Soup kitchen

Sir Benjamin Thompson, painted by Thomas Gainsborough, 1783

The earliest modern soup kitchens were established by the inventor Sir Benjamin Thompson, who was employed as an aide-de-camp to the Elector of Bavaria in the 1790s. Thompson was an American loyalist refugee from New England and an inventor who was ennobled by Bavaria as Count Rumford. The Count was a prominent advocate of hunger relief, writing pamphlets that were widely read across Europe.[5]

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 hunger relief, due to her 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, Wales, and Scotland, with about 60,000 people being fed by them daily in London alone.[5]

While soup kitchens were initially well regarded, they attracted 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 1834.[lower-alpha 1]

During the Irish famine of the 19th century, in which as many as one million people may have died, the British government passed the Temporary Relief Act (also known as the Soup Kitchen Act) in February 1847. The Act amended the restrictions on the provision of aid outside the workhouses for the duration of the famine and expressly allowed the establishment of soup kitchens in Ireland to relieve pressure from the overstretched Poor Law system, which was proving to be totally inadequate in coping with the disaster.[6]

Prohibition against soup kitchens was soon relaxed on mainland Britain too, though they never again became as prevalent 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 20th 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.[5]

Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen opened by Al Capone in Depression-era Chicago, Illinois, the US, 1931

The concept of soup kitchens spread to the United States from Ireland after the Great famine and the concomitant wave of Irish emigration to the New World.[6] The earliest ones were 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"[lower-alpha 2] 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.[7]

Chilean women preparing soup kitchen meals in 1932

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.[8] By the late 19th century soup kitchens were to be found in several US cities.[9][10] 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.[11]

With the improved economic conditions that followed the Second World War, there was less need for soup kitchens in advanced economies.[12] However, with the scaling back of welfare provision in the 1980s under president Reagan's administration, there was 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.[12][13] Presently, Catholic Charities USA of Colorado Springs, Colorado, founded by The Sisters of Loretto, provides food to upwards of 600-700 persons or more per day, and has been doing so since 1985.[14]

Every Sikh shrine has a religiously sanctioned moral and humanitarian obligation to serve and provide hospitality, provisions, nourishments and meals to any man, regardless of race, creed, religious profession, identification, or affiliation. At the Langar (the temple's community run free kitchen), food is served to all visitors regardless of faith, religion, or background. Only vegetarian food is served and people eat together as equals. The institution of the Sikh langar was started by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. It was designed to uphold the principle of equality between all people regardless of religion, caste, colour, creed, age, gender, or social status. In addition to the ideals of equality, the tradition of langar expresses the ethics of sharing, community, inclusiveness, and oneness of humankind.

The Harmandir Sahib at night

The world's largest (and longest running) soup kitchen is run at the Sikhs' holiest shrine, Golden Temple in Punjab, India, which according to Croatian Times can serve free food for up to 100,000 - 300,000 people every day.[18] (This number has since increased.) It was started in circa 1481 A.D by Guru Nanak and has continued ever since, except for two brief breaks.

Members of the United States Navy serve the homeless at Dorothy's Soup Kitchen, Salinas, California in 2009

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 food out directly to the hungry. In the USA, 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 directly 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.[lower-alpha 3]

Food banks typically have procedures needed to prevent unscrupulous people taking advantage of them, unlike soup kitchens which will usually give a meal to whoever 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 disabled, pensioners, widowers, homeless and ex-homeless. In some countries such as Greece, soup kitchens have become 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.[6][13][19][20][21]