Jacques, the soup vendor

Writing about my memories on the horrible school canteen of my youth I remembered ‘Jacques Soup’. He was a soup merchant selling fresh soup out of his car from door-to door in the small town I lived. And he delivered also the soup at the school refectory.

And I remembered that his car had a huge bronze bell to let the house wives know that he was on his way and that they had to prepare their pots and be standby at their door!

He was always dressed in a spic and span white coat complete with shirt and tie.

But that was almost all I got out of my deep memory as help was just around the corner. I emailed the ‘Aarschot Historical Society’, whom has as objective to keep the history of our small town alive for the generations to come and the next morning I had a reaction and a few hours later a second one, with picture this time.

The next morning a new update. One of the board members of the society had contacted, the daughter of ‘Jacques Soup’ as everybody called him with extra information and another picture!

This story is about the time that there were merchants whom delivered milk, eggs and butter at your doorstep, that beers and soda was delivered once a week and that newspapers were delivered rain or shine every single day early in the morning and even the knife grinder passed by at your doorstep to sharpen your kitchen tools.

  

What Jacques Soup did was a different business model! Looking back I would say he was a visionary entrepreneur and invented ‘convenience food delivered at your doorstep’. A food truck avant-la-lettre.

Jacques Soup was on the road every morning. I remember that in the back of his car he had those huge 50 liter milk cans (or was it 25 litres) with his soups. Two or even three different ones every single day.

I suppose he had his fixed circuit of streets he was passing by every day and it was always around the same time he was using his bronze bell to announce he was coming. I remember that when we still lived in the city proper that my grandmother bought soup and that the soup was still a bit warm when Jacques filled up her pot with his huge ladle.

That ladle was, of course as seen through the eyes of a five or six years old boy, huge! Now I understand that it was a liter ladle, the selling unit of his soups. Or was it a half liter ladle?

From Maggy, his daughter, I learned that her dad was in this business since the middle of the 1950-ties for nearly 15 years. Evolution was normal that more and more woman had their own careers and were no longer in their houses when Jacques Soup passed by. And not only have that, I even thought this was the period that soup became less popular. We married in 1976 and I can’t remember we ever made soup (that means before the kids were born). I am convinced that the soup business died slowly based on this two societal evolution.

But Jacques was an entrepreneur. When the soup business went down he started a new convenience food business! He started to distribute, door-to-door as he was used to do, frozen products. The 1970-ties was the era that people got fridges and freezers in their houses. Frozen vegetables, fries and soups (!) were the answer for the mama’s when after work they had to put a warm meal on the table!

One thing is for sure. Jacques Soup is still living in ‘memory lane’ as Johan of the Historic Society calls it. I am convinced that nearly all of the sexagenarians (people in their sixties) of my hometown can all tell stories about Jacques Soup!

I like to thank Andre and Johan from the Aarschot Historical Society (www.heemkundeaarschot.be) for their help and the photo materials. A big ‘Thank You’ for Maggy too. She took the time to answer the enquiries of a guy living in the Philippines and wanting to write a story about Jaak Soep on his blog. Thank you all, I owe you!