Soup kitchen

A soup kitchen or soup kitchen ( in Austria also Auskocherei ) is a public food distribution for the needy, free of charge or for a small fee. There are mainly soup or stew, hence the name soup kitchen.

History

Soup kitchens, formerly called Soup institutions, emerged as secular counterparts poor feeding of the monasteries and already existed in the 18th century in many European cities, as well as to the entry is in the Oeconomischen Encyclopedia of Johann Georg Krünitz. The best known " standard soup " of these institutions was the Rumford soup whose recipe had about 1790 Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford devised. Your preparation was cheap, at the same time it was regarded as nutritious. Alternatives were potato or cabbage soup.

For the 18th century called Krünitz Hamburg, London and Munich as role models in the arms supply through public kitchens. In 1797 the Rumford soup was introduced as the optimal food in Munich, and taken little later in Hamburg. The preparation of a portion of cost less than seven pennies. According Krünitz the first European soup kitchens originated in England ( souphouses ). In a London report from 1800 states: "Although no particular trouble in the winter and early years of 1798 and 1799 was present, but Clerkenwell, no less than 1,232,254 meals or Winchester pints of arms in the soup houses to Spitalfields, , Southwark and Westminster ausgetheilt (...) and there is no doubt that if all designed new facilities are well equipped for distribution of soup, over 40,000 meals or pints ( a pint = plenty of half a liter, equivalent in modern terms the two plates soup) can be ausgetheilt daily at half price to the poor. "

First there were such facilities in most cities but only during the winter, so from 1801 in Berlin. However, in Hamburg it was all year from the beginning. About the Berlin soup kitchen it says in Krünitz: " Every poor, which is suitable to this support, get out of this prison on a brand that he gets before, during the four winter months, a daily portion of well cooked nutritious soup of Sunday with meat. (...) The power supply came with Rumford shear soup, gruel, lentils, peas, beans, barley, oats, millet, buckwheat groats, potato soup, meat with barley on Sundays and feast days, and Erbssuppe (...) ".

From faith-based organizations, and private charitable foundations and associations soup kitchens were operated, the working families and the unemployed and other poor spending a cheap or free hot meal per day. The partially picked up in there own pots and then consumed at home. The Salvation Army played an important role, especially in England. In Germany took over in the 19th century, especially the women's clubs, the soup edition. In the " famine years " 1813 and 1816 many German cities targeted for the first time a public kitchens. According to Meyers encyclopedia, the first financially independent German soup kitchen was established in 1849 in Leipzig. Dresden followed in 1851, Berlin 1866.

An example of socio-politically motivated initiatives are the soup kitchens in Berlin, Lina Morgenstern founded in 1866. Christian -oriented communities such as the Salvation Army pursued contrast with the distribution of food also usually missionary goals.

"In all soup kitchens on average 1 liter vegetable is cooked in broth and added about 1/12 kg of meat, the prices fluctuate for 15-25 Pf ( ... ) The experience (...) taught that sucked. half portions for women and children to feed quite sufficient. "

Since the beginning of the 21st century, soup kitchens and similar institutions in Western Europe and in the United States receive much feed back. In addition to hot meals also donated clothing is output sometimes. In the U.S., numerous soup kitchens were opened in the period of the Great Depression in the 1930s, before the U.S. government decided to government assistance programs for impoverished families. In the U.S., operates the private organization Feeding America - formerly America's Second Harvest - the largest network of soup kitchens

Today, there are soup kitchens not only soup or stew, but also other inexpensive dishes.

The Ark, the contemporary children's and youth work, is also called children soup kitchen.