Chinese Olive, Water Chestnut and Green Radish Soup

Why people make this soup

Chinese olives are a year-round find at Chinese or Asian grocers — easy to overlook, yet wonderfully kind to the throat. Traditionally they clear the lungs and ease the throat, generate fluids, and are even called the “fruit of the lungs and stomach.” Water chestnut adds its cooling, phlegm-clearing nature. Together — rounded out with green radish and figs — they make a soup that is kind to a dry-autumn cough and an unhappy throat.