sure it will, Rosemary. She was feeling a bit better today, actually.
i am so glad my cats are relatively fussy, even though their eminations would be (hoprfully) smaller, they could still be dangerous to sanity and hilarity
good luck with keeping everyone filled up on liquids
Cats are another breed, far, far away from the nightmare world of dogies digestion.
(Although one night, half way through the night, Kit Kat did produce…..never laughed so much in my life…..but that’s another story for another day.)
Soup, soup, glorious soup.
Nothing quite like it for filling the brute.
So swallow and swallow
Down into the hollow
And there let it mingle with custard and fruit.
😀 Erk…..not sure I can handle the mingling…..masterly verse, Nuvofelt!
Try some clove oil for Maddie’s pain. Clover sounds like Disky ….
Another Exocet….mealtimes must just fly by 🙂
(Sorry, should have said ‘with apologies to Flanders and Swann’)
I see it more as a tribute, Nuvofelt 🙂
Two bowls might help.
Another bowl stood inches away but my timing was right off. I should have taken two glop containers and poured them simultaneously into each bowl. We live and learn 🙂
Love this: ‘an unsettlingly moveable anti-feast.’ !
Well done for disposing of it in such a adult fashion. How the repercussions aren’t too severe.
Loved the humor and the history here; and yay, Phil!! “. . . brothless with anticipation” indeed! 🙂
(I’ll not speak of my Minnie’s “emanations” from a week or so ago – entailed a very pricey trip to the vet – and not a clue what brought it on, as her diet is quite restricted.)
Poor Minnie: so cats can have the same problems as dogs….I trust she is now well and enjoying her dry mix 😀
Minnie is a Miniature Schnauzer, Kate, not a cat (although my sis and housemate also has one of those), but yes, thanks, after a few days, she’s right as rain, seems to be none the worse for wear, and is eating her regular diet again.
Aw, Karen, I’m so sorry: I feel sure you’ve told me that before and it slipped my mind. And how could I forget the schnauzer connection? Macaulay and Minnie are practically cousins. Apologies, there are few worse insults to a respectable schnauzer than calling them a cat!
Still delighted she’s better though 🙂
When I wore braces, the biggest issue after tightening was corn on the cob ~ it had to be cut off the cob first which ruined the fun. 😦
Hope Maddie’s mouth feels better in short order.
Dogs make better Dispose-Alls than cats. Tigger turns up his nose at EVERYTHING we eat. Our previous cats enjoyed sharing dairy products with us . . . not Tigger. They enjoyed occasional seafood treats from our plates . . . not Tigger. And, yet, he’ll catch and hold lizards al dente in his mouth. Go figure!
Well, the Japanese see sushi as the height of sophistication and elegance. And look at steak tartare….and caviar…..Tigger is clearly a cat of discernment. You’d never catch him eating glop.
Another great post, Kate, on my favourite subject: Dogs! Enjoyed it so much, thanks! 🙂
They’re all alike on the food front, aren’t they, Denise? Glad you enjoyed it…
I like brothless with anticipation, and simmering for England!
There’s more to soup than meets the eye, Kate! 😀
One has to know one’s soup, Tom 🙂
Souper-douper post Kate! (Sorry the best I could come up with after a long day!)
What about a little more Bonjella Maddie? Poor thing. Techie sympathises as he has grumbling wisdom teeth at the mo.
I’ll pass that on, Pseu, thanks. We’ve tried calgel – too weak- and bonjela – too strong. If this were Goldilocks she’d be able to find something just right.
Igloo helps with mouth ulcers…
and some folk swear by Tee-tree oil, diluted.
Right. Got it. I’ll pop to the chemists tomorrow morning, Pseu, thanks 🙂 Itching to know where your post is set. I said Cornwall…was it Devon? Love the pile of stones…
probably stick with Igloo. There is some evidence for tea-tree on the net, but I can’t personally recommend as I haven’t had any experience of it
http://www.teatreewonders.com/dental.html
Ok 🙂 Igloo it is…
Braces are ghastly contraptions; I wore mine for nearly 3 years, but at the end, hey, presto, no more snaggle tooth! I can smile without shame and chew with efficiency (but it was a long 3 years). And a little competition with Clover for “glop” will keep Macauley sharp in the gastronomic department, if a bit odoriferous afterward, lol.
It did, Elizabeth 🙂 Mad is due to wear it for 12-18 months: we’re battening down the hatches…
The waterproof container – something we take for granted. As usual, you have got me thinking, Kate (and laughing at Phil’s sublimely silly “brothless” anticipation)
Weird to think of a time before waterproof. eh, Ruth? The basis for that one’s shaky though- I like to find a couple of other sources other than Wikipedia but could find no alternative evidence of a discussion on waterproof containers other than the link in the piece, where a South American dig found waterproof ceramic containers between 6000-2500BC. Ho hum.
Aha! You’ve left me brothless as well.
Oh how I remember the agony of braces. I wore them in my early thirties. Ouch, but, boy am I glad to have been able to have straight teeth. Good for all for eating soup. I’ve been making it with a frenzy many nights here as the weather has cooled. I try to remember to freeze some right away, Kate, for the busy day when I forget to plan for the night’s supper.
Great plan, Penny. Must do that myself. So you wore braces too: I did when I was little, but I was very naughty and used to take them out and not wear them for weeks on end. Led my family and the dentist a merry dance.
These are not removable: 18 months…best get on with it, I suppose…
Hysterical! You’re so talented I think maybe one of these times you need to embed home video! The picture of the two dogs going for the doggie bowl is priceless. But from what you’re predicting, we should be wishing you well for later results! Perhaps not so amusing then…and you are wonderfully sensitive to create a liquid dinner for all in solidarity with your daughter’s plight. You have a wonderful household, Kate! Menagerie and all…Debra
😀 Thanks, Debra. I shall prepare my video camera forthwith…
wordsmith u r, even if u r brothless
😀 Thanks Doc, loved that post of yours the other day. Made me feel normal….
You really are a great writer. And great closing history on soup, I didn’t know all that! Glad the dogs enjoyed the leftover soup. 🙂
Thank you! I wonder if your opening student term is like mine was – centred around a diet of soup and fish fingers 😀