The greatest soup ever made! The greatest soup ever made, that’s quite a statement and it’s debatable, and though I’m saying this I know that it may not be, but everyone has their own taste and though I love any number of other wonderful soups like; Vietnamese Pho, Chinese Roast Duck & Wonton, good old American Chicken Noodle Soup and others, if I was forced to pick one as my # 1 very favorite soup of all, it would have to be this, Italian Wedding Soup. So if it’s not the World’s greatest soup of all (Vietnamese Pho maybe) then it is without question one of the greatest anyway. And how can it not be great, made of tasty chicken broth with escarole and the thing that puts it into the greatness category, the little Meatballs? An Italian Soup that has Meatballs in it, what’s not to love? Well, I guess it depends who you ask, but if you ask an Italian-American, guess what? “Italian Wedding Soup is the greatest soup of all!” The combination of fresh homemade chicken broth, with pieces of chicken, escarole and of course those yummy little meatballs that every Italian holds so dear, that’s Italian Wedding Soup, and the first bowl I ever had, wow! I was a little boy and my mom made it for us. “Here Daniel, Italian Wedding Soup, it has little meatballs in it,” Mommy said as she placed the bowl of soup down before me. I couldn’t believe my eyes, little meatballs in soup, what could be more magical to a little boy of I don’t know five? Yes, I remember that first bowl, and I don’t know how many hundreds of bowls of this most pleasing soup I’ve had since then, too many to count, but everyone just as tasty and whimsical as the other. It’s the Meatballs, it’s Italian Wedding Soup and there’s not any soup that’s better. I just love it. How bout you?

Excerpted from MANGIA ITALIANO, set for October 2017 PUBLICATION  ….