LANDMARK RULING, CASE NO. 2: TEAM SOUP V. TEAM CEREAL
Is cereal a soup?
By a loose reading of the dictionary, maybe, but in real life cereal is not a soup. Merriam-Webster defines soup as a liquid food, especially one with a stock base, often containing pieces of solid food, and cereal in milk sort of fits. But ready-to-eat cereal is not cooked with its milk and few people would order it as soup, so Judge Whiskerton rules that cereal is cereal.
Team Soup is guilty of breakfast identity theft.
Sentence: Pour a bowl of cereal and announce, with feeling, that it is not soup.
The case for Team Soup
Team Soup's first witness is the dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines soup as a liquid food, especially one with a meat, fish, or vegetable stock as a base, and often containing pieces of solid food. The key word is especially. A stock base is typical, not required, and the definition never says soup has to be hot.
Temperature is no defense anyway. Merriam-Webster describes gazpacho as a soup usually made from chopped raw vegetables and served cold. If a cold bowl of raw tomato and cucumber counts as soup, Team Soup asks, why not a cold bowl of grain in milk?
Then there is the eating itself. Cereal is solid pieces floating in a liquid, served in a bowl, eaten with a spoon, and the leftover liquid gets slurped at the end. Team Soup says that if it gets eaten like a soup, the burden of proof is on the other side.
The case for Team Cereal
Team Cereal's best brief comes from law students. A 2020 column in the Virginia Law Weekly, the student paper at the University of Virginia School of Law, gathered the case against soup. Cereal is cereal whether or not it is served with milk, it argued, while soups are almost always cooked or otherwise processed together with their broth, so the ingredients interact.
The column also pointed to how people talk. Its author argued that if someone said they ate soup for breakfast, nobody would take that to mean cereal. One law student quoted in it compared the question to an 1893 Supreme Court case in which the justices acknowledged that tomatoes are botanically fruits but classified them as vegetables, going by the common language of the people.
Even the internet's favorite food taxonomy turns on Team Soup. The Cube Rule, a popular internet joke system that sorts foods by where the starch sits, files a bowl of Lucky Charms in milk under nachos, not soup. It also classifies soup itself as a wet salad, which helps nobody.
The court's ruling
Team Soup did its homework. The dictionary definition is loose enough to let cereal in, and gazpacho proves a soup can be cold. On a technicality, the bowl is open.
But the court rules on how people actually cook and eat. Cereal is not cooked in its milk, the milk never becomes a broth, and people do not look for cereal in the soup aisle. Team Soup is guilty of breakfast identity theft, and is sentenced to pour one bowl of cereal and announce, with feeling, that it is not soup.
How to settle it at your table
Make the other side define soup before you argue. If soup needs cooking, a broth, or a savory flavor, cereal is out. If soup only needs solids in a liquid, cereal is in, but so are cookies dunked in milk, and nobody wants that world.
If you still disagree, take it to court. File both sides and let Judge Whiskerton rule on your version of the debate.
Questions people ask
- Is cereal a soup by definition?
- Loosely, yes. Merriam-Webster defines soup as a liquid food, especially one with a stock base, often containing pieces of solid food. Soups are almost always cooked or processed with their liquid, which ready-to-eat cereal is not.
- Is cereal a soup, a salad, or a sandwich?
- None of them, according to the Cube Rule. That internet joke system lists a bowl of Lucky Charms in milk as nachos, and calls soup a wet salad.
- Why is cereal not considered a soup?
- It is not cooked or blended with its milk, the milk is not a broth, and people do not use the word soup to mean cereal. In everyday language, that settles it.
- Is cereal a soup, yes or no?
- No. It fits a loose dictionary definition, but the court rules on real-world use, and in the real world it is cereal.