Les Krims is a deeply conceptual photographer whose work deliberately provokes one of two responses: outrage or laughter. Making Chicken Soup shows his mother wearing only trousers as she prepares chicken soup. Through this work, Krims suggests that "socially concerned photography" resembles chicken soup: recommended when someone is ill because it may make them feel better, but unable to address the underlying problem.
 
Krims also made the series The Incredible Case of the Stack O'Wheat Murders, depicting nude women as victims in staged, sexualised murder scenes. He used Hershey's syrup as blood and placed a stack of pancakes beside each victim. Buyers of the collection received a bottle of syrup and enough pancake mix to make a stack.
 
Les Krims exerted considerable influence on his students in Buffalo. One, Cindy Sherman, adopted his approach of using staged scenes to comment on modern society, earning considerably greater artistic recognition and financial rewards.
 
Ruhberg, Schneckenburger, Fricke and Honnef (1998), Art of the 20th Century, Volume II. Taschen.
 
Making Chicken Soup is featured in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's The Photobook: A History, Volume II.