Some notes on the name - Portable Soup
The Name Portable Soup
I chose the name Portable Soup because it has no immediate association with any of the specific services planned for the Community.
The name has no pluralities, it is difficult to corrupt - the only variation could be PotableSoup, www.potablesoup.com which is also registered to us and will automatically send people to the main site.
Some testing through my newsletter has shown the name Portable Soup is memorable, a strong reaction was found to the name, most comments were that "it had nothing to do with the business I was in" which was villa rentals in France - this is a good thing as villa rentals is not the function of the business.
It is twelve letters long, which is slightly longer than many "popular" Web2 names - this is an advantage over fashion words like Bebo and Squidoo etc - it is a four syllable name - again this is unusual for Web2 names, most are two or three syllables - a longer name tends to imply Quality services, or established and successful companies (Abercrombie and Kent - Lloyds of London - HSBC - British Airways)
The domain names Portable-Soup.com and PortableSoup.mobi have also been acquired.
The name has good and relevant historical connotations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_soup
Block of British Navy Portable Soup 250 years old - the Goverment "Broad Arrow" is clearly visible
Portable soup was a kind of dehydrated food used in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a precursor of the later meat extract and bouillon cubes, and of industrially dehydrated food. It is also known as pocket soop or veal glew. It is a cousin of the glace de viande of French cooking. It was long a staple of seamen and explorers, for it would keep for many months or even years. In this context, however, it was a filling and nutritious dish. Portable soup of less extended vintage was, according to the 1881 Household Cyclopedia,
...exceedingly convenient for private families, for by putting one of the cakes in a saucepan with about a quart of water, and a little salt, a basin of good broth may be made in a few minutes.
Portable soup is held to have been invented by Mrs Dubois, a London tradeswoman. Together with William Cookworthy, she won a contract to manufacture it for the Royal Navy in 1756.
The naval authorities hoped that portable soup would prevent scurvy among their crews. Therefore they allotted a daily ration to each sailor beginning in the 1750s. Captain Cook was convinced of its efficacy and carried it on both his South-Seas voyages.
Lewis and Clark on their 1804-1806 expedition into the territory of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase carried portable soup. According to his letter from Fredericktown, Ohio on April 15, 1803, Lewis purchased the soup from Francois Baillet, a cook in Philadelpia. He paid $289.50 for the 193 pounds of portable soup stored in "32 canisters". Lewis carried it with him overland to the embarkation point on the Ohio River.
However, by 1815, with the publication of physician Gilbert Blane's On the Comparative Health of the British Navy from 1779 to 1814, the efficacy of portable soup for promoting the health of sailors was found lacking. Opinion shifted in favor of canned meats, by a process invented in France in 1806.
It is mentioned in some very popular literature - especially that of Patrick O'Brian
The Thirteen-Gun Salute, p. 63:
In this lakelike peace Standish, who had eaten his two eggs the evening before and had spent a calm night, spent his time eating first three pints of portable soup, thickened with oatmeal, and then a large quantity of ham; this recovered his spirits wonderfully, and although he was still feeble he gasped his way into the maintop, where Stephen and Martin were to explain the operation of getting under way.
The Commodore, p. 97:
...So much for our official supplies. But I have added a certain number of comforts - they are in the cases on the left, together with a chest of portable soup infinitely superior to the Victualling Board's second-hand carpenter's glue...
Portable Soup is the subject of famous quotations
"A page of my Journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion."
-- James Boswell
Recipe
"A soup made from cattle offal, flavored with salt and vegetables and cooked down to hard, gluey cakes. With water added, it was used to make green vegetables boiled in it more palatable and to protect against scurvy." (A Sea of Words, 2nd ed., by Dean King).
"Take calves' feet, 4; the lean part of a rump of beef 12 pounds; fillet of veal 3 pounds; leg of mutton 10 pounds. These are to be boiled in a sufficient quantity of water and the scum taken off. When the meat becomes very tender, the liquor is to be separated from it by expression; and when cold, the fat must be carefully taken off. The jelly-like substance must then be dissolved over the fire and clarified with five or six whites of eggs. It is then to be salted to the taste and boiled down to the consistency of paste, when it is poured out on a marble table and cut into pieces, either round or square, and dried in a stove room. Then perfectly hard, they should be put up in close vessels of tine or glass. Powered rice, beans, peas, barley, celery, with any grateful aromatice may be added; but for the use of the sick it should be made plain. It may be simply made either of beef, mutton, or veal".
May 16th 1768 From Captain James Cook Diaries
Sir,
The portable soup which the Dolphin was supplied with, was excellent in its kind; a quantity of it was thrown into the peas on banyan days, which gave them a very grateful taste, but the ship's company could never be brought to eat it in their burgoo, and, indeed, I think sugar is a much better mixture with that part of a seaman's diet.
When we came into the Straits of Magellan we found it necessary to allow the ship's company a breakfast extraordinary when sellery could be got, as the Scurvy had just begun to appear; for, then, the stomach is in such a state it requires something of light and easy digestion, as well as things lightly fermentative; and tho' portable soup may not possess those quantities alone, in a diseased stomach, yet when mixed with fresh succulent herbs, & ground wheat, it made the mix more palatable, and they liked it better with, than without it.
Perhaps, without Portable Soup, exploration and discovery may not have happened - with www.PortableSoup.com a new age of discovery may be starting.
Logo For Portable Soup Website