I am having potato soup tonight
Can you imagine that?
with a delicious big side salad and lots of fruit as dessert
Vichyssoise? Or something heartier?
I really like vichyssoise, but I tend to have it only in the summer. In the fall and winter, I prefer a more rustic preparation.
vichyssoise is served cold, and it's all blended. Potato soup is hot and not blended.
I realize that's the difference and that epicureans will make that distinction. For some, perhaps quite a few, the English for vichyssoise, particularly if one isn't familiar with the French term is, "cold potato soup" or just "potato soup." I don't know whether folks here are epicureans, gourmets, gastronomes, etc. or whether they are simply sharing what they prepared/ate.
FWIW, my parents' former housekeeper/cook called it potato soup when she made it. As a kid, I was eating vichyssoise for years before I had any idea that it has a "fancy" name, vichyssoise. She'd just say she was making potato soup and ask if I wanted it hot or cold. Now I know she didn't speak French, but I also know she knew what she was cooking and so she just called it by it's main ingredient.
The woman wasn't a chef, but she could "throw down" in the kitchen, easily holding her own with formally trained cooks. Many times she'd help Mom improve upon, adapt or modify a recipe Mom had gotten from a cookbook or magazine. I my mind I can still hear her..."Oh, you're cooking that again. This time, try this....I think you'll like it better." Her suggestions were always an ingredient or a technique, and to this day, I do not know how she knew to suggest the things she did, but I know she wasn't wrong.
