An Oxford charity, which was named as one of the first Golden Jubilee Award winners in 2003 and was featured in the Queen’s Christmas broadcast to the nation the following year, relies on cooks throughout the county to provide nourishing soup for the homeless during the winter months.

From November to the end of March, volunteers cook batches of their favourite soup, which they freeze in brick form so that it can be stored until needed. It is then delivered to The Oxford Gatehouse (Registered Charity 1002741) – a café for homeless people which operates in the basement of the Northgate Hall, in St Michael’s Street, Oxford. The aims of the Gatehouse are to welcome the homeless and lonely and to provide a place where dignity, companionship and refreshment can be found in a warm and safe environment Judith Condor-Vidal, who co-ordinates this project, says that the wonderful thing about the soup making is that it pulls together volunteers from all faiths.

“It’s fascinating. We have volunteers from the Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian churches working together to provide the homeless with a mug of hot soup when they need it most. I find the whole thing very inspiring and uplifting,” she said.

Feeding soup to the homeless and those in need of a nutritious meal is not a modern development – soup has been handed out to those who need it for centuries, as it is comforting, nourishing and easy to digest.

Perhaps the most famous of all soup providers was the French chef Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) who fled to England in 1830. His soup kitchens and the mobile field stove he invented made him famous. Although he cooked for nobility, he was equally concerned with feeding those who could not, for whatever reason, feed themselves.

His Shilling Cookery for the People, published in 1854, became the cookery bible for those needing instruction on soup making. His soup recipes were used to alleviate suffering of the poor during the Great Irish Famine and improve food provided to British soldiers during the Crimean War. Soyer worked so closely with Florence Nightingale to correct the dietary and food regimes during the war that it was said that he saved as many lives through his kitchens as Florence Nightingale did through her wards. Yet if you read through his basic soup recipe, you may wonder how this was possible.

His boast was that two gallons of soup could be cooked for just 6d if you followed his recipe that calls for a two gallons of water, a quarter of a pound of beef, two ounces of dripping, two onions, half a pound of flour, three ounces of salt, and half an ounce of brown sugar. Later, Soyer ruled that vegetable peelings that would otherwise be thrown away could be added too.

Fortunately, today’s cooks that create soup for the Gatehouse café, not only provide real variety, but extremely nutritious soups stuffed with quality ingredients.

Jennifer Harland, who helps co-ordinate the soup pick-up in the Eynsham area, said those who provided the soup went out of their way to create a delicious, sustaining soup. She said: “Like so many villages, Eynsham is committed to providing 28 litres of home-made soup frozen in brick form once a year. This is equivalent to a week’s supply. The only rule we have to observe, apart from ensuring it has been frozen to the right size, is to make sure that it contains no pieces larger than a pea as it has to be drunk from a mug.”

She says that freezing is easy, two litres of cooled soup are placed into a large food bag, wich is then set in a large ice cream or margarine box to freeze. It’s collected and delivered to the Gatehouse before it has time to thaw. Jennifer usually makes a thick Scotch broth packed with meat and vegetables. One Eynsham resident, who is well over 80, buys bags of chicken wings to make a nourishing stock for her soup and others go for mixed garden vegetables.

Nothing is just thrown together; the soups are created with great care and from quality ingredients and a far cry from the soup Soyer created. Those involved in the project say it means they can look the homeless in the eye because they know they have done something to help.

The soup season may be over now, but there are still a great many ways that people can help the Gatehouse. Apparently, the café is badly in need of a new upright freezer in which to store the soup, as the one they use at the moment is on its last legs. It would be great to have a new freezer installed before the soup makers get busy again in November.

If you would like to get involved and help in some way you can ring 01865 792999 or 0777 3333 728. You can also email: admin@oxfordgatehouse.org