Martha Bayne explores the social role of soup and its history as a tool for both building community and fostering social justice. She examines the classic model of a soup kitchen, national initiatives like Empty Bowls fundraisers and Sunday Soup dinners, as well as casual soup swaps and community soup cookoffs. Soup, she explains, means different things to different groups: For the activists of Food Not Bombs, the act of serving soup can be a political statement; to others it can be art practice, social service, or ministry. But though the context may change, the essential connection remains the same: In extending hospitality over the soup pot, a connection is formed and community ties are strengthened.

Martha Bayne is a Chicago-based writer and editor and author of Soup & Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time (Agate/Surrey Books, 2011). She launched Soup & Bread, a free community meal and hunger-relief fundraiser, at the Chicago bar The Hideout in 2009. Since then this annual winter tradition has raised more than $30,000 for a range of local food pantries and soup kitchens, and brought together food activists, farmers, celebrity chefs, and amateur cooks around a common pot of soup.

This program is hosted by the Chicago Foodways Roundtable. 

Recorded Saturday, March 2, 2013 at Kendall College.