Soup Natura from Soeperman

“The soup I am about to serve you is called Soup Natura” says Ali, full of mystery.

“If you smell the soup, you should smell the scent of hot summer earth, cooling down with fresh tropical rain”. The guests are curiously listening, interspersed with loud laughter launched into the air.

Ali knows how to animate his table guests. He describes the red earth of African soil, the hot steaming air ascending after pouring rain. The aroma of humid plants seemingly shouting out their gratefulness.

“Breath in…” Ali tells his guests. “Can you smell it?”

All noses around the table point to their plates and a delighted “aaaaah” rises from it. If everybody really recognizes the smell isn’t sure, but good food always brings relief, isn’t that true?

Another day Ali comes with a somewhat more ‘medical’ soup. “If you eat this soup, don’t be surprised if you will all go to the toilet many times tomorrow!” Screaming people on the table. “Was that really necessary Ali?! Do you mean diarrea?!”

“No! I didn’t mean that!” Laughter. “I meant to say that this soup has a detoxing function because of the ‘red root’ traditional in my home country Chad. We use it to clean our bodies. We select a secret combination of herbs and herbal medicine, we cook with it and that way we clean our intestines. This soup has this function.  

For this R.U.A. edition we set up a community kitchen in Heesterveld. With a big crew of artists, assistants and production crew it was our idea to create a nice moment in the day eating together. We believe that the moment of eating together is a moment of bonding and exchange…

We ask people from the neighbourhood to cook and show the Brazilians and our crew traditional meals from their region of origin. This way the kitchen always brings a surprise. Ali Soeperman is one of the guest cooks of the R.U.A. Kitchen. Before he serves his food, he puts his most beautiful cloths, sprays a nice perfume, takes a dozen of pictures and starts. And every meal comes with a story, and if you wish with a musical or theatre performance. Isn’t that Soeper? 

But as any community kitchen is a place of social gathering, it is also a place for social conflict. Who is cleaning the kitchen after? Who left all this mess here? It’s always the same people who are cleaning and others need a kick on their butts before doing anything! Let’s see if by the end of this edition, participants in the project have learnt to keep the kitchen as clean and beautiful as the paintings in the area!

Soeperman Ali

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