As the television show MasterChef South Africa enters its final stages, so the (very) locally produced competition FlowstarChef enters its last days, with several Flowstars competing for the title of Best Soup 2012.
The competition entails putting your best soup forward to a panel of highly discerning judges. Three home-made soups are tested and scored every week, with the winning soup to be announced at the end of June.
To many people soup is not food, it’s merely a liquid. Of course, those people are wrong. Even Wikipedia says, “Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body.” So by this logic, only things like motor oil and “drive-thru” burgers would fail to be classified as food.
FlowstarChef organiser, Patrick Gurney of CollectiveCow, insists on the validity of the competition, challenging anyone to disagree with his idea that soup is food. “Soup is most definitely food,” he said at a recent tasting, although doubt was visibly lurking in the back of his mind. “It’s the simplest form of food. And it’s nutritious.”
Patrick came up with the idea for the competition while gazing at his calendar for the winter months with sadness and depression in his heart. “The competition is intended to brighten up an otherwise dreary and ordinary winter,” he says. “I wanted to create more staff interaction; a sense of camaraderie.”
Some participants raised concerns of soup fixing, which is like match fixing but tastier. “I do not believe that there has been any soup fixing,” said Flow Exhibitions’ Janet Berger, a participant who was clearly eager to bring up the topic when asked. “A Flowstar’s integrity should never be called into question.”
There are more than 20 judges assessing the culinary prowess of 11 soup makers. Some Flowstars have entered twice. One participant, who wanted to remain nameless, said entering two soups was all about luring in the judges with the first and then hitting them with the second to seal the deal. This anonymous participant said, “I’ve become a soup demon! I don’t want anyone else to win!”, before closing the door and resuming her work in the accounts department.
The question on everyone’s lips is, “What makes a winning soup?” According to Patrick “you have to keep it simple and tasty.”
Flow writer Laura Maggs agrees. “Seeing as it’s winter, the key to a good soup is to make it more-ish – not necessarily fancy.”
Financial director Bev Strimer adds her two cents’ worth: “You have to have a wow factor in your presentation. There has to be something unusual.”
Although some of the judges find themselves in the enviable position of being able to judge their own soups – some more than once! – many have adopted the old traditional saying, “Soup is really, really good when it’s made by someone else.” These judges particularly enjoy consuming a hearty soupcon of soup three times a week without putting in too much effort.
The winner will be asked to make his or her winning soup every day for two years (not really). However, most contestants are not in it to win a prize. For Flow’s soupmeisters, it’s all about the glory.