Soup Run Gleanings

I joined my local Soup Run group, and this is what I gleaned....

Gleaning No.1: the distinction between soup and Soup Run soup.

"Great care must be taken to respect the dignity of our 'clients'...both their teeth and digestive health are questionably robust,...so prepare finely diced vegetable soup"

Mindful of the advice I set about sauteeing finely sliced chestnut mushrooms in unsalted butter according to Gleaning No.2: cook seasonably without seasoning. 

Gleaning No.3: Soup Run linguistics, the dignity of the 'homeless' is addressed by the syntax 'our clients'. This pasteurization of the lexis infers an attempt by Soup Runners to endear themselves to the undomiciled. 
My repertoire of Soup Run recipes remained at an unimaginative mushroom, vegetable and tomato, so it was time to leave the kitchen, get in the minibus and meet the 'clients'.

"always wear the surgical gloves, and don't speak to the 'clients'"

The paradox of Gleaning No.4 is embedded in its antithesis to my objective; the chasm between me and the clients was widening. Distributing soup to people I should neither touch nor talk to constricted every emotional knot in my body like a gastric band. I was wearing Blake's "mind forged manacles", of twenty-first century disposable sterile latex. 
Soup Run politics are complex, with an infrastructure and remit extending beyond tea and sympathy. Alexis Soyer crossed a continent to dirty his hands at the Crimea, and his example is echoed now by Soup Runners in latex, nitrile rubber, vinyl and neoprene. 

Having subverted a Westminster Council by-law to ban Soup Runs in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, current issues of concern for Soup Runners include the problem of 'Gangs' in white vans. Circulating around the Soup Run sites, vans lure 'rough sleepers' in with the promise of work. Soup Runners distribute leaflets in Polish and Romanian to inform Asylum Seekers and beggars of the potential risks to their health and safety if they accept the non-specific 'work' being touted. Our 'clients' sail close to virtual slavery in their quest for a better life.    

Soyer attempts to coerce the 'haves' to improve the welfare of the 'have-nots': "He badgered his well-heeled friends for subscriptions. He organised an exhibition ...under the title of 'Soyer's Philanthropic Gallery" (The Selected Soyer "Soup for the Poor"1849).

                                           
"The Modern Housewife" (Alexis Soyer 1849) provides a clear picture of Soyer's social conscience about the policies of food distribution and his inventiveness towards finding solutions to the problems of food scarcity, indeed: "A new challenge was needed, and he found it in the streets of London" ("Soup for the Poor"). Soyer's letters 'To the Editor' of the Times take the form of advertorials; he infers that the "benevolent intentions" of the Editor indicate the publication's endorsement of his ambitions. Soyer's persuasive language echoes the persuasive techniques he employs, using The Times as a distribution vehicle for "immediate publicity"  of the recipes he wishes to share ("M. Soyer's Kitchen And Soup For The Poor"). 

Driving his philanthropic ideologies further forward, Soyer seeks to convince the readers by implied endorsements from "noblemen, members of Parliament, and several Ladies" ("The Receipt for Soup No.1"). It is to be assumed that the bourgeoisie reader is impressed by the influence of educated and elegant people of both genders from the upper classes.
Soyer is an unashamed marketeer, promoting both his "subscription"  and the "benevolent contributors" who are sponsoring his highly proactive and "simple plan" to create "one of those kitchens" ("The Receipt for Soup No.2").  

Soyer aspired that: "no one, it is hoped, hereafter, would hear of the dreadful calamity of starvation" ("The Receipt for Soup No.1"), but social inequalities continue to provide a platform of need from which his ideologies have thrived into the twenty-first century. I hope Soyer would approve of the current Soup Run Code of Conduct and feel that we have advanced his mission.      

Bibliography

Langley, A.                                         The Selected Soyer.  Bath: Absolute Press, 1987.    

Wu, D., Ed.                                         Romanticism An Anthology Fourth Edition.    "London"                                                                  Songs of Experience, William Blake, 1794.   England:                                                                        Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.