Instructions: Nothing warms the body like hot soup on a cold day. Likewise, nothing cools quite like chilled soup on a sizzling summer day.

A spoonful of chunky gazpacho or a smooth puree of fruit or vegetables cools the body all the way down.

But first we need to get past the not uncommon notion that cold soup is somehow - for lack of a better word - wrong. Perhaps a comparative cruise through the worlds cuisines will help.

Spain has the best known of all cold soups: gazpacho; France has vichyssoise; Scandinavians like chilled fruit soups; Mediterranean societies savor yogurt-and-cucumber concoctions; Latin America produces a velvety avocado soup; and Russians enjoy a cold version of borscht.

Convinced? In the United States, cooks make versions of all these and more.

Some of the more popular feature split peas, melons, fennel and watercress.

What makes chilled soups so inviting to the cook is their ease of preparation. In contrast to hot soups, which may require long simmering, clarifying or other steps, many chilled soups call for nothing more than a knife and cutting board (or blender or food processor for purees).

Most are healthy and low-fat, using produce for the bulk of their ingredients. Theyre usually thickened by pureeing fruits or vegetables rather than by adding cream or a roux. Lisa Cowden, author of "Ladle, Leaf & Loaf" (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), said cooks shouldnt be fainthearted when preparing cold soups, because seasonings tend to lose their character when temperatures go down.

"Chilled soup cant be wimpy," she writes. "Low-key and low temperature add up to low-grade in my opinion. Without distinctive qualities, chilled soups just arent very interesting." For a spectacular dinner finale, try two soups - one featuring raspberries, the other blueberries - that are poured simultaneously (and slowly) into opposite sides of the same bowl.

They have enough body that theyll stay separate, then you make a little swirl through them. The colors are gorgeous.

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