Every Tuesday evening, the Kulturhuset here in Jönköping is the place to be for a bowl of soup and good company. A group of volunteers starts making a delicious vegan soup, salad, and bread at 3pm and by 6pm the house is filled with locals and international students who turn the Kulturhuset into the coziest place in the whole city. Eating soup on Tuesdays has become a weekly ritual for us, so for today’s article we have interviewed someone who helps make that possible.
Who are you and what’s your role in the soup kitchen?
My name is Leif, I live in Jönköping, and I am part of this house as a volunteer, it is basically my hobby. I have been in and out of the soup kitchen for around 6 years and I’ve had multiple roles. I love making vegan food. I work as a chef and I love the vibe & the feeling.
How did the soup kitchen start?
I know how it started, but I wasn’t here myself. It started 17 years ago with 4 people sitting around a table in the coffeeplace. They were saying how boring it is to make food when you’re alone at home. They realised they had a kitchen available at Kulturhuset, so they started to make food together once a week. Other people heard about it and asked if they could join, all of a sudden there were 12 people. These people realised that maybe more people would want to eat soup, so they started the soup kitchen.
It has changed a lot over the years, but it has always been vegan, non-profit, and open for everyone.
What is the concept of the democratic soup?
It is a new concept I came up with around 2,5 years ago now. I create the recipes, since I am very good at calculating amounts of ingredients and what is needed. The concept of the democratic soup was born when I thought “who am I to decide which soup we eat?”. We have always looked at the soup kitchen as an interactive thing. When you visit, you help put the chairs up and do part of the dishes. Everyone is helping out and this increases the interactivity.
With the democratic soup concept everyone is involved in deciding next week’s recipe. The Indonesian soup from last Thursday for example, was a suggestion of a guest who then came to the kitchen the next week to help make it, because it had won the democratic vote.
I have been doing the recipes for a long time now and I am working to make a cookbook out of it eventually, because the goal is to have soup kitchens in other places as well. There now also is one in Råslätt every other wednesday (organised by SSA).
Why do you find it important to organise this soup kitchen?
There are multiple parameters. First of all, from a personal point of view, it’s very fun. It’s my hobby. It’s also quite unique. I’ve never see something like what we have here, develop into something so big. There are soup kitchens in other places, but there some people make the soup and others are the guests, that’s different here. It’s also a big social thing, from here many people and initiatives come and spread throughout the house.
“The social aspect is very important for me.”
What’s the most important part of these soup nights for you?
I really, really, really love that, on any given night, there are people at the soup kitchen that for the rest of the week are not really part of anything, they can be homeless, have addictions, have social phobias and so on, but they come here and it’s not a big deal. It’s very including, that’s what I really love. And now we have a lot of international students, which is great. This is a good place to meet people, like the 2 of you, but also to see more of Swedish society, this is a part of it.
What do you think this means for the community in Jönköping?
It’s a meeting spot. As I said, there are a lot of different types of people who come to eat soup here. I did a calculation, and a year ago, we had 57 different nationalities at the soup kitchen. That’s crazy. And it’s not only international students, we have people from Irak, Iran, Syria, … because it’s a spot where you don’t have to do stuff, but you could, and it doesn’t really matter who you are. If that aspect would disappear I would probably lose some interest.
What do you expect of the people who come to the soup night?
To be inclusive, let anyone sit down next to you, and help if needed. Be nice people and accept a stick (if you know, you know), anything can happen. The feeling here is, be open minded, and if you are an idiot you won’t come.
People have to be helpful with each other.
Soupkitchen @ Kulturhuset, every Tuesday at 6pm.
Writers: Lylia Snoussi & Louise Keymolen
Photography: Lisa Köppel
