Why is Tortilla soup Tortilla soup?; Cracker Showdown – The Saltine Takes on All Comers!

Eating some tortilla soup from Panera right now. It’s decent. But it got me thinking – why is it named tortilla soup? What part of a tortilla is involved in a somewhat spicy soup with chicken, black beans and corn and tomatoes and other seasoning/spices?

I guess it depends on how you view the word tortilla. To me a tortilla is the white, floury shell I use to eat tacos. Although, there are tortilla chips, which are corn-based and fried/baked to create a chip. But with this soup, what is tortilla about it? The shavings they give as an add on? It’s not enough to validate it being called tortilla soup. I mean, I put crackers on chicken noodle soup and I don’t call it cracker soup.

With chicken noodle soup it’s self-explanatory. It’s noodles, small pieces of chicken in chicken broth…hence, chicken noodle soup.

Tomato soup? Tomatoes.

Potato soup? Potatoes

Chicken Wild Rice soup? Chicken, in a thick cream base, with wild rice.

So where does Tortilla soup come in with this soup? It should be more Santa fe soup.

On another note, you ever think about why we add salty crackers to soup? Soup is like 900 times your daily intake of sodium, then we just add more sodium to our soup? But it tastes good, and it’s not the same without them. Saltines get dominated in so many ways by other crackers. No one goes to the store excited about saltines and you don’t get recipes on the back of saltines box. But with Triscuits, Wheat Thins, chicken ‘n a biscuit, even Ritz crackers or cheez-its are all are more popular. But, the question is – are saltines used more? Sure, you can make snacks out of those other crackers (for example, take some spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce, pour it on a triscuit, add some cheese and nuke it and you have a quick delicious snack)…or, how about cheese and crackers, it’s never cheese and saltines. It’s cheese and Ritz or some fancy schmancy dinner cracker. Those crackers are for people who think you can’t drink domestic beer anymore. There’s two groups – those who have a party with some ritz, triscuits, wheat thins and Coors Light, Mich Light or Bud Light, and those who have the fancy crackers, fancy cheese, wine and a combination of Heineken, Amstel Light, or some other import or microbrew (anyway that’s an entirely different topic).

Saltines are like the fish everyone catches but no one wants to eat unless they have to. It’s like say, the perch. People would much rather catch the walleye or crappie or sunfish, but in reality, the perch is good eating. People would rather buy the triscuit and wheat thin or Ritz, but the Saltine can hold it’s own. With people eating so much soup – even tortilla soup with no tortilla’s, the saltine just might be the most used – and underrated cracker out there.

EAT!