Berry and stone fruit soups are common in the Scandinavian countries and eastern Europe, sometimes with wine, cream or sour cream added.
Mangoes, berries, bananas, cherries, peaches, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupes and pineapple can all be used for fruit soup.

A specialty of the Scandinavian countries, Russia and Hungary was sour cherry soup. The Polish made apricot soup. Danes made orange soup.

A quick look into 10 recent kosher cookbooks shows that five of them have no such recipes. The World of Jewish Entertaining by Gil Marks has chilled fruit and raspberry wine soups; Kosher Delicious by Diana Kastembaum and Penny Brenner has chilled celery and pear, iced honeydew and pear, and spiced peach soups; the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy cookbook, The Kosher Palette, has strawberry wine wild berry soups; Gil Marks’ Olive Trees and Honey has Hungarian wine soup; and Congregation Agudat Achim’s Divine Kosher Cuisine has apple wine, apple rutabaga, chilled cherry and six fruit soups.

Marlena Spieler’s Jewish Cooking, which I consider very Israeli in recipes, has fruit soup and Hungarian cherry soup.

Looking into four Israeli cookbooks, I found only Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel lists Palestinian fruit and melon soups.

Try these for yourselves.

3 cups chopped fruit such as apricots, peaches or plums
1/3 cup sugar
6 cups water
1 tbsp. cornstarch diluted in 1/3 cup water
2 tbsp. lemon juice

Combine in a saucepan the fruit, sugar and water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 15 minutes. Puree in a blender. Add cornstarch and water and lemon juice, return to heat and cook a few minutes until cornstarch is blended.

4 cups sweet black cherries
2 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 thinly sliced lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1 cup dry red wine
whipped cream
 
In a saucepan, place cherries, water, sugar, lemon and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.Make a paste of the cornstarch and water. Add to soup. Cook 10 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Add wine. Chill. Serve with whipped cream.

 
1/3 cup water
3/4 cup apple juice
2 pounds pitted plums
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole clove
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
whipped cream
cinnamon

In a saucepan, combine water, apple juice, plums, cinnamon stick, clove, sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes or until plums are soft.
Remove clove and cinnamon stick. Puree fruit in blender or fruit processor. Pour into bowl, cover and chill. Serve with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, book reviewer, lecturer, food writer and author of kosher cookbooks who lives in Jerusalem.