An Exaltation of Soups (25 page)

2 cups Chicken Stock

1 tablespoon pressed or finely minced garlic

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

3 tablespoons sweet rice, scrubbed in water and rinsed, or any sticky rice

¼ teaspoon toasted sesame oil

½ teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste

1 small green onion, minced, for garnish

“T
HE
W
ANDERINGS
”

Among rivers and lakes I lay
     sick.
Lying among bamboo groves
     I rested.
Then the King summoned
     me, made me Governor;
I leave for my new post, eight
     hundred leagues away.
O royal favor, imperishable
     grace.
I enter the Yŏnch’u Gate,
     bow toward the South
     Gate,
And find a man holding a
     jade tally.
I change horses at P’yŏnggu
     Station and follow the Yŭ.
Where is Sŏm River? Mount
     Ch’i is here.
O waters of Soyang, whither
     do you flow?
When a lonely subject leaves
     the court,
nothing happens except that
     he gets old.

—C
HŎNG
C
H’ŎL
,
sixteenth-century
Korean poet, also a musician and
politician who fell in and out of
favor during the reign of King
Sŏnjo, ultimately dying in exile

A
MAZING
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
S
TORY
#2

American football great Joe Montana tells the story of the 1979 Cotton Bowl, when he quarterbacked for Notre Dame. The team was down. The city of Dallas was frozen in an ice storm. Montana was so cold that he was fed hot chicken soup in the locker room to stop from shaking. When he went back in the fourth quarter—Cougars 34, Irish 12—he threw a barrage of touchdown passes to finally defeat those Houston Cougars 35–34.

“S
UN
S
ERIES
”

Cosmic elixir of Hermit Prince: Noon
,
In the bottom of this celadon Fish is fish and rice turns Wine, subtler than salt or Cane, embalmer, where none dies
The small death, sleep except By his darkest win, Night.

—V
IRGINIA
R. M
ORENO
,
twentieth-century Filipino poet

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 teaspoons peeled and finely grated fresh ginger

1 garlic clove, pressed or minced

1 small onion, chopped

1 pound boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1 tablespoon fish sauce
(patis, nam pla,
or
nuoc mam),
or more to taste

½ cup sticky (or sweet) rice, scrubbed in water and rinsed

2 cups Chicken Stock

White pepper to taste

Thin diagonal slices of green onion, for garnish

A
MAZING
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
S
TORY
#3

All American faves: Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio ate it with chickpeas, President Jimmy Carter ate it regularly with noodles in the Oval Office, magician David Copperfield likes to eat it backstage out of a Crock-Pot, and Elvis almost drowned in a bowl of chicken soup.

2 cups light Chicken Stock

¼ cup ground pork

½ cup cooked rice

1 tablespoon
nam pla
or other fish sauce

2 eggs, the smallest you can find

G
ARNISH

2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro

1 green onion, minced

1 teaspoon golden fried onion flakes (toss dried onion flakes in a hot oil-slicked frying pan)

⅛ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

F
ISH
S
AUCE

Having grown up in a small Midwestern town, I was already used to driving an hour, each way, for our family’s supply of
nuoc mam.
These days, fish sauce (known as
nuoc mam
in Vietnam and
nam pla
in Thailand) appears on the short list of popular ingredients, and the heady seasoning is now much easier to find. Chefs in search of
umami
, that elusive fifth taste that follows sour, salty, bitter, and sweet, admit to stirring a spoonful of the potent sauce into the day’s special, and home cooks store a bottle of fish sauce next to their black bean paste and wasabi powder. For others, though,
nuoc mam
(literally, “water of salty fish”) is still an intimidating bottle of the essence of fishy-ness.

Traditionally, fishermen toss freshly caught anchovies with sea salt, pack the fish into large wooden vats, and then cover them with woven straw mats. Rocks or logs mounded on the vats weigh down the fish. Left undisturbed for six months to one year, the fish slowly ferment, giving off a clear, amber liquid that will later be drained and bottled.

—T
HY
T
RAN
,
the W
ASHINGTON
P
OST
, January 29, 2003

A
MAZING
C
HICKEN
S
OUP
S
TORY
#4

International faves: Israeli prime minister Golda Meier gave her personal recipe to Dan Cooke, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, who then passed it on to some 200,000 American television viewers. Yasser Arafat practically lives on chicken soup, preferring it to most other foods. Dominican Republic president Joaquin “The Doctor” Balaguer ate it every night with his sisters and lived to the age of ninty-five.

T
RUE
C
ONFESSIONS: THE
S
EARCH FOR
N
OODLE
S
OUP WITH
C
HICKEN IN
I
T

I spent most of my college semester in London battling the British version of the flu. The perpetual cold, damp weather didn’t help much. Nor did my flatmates’ legendary partying, which won my living room the nickname “Club Flat 10.” The labels on over-the-counter cold medicines in the drugstore might as well have been written in Greek. So, during a particularly miserable day, I resorted to calling my mother in New Jersey to ask for advice. “Chicken soup,” was her reply. “Preferably hot and clear.”

It was a simple prescription, but difficult to fill in a country that likes soups creamy. (I hadn’t seen a soup that escaped the blender since I arrived at Heathrow.) I consulted
England on $45 a Day
, and located a famous kosher restaurant across town. It was clear across London, but I figured there could be no better place to get some nice Jewish (hot, clear) chicken soup, so I headed out.

By the time I traveled an hour on the tube, I was feeling decidedly worse. At least the scene in the restaurant was welcoming. A long, glass deli case filled with knishes, kugels, pickled herring, chopped liver, and other delicacies stretched across the room. Salamis hung from the ceiling over the case. Seated at a small table, I thought, “This is a little piece of home that slid across the Atlantic.” Ah, the Motherland. I smiled at a group of Hassidic men in a nearby booth. They ignored me.

I turned my attention to the menu. To my horror, no chicken soup was listed. I asked the waitress, “Do you have soup?” She replied, “Soup of the day is minestrone.”

Minestrone? My sense of being home away from home was shattered. Miserable, I slurped my mediocre minestrone soup. I coughed and blew my nose loudly, hoping subconsciously that a little Jewish grandmother hiding in the kitchen would take pity on me and come up with some chicken soup. No such luck. The waitress gave me a dirty look and the Hassidic men continued to ignore me. So much for the Motherland.

When I got back to the flat I called my mother again and whined pathetically, “There is no hot, clear chicken soup to be had in London.” “Well, try wonton soup,” she said. “That will work.”

Yes. Wonton soup. I can do that. Chinatown is a mere eight blocks away! I started out in the general direction of Chinatown. By this time, my fever was raging and I was probably borderline delirious. Even though I had made the trip thirty times, I got lost and found myself in a creepy-looking alley. When I turned to retrace my steps I noticed a small, dingy looking restaurant. Ducks and a variety of other critters hung in the grease-stained window. Beside the door was taped a faded menu, and on that menu I spotted “Soup.” I scanned down the list:

Eureka!

Inside, the restaurant was dark, the air heavy with cigarette smoke. A Chinese family sat, talking and eating at a table toward the back. Otherwise the place was empty.

A young women approached, herded me toward a table and slapped down a menu. It barely resembled the one in the window and was missing the all important entry: “Noodle soup with chicken.” I asked the girl if it would be possible to get the noodle soup with chicken. She looked at me blankly. I tried again, “Could I get the noodle soup, with chicken in it?” The girl shook her head in frustration and disappeared.

A few minutes later an older women appeared, clearly the mother. She asked me what I would like. I cleared my very hoarse voice. “I would like noodle soup,” I said, pointing to the appropriate menu item, “with chicken in it.”

Confusion. Blank stares.

“Please, I just want the noodle soup with chicken.”

The women disappeared, and I heard increasingly enthusiastic chatter coming from the back of the room. I was next approached by a small man, clearly the patriarch, who looked about 110 years old. He was flanked by a younger man wearing a messy apron. The old man smiled broadly and asked me what I would like.

I spoke very slowly, “I would like the noodle soup—with chicken in it.”

“Noodle soup with chicken in it?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right! Noodle soup with chicken.”

He smiled again, then turned and yelled at his younger companion in Chinese. The old man tapped me on the shoulder and nodded, then disappeared. The volume of chatter coming from the back of the room continued to rise. I didn’t care. All I could think of was how much I wanted that noodle soup with chicken in it.

It arrived about ten minutes later, escorted by an entourage consisting of the waitress, her mother, the patriarch, a few cousins, and pretty much everyone else in the restaurant. A huge bowl was placed in front of me containing noodle soup with a chicken in it—the whole chicken, feet and all. They had courteously hacked the bird into quadrants with a cleaver. To eat this, I was provided with chopsticks. Then the group gathered around to watch.

I was there, working on that soup, for what seemed like about six hours. I woke the next morning in my flat with no recollection of how I got home but feeling surprisingly better. Absent the delirium, and no matter how much I looked, I never found that restaurant again.

—N
INA
M
ROSE
,
attorney and speechwriter, Washington, D.C.