Vegan SOUP for the Artist's Soul

By: Katherine Montalto | June 16 2010
Posted in Find It - Detroit

In an open space above Mexicantown Bakery in southwest Detroit, makeshift tables made from old doors stacked on milk crates are set with mismatched china and silverware. Sheets are laid out on the floor to sit on, picnic-style, and the flickering tea lights and fresh-picked wildflowers lend a casual elegance to the scene.

Photo: Emanuel Ioan

This is SOUP: the setting for a dinner party with 70+ friends you've never met before tonight. SOUP is a public dinner party where a $5 donation, which is used to fund a micro-grant (more on that later), gets you hot, fresh soup, a salad made from greens picked that day, and buckets of bread. Katherine Montalto met with Kate, one of event's creators, Sunday June 6, (the fifth SOUP event) to talk food and art while enjoying a rich, creamy peanut miso soup and hearing proposals for the micro-grant from three artists working in Detroit.

The Local Dish: How did you get use of the space above MexicanTown Bakery?
SOUP: Jessica and I facilitate SOUP together. Her family, the Hernandezes, owns Mexicantown Bakery and Armandos (which is next door). They have graciously allowed us to use the space for the dinner and are excited that we are beginning to turn the space into an art space/concert hall!

TLD: You serve only vegan soup. Why did you make that choice?
SOUP: We make vegan soup to be as accessible as possible. We want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy the meal. It's also cheaper...and one could even argue even better for the environment.

TLD: How do you choose your guest chefs? Who have they been?
SOUP: All of our guest chefs have approached us about making soup. As people see other artists and creative folks making soup (they are often great chefs...maybe it's the creativity of cooking), we've had folks volunteer. First, we had the general manager of one of metro Detroit's best music venues, the Crofoot. Then, we had Kimberly McClure, an MFA printmaker from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Our third meeting, we had Tom Joseph, a local yoga teacher. Last time, we had the Wyandotte Project, which is focused on arts revitalization in Wyandotte. Tonight, the Beehive Project, which is a collaborative team that creates community-based, site-specific installation art pieces is cooking for us.

TLD: Where do the soup and salad ingredients come from? Are they donated? Are they local?
SOUP: The soup and salad ingredients are mostly from the Eastern Market and donations from local farmers and gardeners. We encourage people to get their ingredients from a local source. It's still an organic process of figuring out how to facilitate sustainable donations...and how to get those ingredients (and the right ingredients) to the soup and salad maker. It seems like an important part of the infrastructure of the project to develop.

TLD: How much of the $5 per person donation goes into the pot for the art grant?
SOUP: Almost all the money goes to the grant. Only $40 is taken out for the SOUP. The greens are donated. We are working on getting the soup ingredients donated!

TLD: Does any of the food come from Mexicantown Bakery?
SOUP: For the first three SOUPs, the bread came from the Mexicantown Bakery. Then Avalon Bakery offered to donate their day-old bread for each monthly meeting. It seemed nice to tie in another great Detroit local business. Sometimes Jessica brings up some cookies from the bakery downstairs for dessert!

TLD: How did SOUP come together? Who was involved?
SOUP: SOUP came together because I was inspired by Incubate (a think tank in Chicago) that started doing a soup dinner to fund art projects. I developed a lot of the infrastructure, and Jessica and I did most of the prep work for the first few months. The last two months, we had a bigger team of friends start to support the project. At this point, it feels like it really is a collaborative effort that happens with facilitation from me and Jessica.

TLD: What soups have been made at the events? Is the bread and salad the same at every event or different to compliment the soup?
SOUP: We've had white bean and cabbage, Mexican tortilla soup, minestrone, carrot and lentil, and peanut-miso soups. Sometimes there has been conversation/collaboration between the salad maker and soup maker...and sometimes it's been random! That's a good issue to think through; it makes me want to connect folks to each other to talk about what they are going to make.

TLD: Any plans for chilled soup for the summer months?
SOUP: Chilled soup is brilliant. I'll pass it on to folks as an idea!

TLD: Anything you'd like people to know at the SOUP event?
SOUP: I hope folks are able to connect with one other as creative people, fellow city residents and humans by sharing a meal and thinking and talking about how people are engaging creatively throughout the city.

For more info about SOUP, check out the group's Facebook page.