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CHENNAI: It’s made of a few vegetables with small pieces of mushrooms that are chopped, boiled and mixed into a steaming liquid of ginger, garlic, coriander and pepper paste. It is later garnished with crisp fried cornflakes, lots of pepper and a pinch of salt.Delicious hot soup for just Rs10 can be found as near as the corner of your street.Before, it was just idli kadai and tea stalls at which one would while away time and fill one’s hungry stomach with chai and biscuits.But now, with small kiosks selling soup mushrooming at every three kilometres, one is drawn to taste those homemade hot soups just before their meal.Most of these soup stalls belong to various companies (self-help youth companies selling soup as parttime job) that prepare soup under different brands and cater to individual soup sellers. Some popular stalls are ‘Hot Soup’, ‘Aruna Hot Soup’, ‘Sri Lingam Hot Soup’ and ‘Manar Soup’, to name a few. Mohammed Farooq, who works for Sri Lingam hot soup, serves more than 50 glasses of soup every day. At his small kiosk sheltered at Collector Nagar near Pazhamudhir Cholai, he sells the entire packet of soup that he brings from the company every day.“There is no wastage of soup at all. Every 10 minutes I sell nearly five glasses of soup and people believe in the quality and taste.Our company has been in existence for more than five years, and we have also been selling soups to individual soup sellers who buy packets of soup from us,” says Farooq.Most of the stalls sell soup at the minimum rate of `10 but the ‘take away’ or parcel charge varies from stall to stall. While Sri Lingam Hot Soup charges `30 for ‘take away’, another famous soup stall – Aruna Hot Soup charges only `10.While there are more than 10 self-help youth companies that house these soup kiosks, many soup sellers who had been working with such companies have started their own soup stalls.Selvaraj of Meenakshi Sri Lingam Hot Soup, worked under Sri Lingam Hot Soup, but soon mastered the business and opened a new stall near his owner’s.“Preparing soup was easy.Once I knew the customer’s preference and taste, I decided to start my own.Earlier I used to buy soup from them, but now I have started preparing soup at home with the help of my family.” Selvaraj, who has started his soup business few months ago, says that the soup prepared at his stall tastes better than the ones sold in other shops. “I’ve tasted at several stalls in the city, but nothing to beat the preparation of ours. In fact, my customers have appreciated the taste many times.” Though the ingredients and the recipes are same, each soup stall differs in terms of quality, hygiene and quantity. The vegetables and the masalas used in the soup are fresh and everything is homemade, as guaranteed by the sellers.And few people have complained about the taste or the quality. “I’m a soup freak, especially the mushroom soup that is sold in these stalls are very tasty. At times, it is hard to find the mushrooms, but health-wise, nothing has happened to me after having the soup,” says Lakshman, an IT professional.The soups sold on the roadside are in great demand these days, but are they are healthy and hygienic? Dr Papa, at Huma Specialty Centre, explains, “Most of us like road-side food because we think it is tasty. But we are unaware of the quality of water used to boil the vegetables, so there are chances to be affected by water-borne diseases like cholera, dysentery, typhoid etc.” Though there are quite a few stalls that sell vegetarian soups, recently Chennaiites have been lucky to taste the mutton leg soup (attu kaal soup) and chicken soup. But after the spread of bird flu, most of us have kept away from consuming meat in the road-side stalls.“Since the water is boiled above the boiling point, we are saved because our body is easily prone to any diseases that are caused due to unhygienic surroundings.When it comes to meat, you never know the quality of the meat that you intake. It is advised not to consume such road-side products,” says Dr Papa.While the doctors point out the unhygienic facts about these road-side soup sellers, Chennaiites love to stand on the road and take a sip of the hot soups.
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