Soup kitchen
A soup kitchen, bread line,
meal center or food kitchen is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a below market price. Frequently located in lower-income
neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer
organizations, such as church or community groups. Soup kitchens sometimes obtain food
from a food bank
for free or at a low price, because they are considered a charity, which makes it easier for them to feed the many people who
require their services.
Many historical and some modern soup
kitchens serve only soup with perhaps some bread. But several establishments which
title themselves as a "soup kitchen" also serve other types of food,
so social scientists sometimes discuss them together with similar hunger relief
agencies that provide more varied hot meals, like food kitchens and meal
centres.
While societies have been using
various methods to share food with the hungry for millennia, the first soup
kitchens in the modern sense may have emerged in the late 18th century. By the
late 19th century they were to be found in several American and European
cities. In the United States and elsewhere, they became more prominent in the 20th
century during the Great Depression. With the improved economic conditions that followed World War II,
soup kitchens became less widely used, at least in the advanced economies. In
the United States there was a resurgence in the use of soup kitchens following
the cut backs in welfare that were implemented in the early 1980s.
In the 21st century, the use of soup
kitchens expanded in both the United States and Europe, following the lasting global inflation in the price of food which began in late 2006. Demand for their services grew as
the 2007–2012 global financial crisis
began to worsen economic conditions for those on low income. In much of Europe,
demand further increased after the introduction of austerity-based
economic policies from 2010.
History
The earliest occurrences of soup
kitchens are difficult to identify. Throughout history, societies have
invariably recognised a moral obligation to feed the hungry. The philosopher Simone Weil
has wrote that feeding the hungry when one has resources to do so is the most
obvious obligation of all, and that as far back as Ancient Egypt,
it was believed that people needed to show they had helped the hungry in order
to justify themselves in the afterlife. [1]
Soup has long been one of the most economical and simple ways to supply
nutritious food to large numbers of people. [2]
[3]
Social historian Karl Polanyi wrote that before markets became the world's dominant form
of economic organisation in the 19th century, most human societies would
generally either starve all together or not at all, because communities would
naturally share their food. As markets began to replace the older forms of
resource allocation such as Redistribution, Reciprocity and Autarky,
society's overall level of food security would typically rise. But food
insecurity could become worse for the poorest section of society, and the need
arose for more formal methods for providing them with food. [4]
Christian churches have been
providing food to the hungry since Saint Paul's
time, and since at least the Early Middle Ages such nourishment was sometimes provided in the form of soup. The earliest modern soup kitchen
may have been established in Germany
by Count Rumford in 1790. The Count was a prominent advocate of hunger
relief, writing pamphlets that were read by numerous politicians across Europe.
His message was especially well received in Great Britain,
where he had previously held a senior government position for several years and
was known as "the Colonel". An urgent need had recently arisen in
Britain for food relief, due to its leading role in driving the Industrial Revolution. While technological development and economic reforms were
rapidly increasingly overall prosperity, conditions for the poorest were often
made worse, as traditional ways of life were disrupted. In the closing years of
the 18th century soup kitchens run on the principles pioneered by Rumford were
to be found throughout England and Scotland, with about 60,000 people being fed by them daily in London alone.[2]
[5]
[6]
While soup kitchens were generally well regarded, they did attract criticism
from some, for encouraging dependency, and sometimes on a local level for
attracting vagrants to an area. In Britain they were made illegal, along with
other forms of aid apart from workhouses, by the Poor
Law Amendment Act of 1834.[7]
Prohibition against soup kitchens was soon relaxed, but they never again became
as prevalent on mainland Britain as they had been in the early 19th century,
partly as from the 1850s onwards, economic conditions generally began to
improve even for the poorest. For the first few decades after the return of
soup kitchens to mainland Britain, they were at first heavily regulated, run by
groups like the Charity
Organization Society. Even in the early twentieth
century, campaigning journalists like Bart Kennedy
would criticize them for their long queues, and for the degrading questions
staff would ask the hungry before giving out any soup. [4][2]
[8]
In the United States, the earliest
soup kitchens may have been established in the 1870s. A sharp rise in the
number of hungry people resulting from an industrial recession coincided with
the success of the AICP
and the American branch of the Charity Organization Society in getting
various forms of "outdoor relief" [9]
banned. This resulted in civil society establishing soup kitchens, to help feed
those of the poor who did not wish to subject themselves to the regimented
organisation of the Almshouses favored by the charitable societies. [10]
The concept of Soup kitchens may have spread to the United States from Ireland,
where soup kitchens had been legalized after the Great famine, with the Soup Kitchen Act of 1847. [11]
It is believed the term “breadline” entered the popular lexicon in the 1880s.
It was during those years that a noteworthy bakery in New York City’s Greenwich
Village, “Fleischmann Model Viennese Bakery,” instituted a policy of
distributing unsold baked goods to the poor at the end of their business day.[12]
By the late 19th century soup kitchens were to be found in several US cities.[8]
[5]
The concept of soup kitchens hit the mainstream of United States
consciousness during the Great Depression. One soup kitchen in Chicago
was even sponsored by American
mobster Al Capone in an effort to clean up his image.[13]
With the improved economic
conditions that followed WWII, there was less need for soup kitchens in the
advanced economies. According to sociology professor Janet Poppendieck, hunger
within the US was widely considered to be a solved problem until the mid-1960s.[14]
By the mid sixties, several states had ended the free distribution of federal food surpluses,
instead providing an early form of food stamps which had the benefit of
allowing recipients to choose food of their liking, rather than having to
accept whatever happened to be in surplus at the time. However, there was a
minimum charge and some people could not afford the stamps, leading to severe
hunger.[14]
One response from American society to the rediscovery of hunger was to step up
the support provided by soup kitchens and similar civil society food relief
agencies. There was also extensive lobbying of politicians to improve welfare,
and until the 1980s, this approach had greater impact.[14]
In the 1970s, U.S. federal expenditure on hunger relief grew by about 500%, with
food stamps distributed free of charge to those in greatest need. According to
Poppendieck, welfare was widely considered preferable to grass roots efforts,
as the latter could be unreliable, did not give recipients consumer-style
choice in the same way as did food stamps, and risked recipients feeling
humiliated by having to turn to charity. In the early 1980s, president Reagan's administration scaled back welfare provision, leading to
a rapid rise in activity from grass roots hunger relief agencies such as soup
kitchens. According to a comprehensive government survey completed in 2002,
over 90% of food banks, about 80% of emergency kitchens, and all known food
rescue organisations, were established in the US after 1981. [14]
[15]
A 1985 pilot study found that 95% of
homeless men served by a soup kitchen had vitamin deficiencies.[16]
This shows the need for emphasis on selecting menu ingredients containing
appropriate vitamins, including vitamin C
and B9.
Soup
Kitchens in the 21st Century
Use of soup kitchens has grown
rapidly across the world, following the lasting global inflation in the cost of
food than began in late 2006. The global financial crisis further
increased the demand for soup kitchens, as did the introduction of austerity
policies that have became common in Europe since 2010. Modern soup kitchens are
generally well regarded, though like their historical counterparts they are
sometimes disliked by local residents for lowering the tone of a neighborhood. [15]
[17]
[18]
[19]
As of 2013, the world's largest soup kitchen may be the Golden Temple
in Punjab, which accoding to Croatian Times can serve free
food for up to 300,000 people per day. [20]
Comparison
with front line food banks and pantries
In some countries such as Great
Britain, increased demand from hungry people has largely been met by Food banks,
operating on the "front line" model, where they give out food direct
to the hungry. In the US, such establishments are called "food
pantries"; Americans generally reserve the term "food bank" for
entities which perform a warehouse like function, distributing food to front
line agencies but not direct to the hungry themselves. Instead of providing hot
meals, front line food banks and pantries hand out packages of groceries so
that recipients can cook themselves several meals at home. This is often more
convenient for the end user. They can receive food for up to a dozen or so
meals at once, whereas with a soup kitchen, they typically only receive a
single meal with each visit. [21]
On the other hand, food banks typically have procedures needed to prevent
unscrupulous people taking advantage of them, unlike soup kitchens which will
usually give a meal to whomever turns up with no questions asked. The soup
kitchen's greater accessibility can make it more suitable for assisting people
with long term dependence on food aid. Soup kitchens can also provide warmth,
companionship and the shared communal experience of dining with others, which
can be especially valued by people such as widowers or the homeless. In some
countries such as Greece, soup kitchens have became the most widely used form
of food aid, with The Guardian reporting in 2012 that an estimated 400,000 Greeks visit a
soup kitchen each day. [22]
[11]
[23]
[24]
[15]
The entire wiki link can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_kitchen
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