An Exaltation of Soups (29 page)

1. Bring several cups of water and the carrot to a boil in a saucepan over high heat and cook until the carrot is tender. Remove the carrot, let it cool for a minute, then slice it into very thin rounds and mix the slices with the lemon juice and oil. Refrigerate.

2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the onions and garlic, cover, and sweat until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, increase the heat to medium, and cook until thickened, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

2. Stir in the basil and thyme, salt and pepper, and cayenne. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated, then puree in a blender or food processor. At this point, you may refrigerate the soup until you’re ready to serve it. Overnight just makes it better.

3. When you’re ready to finalize the soup, whisk the onion mixture with the milk and cream in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low, season with salt and pepper, and add the carrots with their marinade.

4. Stir in the oysters, liquor and all, and poach until just opaque, about 2 minutes.

Ladle the soup into flat soup bowls and garnish with the basil leaves, or swirl a teaspoon of pesto through each portion.

THE TRIPLE WHAMMY
S
AFFRONED
T
OMATO
-F
ENNEL
S
OUP

Serves 2

HAVE ALL YOUR
other blandishments failed? Here is the soup of last resort, containing a concentration of
three
fabled aphrodisiac foods. And, once again, it’s meant to be served as a one-course supper right before the victim is dragged off for a passionate kiss.

Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.

1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium-low heat, then add the onion, fennel dice, and garlic; cover and sweat for about 10 minutes.

2. Pour in the wine and steeped saffron, then stir in the basil. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes with their juice and the water. Return to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes, partially covered.

Add salt and pepper, then stir in the additional basil and the reserved fennel fronds. Ladle the soup into bowls and have at it.

O
NCE UPON A TIME
, man invented a reliable way to feel happy—for brief periods, anyway.

In prehistoric times, intoxication was pretty hit or miss: Stone Age women likely stumbled on plants and mushrooms with active hallucinogens and brought them back to the cave to rave reviews. Academics speculate about psychotropic-inspired “parietal” art at paleolithic sites like Lascaux, and opium seeds have been discovered at Neolithic sites. Opium use, in fact, is well documented in Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome—primarily in religious ceremonies. That goes for cannabis (marijuana) in ancient Scythia too, where Herodotus, in Book IV of his
Histories
, reports that tribe members would creep into a tent, throw cannabis seed on redhot stones, inhale the smoke, and “howl with pleasure.”

Man-made intoxicants, like beer and wine, are another story. These required the miracle of chemistry: yeast fungi fermenting the sugars of natural foods into alcohol; humans tasting the result, then figuring out how to duplicate what began as an accident. Man’s first cocktail was probably made from the fruit and sap of the date palm in the Mideast. Then, around the fourth millennium
B.C.E.
, barley was fermented into beer and Mesopotamians danced in their byways. Beer is a big topic in early Sumerian and Akkadian texts, and no doubt it was a huge favorite with everyone in the area. It was just a matter of time before people figured out how to ferment the sugars in honey into mead, grapes into wine, apples into cider, and milk into koumish. By 400
B.C.E.
, physician Hippocrates of Cos was
using some “boiled-down wine” remedies, a good sign that brandy and other distilled liquors were in the making.

In anthropologist Richard Rudgley’s words, “the universal human need for liberation from the restrictions of mundane existence is satisfied by experiencing altered states of consciousness.” Or, as Bob Dylan articulated in “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” “E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y must get stoned.”

What’s incredibly human, though, is that people everywhere slapped rules on the use of alcohol. It has always been generally considered poor form to drink indiscriminately. Intoxicants were immediately tied into religious ceremonies and the rituals of life: asking God for help, coming of age, getting married, celebrating victories and special occasions, achieving new spiritual insight, adamantly forgetting one’s misery, or celebrating the advent of a new year. But, of course, intoxication has always come with a price. No matter what the nectar or how sweet the experience, you inevitably pay with a hangover.

Believe me, this is not a new problem. Earliest man pondered the question: How can we get the “tox” out of “intoxicants”? And what was the answer? You guessed it: soup.

Cabbage soup has been a hangover remedy since 350
B.C.E.
, as referenced in the third book of the
Problemata
(ascribed to Aristotle) and demonstrated vividly in
A.D.
200, when Athenaeus’
Deipnosophistai (Sophists at Dinner)
observed, “Now that the Egyptians really are fond of wine this is proof, that they are the only people among whom it is a custom at their feasts to eat boiled cabbages before all the rest of their food; and even to this very time they do so.”

Then, in medieval times, the Medical School of Salerno was already recommending the hair of the dog:

Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini

Hoc tu mane bibas iterum, et fuerit medicina

If an evening of wine does you in
,

More the next morning will be medicine.

Then there are more modern soup remedies, with the main ingredients often being stomach linings. Partly this is an association thing:
your
stomach hurts, so it will be better if you consume the tender stomach—the tripe—of a placid cow or sheep. It may not sound too appetizing, but it’s tested folk wisdom. In any case, tripe soup is a nearly universal nostrum, from El Salvadoran
sopa de patas
, Mexican
menudo
, and Puerto Rican
mondongo
to Italian
busecca;
from Polish
zupaz flaczow
and Georgian
khashi
to Greek
pastas
and Turkish
iskembe çorbasi
, all the way to Balinese
soto babat
and Chinese
moh thong leung.
Korean
Haejangguk
, sold on street corners, combines all of the old standbys: cow-bone soup with tripe, cabbage, black pepper, bean sprouts, herbs, and spices that make you sweat like a pig. The aspartic acid in the bean sprouts reputedly removes poisons from your bloodstream.