The history of soup goes back many thousands of years. Its genesis may have been for tenderizing tough vegetables and extracting the last bits of meat off of bones. That was, of course, a time when nothing eatable would be allowed to go to waste. Today it is difficult to find the organ meats which were a staple for many, especially for poorer folks. One historical story has it that wealthy landowners in the South ate mostly the meat from their cooking pots and left the "dregs" for the house and field hands. As it turns out, this leftover part of the soup contains most of the nutrition, and the workers may have been healthier than their employers or their owners.