The Importance of Water

Some years ago, a friend of mine came New York City for a visit me in Oklahoma City, (where I lived at the time,) and he brought some onion-sesame bagels that he and his wife had made that morning in their apartment in NYC.  They were absolutely heavenly.  We ate all of them in less than an hour.  The next day, we decided we wanted more.  His wife knew the recipe by heart, so we made more of them in my apartment.  While they were okay, they did not taste as good as the ones he brought with him. In fact, they tasted rather flat and a bit gummy.  My oven was almost exactly the same as theirs, so they said, and the ingredients were all nearly the same.  We decided that the only real difference was the water.  New York City water is very soft, and Oklahoma Water is rather hard, meaning it has a lot of minerals.  Not much of a difference, but apparently that was enough to change the taste significantly.

I am saying this because water is, perhaps, the most important ingredient in any soup.  How the water tastes effects the taste of the final product, and can make the difference between a soup that is tasteless or tastes strange, and soup that is satisfying and delicous.

Many chefs from different parts of the country develop their recipes using the water in their area.  So, when those same recipes are made in another area, with different water, the taste will be different.  More often than not, it will not taste as good as it would be if it were cooked in the chef's home city, because traces of different minerals and the way the water is treated for delivery to the city consumers will be different.  In soup, this difference can have a rather profound effect.  Also, sometimes, it can effect how fast the soup cooks.  In general, harder water will cause the ingredients in soup to cook a bit slower.  Minerals can also interact with ingredients in soup, making some things mushy and soft, and others harder.  And, generally, harder water will give soup a flavor that is a bit earthy.

If you find that you don't live in the area where a soup is originally created, (assuming such information is available at all,) is to try and find bottled water from that area.  If you find a recipe is developed in the western US, for example, where water tends to be "hard," you might try getting bottled spring water to use in your soup.  For soups from the east coast of the US, as well as most of Canada, the water should be softer, so use distilled water or bottled New York water.

Paying close attention to where your soup is originally made and using water that closely matches water from that area, will help give your soup the flavor the creator originally intended.  My advice, if you cannot find where a recipe is from, is to use distilled water, as that will have the least effect, positive or negative, on the flavor of your soup.

Bon Appitite!