A quiz to test your souper knowledge

When the weather is chilly, nothing warms you up better than a bowl of soup.

There are many different types of soup, ranging from exotic ones (eel soup, for instance) to cold soups (such as cucumber) for the summer.

Soup's on! But before you put your spoon in the bowl, let's test your souper knowledge.

1. Where does the word soup come from?

2. What are the two most popular soups in the US?

3. In what country do they sometimes serve soup for breakfast?

4. What university football team gave its colors to the Campbell's soup label?

5. In Korea this slithery soup is believed to give those who eat it long life.

6. In Japan this soup can cost you more than $100 a bowl. Watch out, it's Jaws!

7. The oldest soup pot was found in 6000 BC. What type of soup was served in it?

1. The English word "soup" comes from the old word "sop," which referred to a slice of bread used to sop up the juices of roast beef and other food.

2. The most popular store-bought soups in the US are chicken noodle and tomato.

3. In France, they serve a special bread soup known as panade. It is the first soup given to a baby. In schools it's offered to children for breakfast, in place of cereal.

4. The colors of Campbell's soup labels, red and white, come from the colors of the Cornell University football team in Ithaca, N.Y.

5. It's snake soup!

6. In Japan, shark fin soup is an expensive and popular food. (The United States forbids the harvesting of shark fins.)

7. The earliest evidence of someone making soup was from the Near East more than 7,000 years ago. Cultivated grains were boiled in crude pottery vessels then. But the first hearty soup dates back to 6000 BC. Guess what the main ingredients were? Hippopotamus and other animal bones! (Boy, you'd sure need a big soup pot for that!)