An Exaltation of Soups (41 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
Over time, too, some cultures just changed the Lenten rules.
The Swiss, with their dairy culture, traditionally eat
Käsesuppe und Fastenspeise
, a thick soup made of water-soaked bread that is cooked in butter and sprinkled with cheese and onions.Romanians can’t resist a dollop of sour cream on
supa de fasole
, dried bean soup.Mexico’s
caldo de vigilia
, a soup of dried fish, tomatoes, cactus, string beans, and potatoes, ends up with creamy eggs stirred in to curd and thicken the soup.
So let’s take a look at a sampling of Lenten soups, the ones I think are delicious in spite of the austerity message they are trying to send. I’ve offered them in portions for six to eight people, to suit a family dinner with possible leftovers, since most just get better by the second day. They can, however, be halved—or doubled—as appropriate.
LBANIA
BEAN SOUP
JANI ME FASULE
Serves 6 to 8
T
HE ORIGINAL, RECIPE
calls for a full cup of olive oil. I’ve halved that, and I think it’s still plenty rich and fruity. All in all, this is a delicious and unexpectedly interesting dish: the creaminess of bean soup accented by a concentrated, savory tomato sauce that is cooled by the dash of fresh minty yogurt. Okay, the yogurt seems to be breaking the dairy rules, but traditions evolve and this is a superb crown for the soup.
2 cups dried white beans
8 cups (2 quarts) water or Vegetable Stock
½ cup olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
4 tablespoons tomato paste
1 generous tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon chili powder Salt to taste
2 generous tablespoons minced fresh mint
Whipped yogurt and minced fresh mint, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
1. The night before, soak the beans in plenty of water.
2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Drain the beans and rinse them. In a large soup pot, bring the water to a boil over high heat, add the beans, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and begin simmering.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat and sauté the onions until they turn yellow and a little transparent, just a few minutes. Reduce the heat to very low, then stir in ¼ cup of the simmering
bean stock, the tomato paste, parsley, chili powder, and salt. Cook for 10 minutes, or until a thick sauce forms. Scrape the sauce into the soup pot, rinsing the skillet with broth and pouring it back into the soup to get every scrap of goodness.
3. Stir in the mint, cover, and simmer for 2 hours, or until the beans are very soft. Season with salt.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls and top each portion with a dollop of whipped yogurt and a sprinkle of mint.
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: What am I?
There is a white egg in a green house,
And if you break open the house you can take the egg out.
But I tell you to a man, no bird ever laid it.
M
OTHER
T
ERESA
, B
ORN
A
GNES
B
OJAXHIU
, O
N
“S
HARING
C
HRIST’S
P
ASSION
”
There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.
Suffering in itself is nothing: but suffering shared with Christ’s passion is a wonderful gift. Man’s most beautiful gift is that he can share in the passion of Christ. Yes, a gift and a sign of His love—by giving his Son to die for us.
And so in Christ it was proved that the greatest gift is love: without Him we could do nothing. And it is at the altar that we meet our suffering poor. And in Him that we see that suffering can become a means to greater love, and greater generosity.
—
D
AILY
R
EADINGS WITH
M
OTHER
T
ERESA
, 1993.
Mother Teresa was born into an Albanian family of deep nationalistic pride and profound faith. When her father died and left the family in poverty in Skopje, she followed her calling as a postulant to Ireland, taking the name of Teresa, after the nineteenth-century French Carmelite nun, then beginning her life of compassion and faith in Calcutta in 1929.
REECE
TAHINI SOUP
TAHINOSOUPA
Serves 6 to 8
I
F YOU LIKE
hummus—that fabulous chickpea-tahini dip for crispy pita bread—you’ll like this soup. It’s creamy looking, tart, and earthy with a nice pasta bite for texture; very pretty in soup plates with that sprinkling of minced parsley, stimulating the appetite but also filling the belly. Many thanks for this recipe to my friend Vivian Efthymiopoulou in Athens, a lawyer and speechwriter by profession, and a food lover and food writer in her heart.
8 cups (2 quarts) water
1 tablespoon salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed or pressed
2 cups soup pasta (any small pasta is fine—noodles, pastina, etc.)
½ cup tahini (a paste of sesame seeds, with the consistency of peanut butter)
1 lemon, juiced
A sprinkling of minced parsley and thin lemon slices, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Bring the water to a boil in a large soup pot over high heat, salt the water, then add the garlic and pasta, and cook until tender. Remove from the heat, but do not drain.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the tahini until it’s creamy, then beat in the lemon juice, which will make it clot. Slowly beat 1 cup of the hot pasta water into the tahini, then another cup—it will turn
white—then pour the tahini mixture back into the soup pot. Be careful not to reheat the soup—it will be spoiled.
O
S
ERVE
Serve the soup immediately, ladling it into bowls, sprinkling with parsley, and serving lemon slices on the side.
A L
ESSON IN
T
HREE
M
ILLENNIA OF
G
REEK
H
ISTORY
Greece is a small ship beaten by North winds and South winds and winds from the East and West.
—N
IKOS
K
AZANTZAKIS
,
twentieth-century Greek novelist
“I
N
C
HURCH
”
I love the church—its
hexapteriga,
the silver of its sacred vessels,
its candlesticks,
the lights, its icons, its pulpit.
When I enter a church of the
Greeks,
with its fragrances of incense,
with its voices and liturgical
choirs,
the stately presence of the
priests
and the solemn rhythm of
each of their movements—
most resplendent in the
adornment of their vestments
my mind goes to the high
honors of our race,
to the glory of our Byzantine
tradition.
—C. P. C
AVAFY
,
twentieth-century Greek poet
TALY
LENTEN BEAN AND VEGETABLE SOUP
MINESTRONE DI MAGRO