soup base or pasta sauce?

[pstock]

so, on one side of the cooker tonight I was sweating onions, then adding some chopped garlic before adding chick peas and roasted red peppers.

and on the other side I was... sweating onions, adding chopped garlic before adding roasted cubed butternut squash.

One was destined (in my mini-mind) for a pasta sauce; the other was intended as the base for a quick soup. To one I would add cream (maybe to both) and chicken stock or milk.... to the other... not much. Parmesan? oil?

and then I started wondering "what really is the difference?" how far is either of these concoctions from being a soup OR a pasta sauce. What keeps a tomato-based pasta sauce from becoming tomato soup?

Is it really just a question of thickness/thinness? or am I just missing something fundamental? (and for what it is worth, I think I know how to cook. I just don't think about it too hard.)

Just wondering. I'll be curious to hear any thoughts.

Peter

[RobertCollins]

  pstock said:

so, on one side of the cooker tonight I was sweating onions, then adding some chopped garlic before adding chick peas and roasted red peppers.

and on the other side I was... sweating onions, adding chopped garlic before adding roasted cubed butternut squash.

"what really is the difference?"

Peter

←

Yeah,what is the difference? Years ago, I used to make a brown off the ground beef, add sweated onion, add tomatoes sauce[ actually, my mom used tomato sauce I used chopped tomatoes],...

Then I split the load and froze. The bases are the same, part to either. The other part TO EITHER . Did I use this base for Chili or pasta sauce? How about both. Spice/Herb the thawded portion and you have...

Then the parts were some sort of pasta sauce , spiced and herbed this way and other wise spiced and herbed that way.

I find it so cool that we find that so many things have the same base.

[pstock]

  RobertCollins said:

  pstock said:

so, on one side of the cooker tonight I was sweating onions, then adding some chopped garlic before adding chick peas and roasted red peppers.

and on the other side I was... sweating onions, adding chopped garlic before adding roasted cubed butternut squash.

"what really is the difference?"

Peter

←

Yeah,what is the difference? Years ago, I used to make a brown off the ground beef, add sweated onion, add tomatoes sauce[ actually, my mom used tomato sauce I used chopped tomatoes],...

Then I split the load and froze. The bases are the same, part to either. The other part TO EITHER . Did I use this base for Chili or pasta sauce? How about both. Spice/Herb the thawded portion and you have...

Then the parts were some sort of pasta sauce , spiced and herbed this way and other wise spiced and herbed that way.

I find it so cool that we find that so many things have the same base.

←

I'm interested because for as long as I've travelled, eaten, and cooked I've sensed a battle between French and Italian cooking (in my view it was: French = over-manipulation of mundane ingredients, e.g. pate; Italian = minimal preparation of perfect raw materials). And here I see them basically walking the same path.