How To Fold Soup
We middle-class folks are now all pretty much aware that the lunchpail is strictly a boorish accoutrement. It's just about impossible to maintain an air of dignity when you're carting around a clumsy tin box with a bologna sandwich in it. Yet it is certainly stylish to bring one's own lunch to work. Many people who sought the chic of a brought-from-home lunch weren't about to tote that bulky lunchpail, and the answer for most citizens was to hide food on their body, then at lunchtime produce it from various pockets and hidden belts. This is a wonderful solution and can even give the most dreary office building a certain outdoorsy feel.
However, with all the ingenuity involved in hiding various delicacies on the body, this process automatically excludes certain foods. For example, a turkey sandwich is welcome, but the cumbersome cantaloupe is not (science has provided some relief, of course, like the pecan-sized watermelon ready to be popped into the mouth). One person lined a pocket with vinyl so he could carry around dip and munch all day, dipping the chips into his vest pocket and having them emerge fully doused with onion spread. Another acquaintance had a sport coat equipped with a banana loader, arranged so that by lowering his arm a banana would secretly drop into his hand. This proved ideal for long meetings that continued through lunch, as the drop was made so discreetly that others would naturally think you had been eating a banana all along.
These "tricks" may seem too elaborate for the average unique person desiring to bring their lunch from home, yet still insisting on a fully-balanced meal. The answer is soup. Soup is a robust addition to any meal and just about everyone has a favorite. But the primary concern is "how can you carry soup on your body without appearing ridiculous?" When you ask yourself this question, you are ready for soup folding.
Soup Folding.
First prepare the soup of your choice and pour it into a bowl. Then, take the bowl and quickly turn it upside down on a cookie tray. Lift the bowl ever so gently so that the soup retains the shape of the bowl. Gently is the key word here. Then, with a knife cut the soup down the middle into halves, then quarters, and gently reassemble the soup into a cube. Some of the soup will have run off onto the cookie tray. Lift this soup up by the corners and fold slowly into a cylindrical soup staff. Square off the cube by stuffing the cracks with this cylindrical soup staff. Place the little packet in your purse or inside coat pocket, and pack off to work. When that lunch bell chimes, impress your friends by former the soup back into a bowl shape, and enjoy! Enjoy it until the day when the lunchpail comes back into vogue and we won't need soup folding or cornstalks up the leg.
