An Exaltation of Soups (15 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed on the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Heat the butter over low heat in a large soup pot and sauté the onions until they are golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the paprika, then the lentils and bulgur to coat them in the butter.
2. Add the stock, tomato paste, and cayenne; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the bulgur is soft and creamy, about 1 hour.
3. Crumble the mint between your palms into the soup. Stir the soup and remove it from the heat. Let the soup rest for 10 minutes, covered.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish each portion with a lemon slice and one or two mint leaves.
N
ASRETTIN
H
OCA AT A
W
EDDING
P
ARTY
One day, Nasrettin Hoca was invited to a wedding. He arrived in his shabby, everyday clothing, and no one seemed to take any notice of him. He didn’t like this a bit, and slipped out unnoticed. When he returned, he was wearing his best robe and his fine fur coat. At once people greeted him and showered him with compliments. He was given the best seat at the table and urged to eat the tastiest morsels. Smiling, he dipped the sleeve of his fur coat into the soup and said, “Here, help yourself, dear fur coat.” Everyone was amazed and asked what he was doing. “Why, I was just inviting my coat to enjoy this excellent soup since it seems to command so much respect. A few minutes ago, without my fur coat, I wasn’t even noticed, so I think it is the one that deserves the honor of feasting.”
—N
ASRETTIN
,
also known as Nasrudin and Yehá, is a fabled folklore figure throughout the Islamic world, but is specially claimed by Turkey, that says this real-life holy man was born in the village of Ak Shehir (Eskishehr) in the fifteenth century.
DUGUN ÇORBASI
A “H
UMOROUS
” T
URKISH
S
ONG
Your father, O beautiful one! Has so often screamed and shouted,
And lowered the price of your dowry,
And said, “My daughters are beautiful!”
Serves 6 to 8
I
N THE OLD DAYS
, wedding celebrations in Turkey lasted forty days and forty nights. Today, they have been compressed to three at the most, with lots of gift giving and henna painting, but many are just overnight celebrations at a local hotel. Even so,
Dugun çorbasi
continues to mark the celebration. This hearty soup is traditionally served after the ceremony, beginning the banquet.
½ cup (1 stick) butter
2 pounds boneless lamb or beef, finely diced or ground
(mutton is traditional, but lamb is really much better)
2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium onions, finely chopped
8 cups (2 quarts) Beef Stock
4 egg yolks
1 lemon, juiced
G
ARNISH
Bread for 32 small croutons
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon paprika
Cayenne pepper to taste
Ground cinnamon
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list. Also, cut 32 cubes of bread and make them into croutons for the garnish by toasting them in a 350°F. oven until they are dry and crisp, 5 to 10 minutes.
O
C
OOK
1. Melt the butter over low heat in a large soup pot, then add the meat, carrots, and onions and sauté for 10 minutes. Gradually
stir in the stock, scraping up any bits stuck on the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour.
2. Remove the soup from the heat. Beat the egg yolks in a small bowl, then beat the lemon juice into them and slowly stir into the soup. Cover the soup and let it rest while you finalize the soup garnishes.
3. In a small skillet, heat the butter and quickly sauté the paprika and cayenne in it. Take off the heat immediately.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls. Then, swirl scant teaspoons of the paprika seasoning equally into the individual bowls. Top each portion with croutons and a dusting of cinnamon.
N
ASRETTIN
H
OCA AND THE
W
EDDING
S
OUP
On his way to preach at a mountain village, Nasrettin Hoca, the Turkish sage, was lost in an unexpected snowstorm. The next morning, the villagers found him half frozen under an oak tree, some distance from the village inn. When he came to himself, he thanked them for saving his life. “I kept myself warm by watching the glow of the inn’s light,” he told them. The villagers were delighted that they had saved Hoca’s life, and they asked him for a show of appreciation. He agreed and said he would prepare a feast for them. The next night, all the villagers showed up at the inn and sang and danced in happy expectation of the feast that was being prepared for them. Time passed and Hoca continued to rush back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen, but still no food appeared. Finally the villagers lost patience and insisted that he hurry and serve them as they were becoming very hungry. “A festive occasion like this calls for a wedding soup,” he answered.
“Come and see how it is being prepared.” In the kitchen they found a huge cauldron hanging from the ceiling with a tiny candle underneath.
“You don’t expect this candle to cook the soup, do you,” they shouted with annoyance.
“Why not?” Hoca answered. “If the glow of the inn’s light can keep a poor soul in the forest warmed up, surely a candle can cook a cauldron of wedding soup.”
—For
another Nasrettin story, and a little history about this fifteenth-century Sufi Master, see
NASRETTIN HOCA AT A WEDDING PARTY.
T
O
H
ONOR THE
D
EAD
“D
EATH
I
S
S
ITTING AT THE
F
OOT OF
M
Y
B
ED
”
My bed is unmade: sheets on the floor
and blankets ready to fly out the door.
Ms. Death announces she’ll make up the bed.
I beg her not to bother: just leave it like that.
She insists and replies that our date’s for tonight,
Snuggles down and adds that she’s in love and in the mood.
I answer that I’ve made a promise, on the level,
not to two-time life. She says go to the Devil.
Ms. Death is sitting at the foot of my bed.
This wretched Lady Death has got the hots for me
and wants to suck me drier than a fig plucked off a tree.
Now she wants to lie down for a minute by my side
just to sleep a little, I need not be afraid.
From respect, I don’t suggest her reputation’s not so good.
Ms. Death is sitting at the foot of my bed.
—Ó
SCAR
H
AHN
,
twentieth-century Mexican poet
O
NCE UPON A TIME
, ancient man conceived of death as the beginning of a journey to another world. Not extinction, mind you, but a passage. Thus was the life of the spirit born. And no matter how advanced the civilization, like dynasties in Egypt and China, or rudimentary, like Germanic, Turkic, and Amerind tribes, all sent their leaders off on this journey with food to sustain them. Sometimes the food was real; sometimes pictures of it were drawn at the place of burial.
With the rise of monotheistic religions, though, earthly food traditions began to move out of the caskets and onto the tables of the mourners. Why soup? Because it stretched meager food supplies. It was the ideal food in times when community mourning was common, when people didn’t have much food, and when soup could make that food go a long way … and warm people’s bellies besides, either before or after the graveyard ceremony.
The traditional recipes that follow make a generous number of portions to feed the guests who mourn with you. All, however, are excellent soups in their own right and are easy to double for larger gatherings or halve for small family dinners.
RANCE
SAFFRON SOUP
PÉRIGOURDINE LE MOURTAÏROL
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: What is it?
“It has neither mouth, nor teeth, nor bowels;
Yet it eats its food steadily.
It has neither village, nor home, nor hands, nor feet;
Yet it wanders everywhere;
It has neither country, nor means, nor office, nor pay;
Yet it is ready for a fight always.
By day and by night there is wailing about it.
It has no breath, yet to all it appears.”
Serves 6 to 8
I
N
P
ÉRIGORD
, F
RANCE
, this bread soup is traditionally served after funerals. Heavy with saffron, thick, and hearty, it certainly goes back to medieval times. Too bad it’s so closely associated with death: it’s a wonderful—and beautiful—soup, maybe worth resurrecting, say, for occasions when you need a ceremonial dish to put something officially behind you.
1 loaf stale French bread, cut into thin slices
1 cup diced cooked chicken
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
8 cups (2 quarts) rich Chicken Stock
¼ teaspoon saffron, ground or crushed to a powder
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
O
C
OOK
1. Make one layer of bread slices in the bottom of a deep casserole, sprinkle with chicken pieces and carrot rounds, then continue to layer the bread-chicken-carrots until all the ingredients are used, ending with bread on top. Don’t layer to the top of the pot or the soup will splash in the oven.
2. Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan over medium heat. In a small cup, mix the crushed saffron with several tablespoons of the hot broth and let it steep for about 5 minutes, for the saffron color and flavor to be completely released. It will be a dark orange liquid. Stir this into the rest of the stock, then ladle over the casserole. When the top layer of bread slices begins to float, gently add about another cup of broth.
3. Put the casserole, uncovered, in the oven and reduce the heat to 350°F.
4. Check back in about 1 hour; most of the liquid will be absorbed and a gratin will have formed on the top.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into flat soup plates and serve immediately.
“O
BLIVION
”
Vast black slumber falls deep
On my life which expires—
All hopes, go to sleep,
Go to sleep, all desires.
I see nothing; Night fills
Me; remembrances fail
Of past good and past ills.
O the poor sorry tale!
I a cradle in gloom
That a hand seems to brush
In the depths of a tomb:
Silence, hush!…
—P
AUL
V
ERLAINE
,
nineteenth-century French “decadent” poet