Your soup is melding (Guna Asons)
Guna Asons: There are soups that need to be prepared the day before they are served. They have to stand overnight — especially cold soups. Then people say, “Your soup is melding”. When I was young, I didn’t eat cold soup. It was something unfamiliar that I had to learn to appreciate.
The story was recorded and submitted by Dagnija Roderte.
Everyone loves “frikadeļu” soup (Vilma Bērziņa)
Vilma Bērziņa: “Frikadeļu” soup — it’s loved by children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. But Gunārs (my son-in-law) makes it the best. We also enjoy red beets, especially my husband Elmārs. We grew them in our garden, made salads, and cooked beet soup.
The story was recorded and submitted by Dagnija Roderte.
Salmon solyanka (Pēteris Pūtelis)
Pēteris Pūtelis: Dambrovskis Anniņa made a marvellous solyanka. She prepared it with salmon. Oļģerts and Anniņa had a small restaurant on Massachusetts Street. It was a poor neighbourhood, but the restaurant was always well attended. Anniņa used to cook solyanka for fraternity members at “Frater Freešteiks” (the next day, for hangovers). Anna never revealed her soup recipe to anyone, and she passed away with it.
The story was recorded and submitted by Dagnija Roderte.
Freak-adelian Soup in Australia
Soups JANUARY 2026 Freak-adelian Soup in Australia Melbourne, Australia The ambassador of “Taste of home” Liene Brūns, together with her friends Evelīna and Valters, is cooking frikadeļu zupa (meatball soup) in Melbourne, Australia. https://youtube.com/shorts/bGjSLRwSOFY?feature=share January stories Freak-adelian Soup in Australia Frikadelle soup (Solvita Dambrovska) Soups in refugee camps in Germany post WWII. Photographs from the “Latvians Abroad” museum collection. Soups for Charity (Anita Jurevica) Squirrel Sorrow Soup “Saknes un zari” (Marika Mccue) Zupa Zupa (Elizabete Ludvika) Australians say no, we only eat soup in the winter (Līva Ulmane) TLP soups! Emptied the pot in one go (Ilze Atardo) Frikadeller soup – when you have a cold (Anda Cook) Crystallised ginger piparkūkas (Maija Liiv) Latvian School of Chicago piparkūku working bee Now I can give my recipe to everyone! (Dzidra Ādamsone) Pīrāgi making outside Latvia: photographs from the collection of the museum “Latvians Abroad” One recipe in three versions (Ilma Wilkinson) We send pīrāgi by mail! (Dace Gulbe un Inta Grunde) Pīrāgi is a comforting food for me (Māra Goldsmith) It’s not Christmas without pīrāgi (Anda Cook) It smells of braised sauerkraut! (Juris Sinka) The decorating process takes seven hours (Anita Kupcis-Clifford) Grandma’s pīrāgi in Rome (Austra Muižniece) My family pīrāgi recipe – with commentary (Aivars Sinka) Communal baking in Shanghai (Ilma Wilkinson) No posts found
Frikadelle soup (Solvita Dambrovska)
On December 13th 2025, the Jutland Latvian weekend school “Mazputniņš” celebrated Christmas. Vegetable meatball soup was prepared, and the meatballs had already been made the day before by Solvita Dambrovska together with her husband.
Soups in refugee camps in Germany post WWII. Photographs from the “Latvians Abroad” museum collection.
The collection of the “Latvians Abroad” Museum preserves life stories that include memories of soup during refugee journeys and in refugee camps in Germany after the Second World War. The collection also contains photographs depicting food queues in the camps, where people—often holding homemade containers—stand in line for soup distributed from the camp kitchen. Several photographs show Scout and Guide groups eating soup during camps, while others depict soup as part of meals served in camp schools.
Soups for Charity (Anita Jurevica)
Anita Jurevica talks about a charity initiative—soup lunches—that she organizes every year in Minneapolis, USA. For 17 years, this initiative has become a testament to warmth, togetherness, and Latvian traditions.
Squirrel Sorrow Soup
During the period I lived in Germany, a new name emerged for one of my favorite Latvian dishes — sorrel soup. At that time, in everyday life I mostly spoke English, and someone once asked me what I was making. I said it was “sorrel soup.” Since “sorrel” sounds a bit like “sorrow” or even “squirrel” (after all, who knows what those strange Latvians are really stewing in their kitchens 😄), ever since then sorrel soup has been “squirrel sorrow soup” to me. It’s one of my go-to autumn dishes when I’m abroad, because I crave something dark, thick, and hearty — and fresh sorrel is rarely available. In Latvia, though, I would eat it more in spring, when the first greens appear. Traditionally, you’d have some leftover grains in the pantry — barley, pearl barley, potatoes, maybe a piece of smoked meat, and so on.In Eastern European shops you can sometimes buy sorrel in jars, or I bring it with me from Latvia. If you have sorrel, you can gather everything else around it, even if the ingredients aren’t exactly the same as back home. Dried or smoked ribs elsewhere might not be quite the same, but you can get very close to the familiar flavor.
“Saknes un zari” (Marika Mccue)
Marika talks about how “sakni un zari” came about. She also recalls a vivid moment when beet soup was cooked together with Lithuanians, Estonians, and Ukrainians, where at the end everyone had the opportunity to taste and compare the different versions of beet soup.
Zupa Zupa (Elizabete Ludvika)
Zupa Zupa founder Elizabete talks about how the idea to sell soups came about. Find out which soups are her favorites and which ones are the most popular!