Campus

Chicken soup for the Cougar’s soul

Psychology junior Loan Tran, left, and pre-pharmacy freshman Jimmy Mai prepare Pistou and egg drop soup. | Amanda Scott/The Daily Cougar

Approximately 15 students escaped the rain yesterday to enjoy hot cups of soup with the Council of Ethnic Organizations  in the University Center Spindletop room.

Students learned from members of the Council how to make Pistou, a French vegetable soup, and Egg Drop Soup with chicken.

“In each of our lessons, we try to have a vegetarian option and a meat-eater’s option,” said Jimmy Mai, a pre-pharmacy freshman.

Complications with the maximum heat of the electric stoves that the cooks were using — which were chosen because they allowed the group to avoid dealing with fire permits — led to some problems with the soup.

“I didn’t expect this not to boil at all,” French sophomore Erica Tat said about her Egg Drop Soup. “It’s a disaster.”

The Council chose soup for this event because January is National Soup Month, Mai said, but in this year alone, they have hosted four other cooking lessons.

“We’ll definitely be doing more,” Mai said.

The fact that the cooks did not have immediate access to a sink also made things difficult, Tat said.

“We can’t readily wash out utensils or pots to use again,” Tat said. “We have to find really, really simple recipes with as few ingredients as possible.”

Leave a Comment