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Life Is a (Soup) Bowl of Cherries

How to make a chilled Hungarian soup that’s perfect for summer

by
Joan Nathan
June 29, 2016
Dan Allen
Dan Allen
Dan Allen
Dan Allen

When I was in my twenties, my grandfather would take me to the tiny Hungarian restaurants along Second Avenue in New York City. There, in quaint places like Tik Tak or the Red Tulip, on the first floor and sometimes in the basements of the soon-to-be-bygone brownstones, we would be transported to Central Europe for an evening of chicken paprikash, goulash, and a rich, layered pancake called palasczinta.

In the summer, a glorious treat was cold sour cherry soup.

Sweet fruit soups have always been enjoyed in Central and Eastern Europe, where cherries, blueberries, raspberries, and plums are abundant in the spring and summer: Turning the fruit into jams, pies, and seasonal cold soups, often spiked with wine, was a way of using up the larder of summer. For Jews in particular, cold soups like tchav or cold beet borscht—or this delicious sour cherry soup (recipe here)—were perfect to finish off a dairy meal.

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Joan Nathan is Tablet Magazine’s food columnist and the author of 10 cookbooks including King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World.

The Recipe


Cold Sour Cherry Soup

Cold Sour Cherry Soup

Joan Nathan is Tablet Magazine’s food columnist and the author of 10 cookbooks including King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World.