That Soup Tureen in Orvieto

The reasons are long gone, but not the memory or the feeling. I needed that ceramic soup tureen I saw in a shop in Orvieto. Orvieto is in the Umbria region about a half hour train ride north of Florence, but no less a step-sister. There are phenomenal frescoed ceilings in the main cathedral that can blow the renaissance socks off the Baptistry of San Giovanni. Anyway, I was introduced to Deruta pottery, typical of the region. A kind of Maiolica or tin-glazed pottery that is not really suitable for travelers such as myself and my husband who hopped on and off trains with small backpacks. In Orvieto I fell in love with a feeling, a desire, call it homesickness. I longed for Soup Club.

Back home in Chicago our fourth floor in the building where we lived had loosely established a once weekly soup club. Much like a potluck one person volunteered to make soup for the whole floor, roughly 40 people. Someone else might bring homemade bread and someone else a left over—we stretched the food to feed us all.

Since we traveled like hobos I’m sure I was feeling the effects of lack of protein. We ate heat-lamp pizza, the cheapest offerings, more than I care to admit. It was the price we paid for just being able to GO, to be in Italy. At this point in our journey I would have plunked down $200 for a soup tureen, anything for that feeling of being full, of being with friends and the familiar. Home.

Of course it was out of the question, yet the sales lady assured me it could be shipped, extra for insurance. She was misreading my shopper’s remorse. I wished I could, I wished for so much.

After arriving home, in a twist of memory, I now regretted not buying the tureen. Every once in awhile I think back to holding that beautiful over-sized bowl, imagining all the happy people I could have fed. But, now, all of that is in the past. Soup Club fell apart within a few years. Soup makers complained it was becoming too difficult, a burden as its popularity had drawn in folks from other floors. We would have needed two tureens to feed them all. Then there was the time taken away from family, weekend fun. We fell into other patterns. Soup Club became a thing of the past.

As did my marriage. And, all those travels together in Italy, staring in shop windows and counting change outside the pizzeria. We are no longer those people.

           Yet I still remember: the soup tureen in Orvieto.

                        I yearn for that sense of well-being, of

                                                                                                     home.