So central are soups to Mexican cooking that many home-style Mexican restaurants, even when they've run out of most menu items, will still offer you a beautifully prepared bowl of soup whipped up from an omnipresent meat-based stock. Indeed, soups are the measure of a serious restaurant in Mexico. Soups often launch a comida corrida (elaborate meal) much like salad in the United States. And they're not all the same: Sopas (soups) range from thick, creamy purees to delicate broths, but caldos (broths) are always stock-based. Sopa seca (dry soup), which you'll find on many menus, is not actually sopa at all, but rice or pasta cooked in broth. And then there is the infamous menudo (tripe soup). Legions of tequila-lovers swear by menudo's curative powers on a hangover, but the rest of us are frankly baffled by its popularity.

One of the things I most love about Mexican soups is the ease with which they translate into substantial and healthful one-dish meals in my own kitchen. Their ingredients are simple and accessible, from dried chiles to the basic staples of the American diet. I've learned to whisk hot, low-fat chicken broth into canned chile paste, pour the ruddy concoction over steamed rice, and call it supper. Beans, rice, corn, and light sour cream plump up aromatic broths into full dinners. Soft corn tortillas, cut into strips and baked crisp in the oven, make guiltless garnishes.

Speaking of which, there's a personal art to eating--you might say customizing--Mexican soups. Depending on the type of soup, you pick from the garnish platter your own combination of crumbled queso (cheese), lime wedges, chopped avocado, tomato, onion, radish, cilantro, saffron rice, sour cream, tortilla strips, or toasted chiles.

Think I'll have more rice this time. More chiles. Y mas avocado!

Mexican Soup Glossary

Sopa Caldosa - A popular soup from the Oaxaca region. It features chorizo a coarsely ground pork sausage flavored with chili powder, garlic, and other seasonings.

Sopa de Ajo - This simple garlic soup that uses a procedure similar to that used to make egg drop soup.

Seafood Chilpachole (CHIL-pa-CHOL) - This favorite soup from the Veracruz region is the essence of practicality, generally made not from any one type of seafood, but with whatever is fresh and available at the time.