My soup tastes like vinegar, smells like spew!

kaye120, May 14, 12:47am
I made a big batch of veg soup and when it was cooking it gave off a strong smell like spew. Now it tastes vinegary. Yuckkk. What on earth could have gone wrong. Should I have precooked the onions. Its only got Carrots cellery onion parsnip and bacon pieces. It will have to go out to the ducks.

karenz, May 14, 12:51am
Maybe the bacon was 'off'!

beaker59, May 14, 1:39am
I know what you mean vegetable soups that don't get any caramelisation at the start smell like that to me too (I thought it was just me!) I find its improved by frying the onions and bacon too if not a big piece at the start and or using a good beef or chicken stock. Cellery always does it to me. Fortunately the soup improves with long cooking also and standing overnight.

dollmakernz, May 14, 1:45am
OOH Yuck it sounds as though it's fermented!

pickles7, May 14, 2:20am
Been left out of the fridge, and has gone off.

davidt4, May 14, 2:26am
How long did you leave it unrefrigerated!It sounds seriously fermented.

kaye120, May 14, 2:29am
it wasnt out of the fridge at all. It went straight into the pot from the food processor andonto the logburner to simmer then I boiled the crap out of it for hours hoping it would improve it. It never cooled down at any stage.

letitia, May 14, 2:40am
I don't think I'd risk eating it.It sounds as though the bacon must have been rancid.

gabbysnana, May 14, 2:43am
too much parsnip!

kinna54, May 14, 6:13am
definitely. The barley or soup mix may have been off. What type of pot! aluminium! Often in the older style pots a reaction can be caused by leaving the soup to cool and stand in the pot and it will ferment.

beaker59, May 14, 6:50am
read the origonal post, not off!

rainrain1, May 14, 10:02pm
I would guess that you don't have a strong enough meat/stock base,

nfh1, May 14, 10:16pm
Yuck soup sounds like it needs binning but the thread title is horrible!I am such a sensitive soul.

elliehen, May 14, 10:34pm
Me too. It's almost put me off that lovely old word 'soup'.

John Ayto in 'An A-Z of Food and Drink' says, “The etymological idea underlying the word soup is that of soaking. It goes back to an unrecorded post-classical Latin verb suppare soak, which was borrowed from the same prehistoric German root (sup-) as produced in English sup and supper. From it was derived the noun suppa, which passed into Old French as soupe. This meant both piece of bread soaked in liquid and, by extension, broth poured onto bread. It was the latter strand of the meaning that entered English in the seventeenth century. Until the arrival of the term soup, such food had been termed broth or pottage. It was customarily served with the meat or vegetable dishes with which it had been made, and (as the derivation of soup suggesst) was poured over sops of bread or toast (the ancestors of modern croutons). But coincidentally with the introduction of the word soup, it began to be fashionable to serve the liquid broth on its own, and in the early eighteenth century it was assuming its present-day role as a first course.”

sarahb5, May 15, 12:33am
OP didn't list barley or soup mix in the ingredients .