An Exaltation of Soups (58 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
INLAND
CHRISTMAS DRIED FRUIT SOUP
SEKAHEDELMÄKEITTO
Serves 6 to 8
T
HIS TRADITIONAL DISH
of dessert soup is a lovely way to finish Christmas dinner. It’s
so
pretty with all the different color fruits in a crystal broth, sweet and thick, mounded with whipped cream and sparkling with sugar. But the proof is in the tasting—creamy, sweet-tart, and crunching sugar in every mouthful. Hard to beat.
F
ATHER
C
HRISTMAS IN
F
INLAND
Joulupukki
lives in a fell in eastern Lapland, far, far away in Korvatunturi (apparently the Finnish Broadcasting Company placed him there in 1927 and he’s been headquartered there ever since). Some say the mountain has three ears, which is how Father Christmas knows what you’d like for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, he comes to your door with his helpers, he knocks, and he enters your house bellowing, “Are there any good children here?” When he gets the right answer, he is jolly and asks for a song. Then he hands his basket full of presents to his helpers to hand out to you and he leaves. After all, he’s got a lot of other homes to visit before the night is done. Only after the presents have been handed out may you sit down at table to enjoy the Christmas Eve meal.
Joulupukki
, which means “Yule Buck,” actually started out life in pagan times as a ferocious, demanding goatlike creature. In December, when days were shortest, pagans in Finland would hold festivals to ward off evil spirits, certain members of the tribe putting on goatskins and horns and scaring all the children with their dancing and their demands. Only with the arrival of Christianity and over many, many years did this loathsome creature soften into a loving Father Christmas.
1 pound dried mixed fruits
8 cups (2 quarts) water
¾ cup sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
Dash of salt
3 tablespoons potato starch
4 tablespoons cold water
Whipped cream and sugar sprinkles, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
1. The night before, rinse the mixed fruit in cold water and leave to soak overnight in the water.
2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list, to include whipping the cream for the garnish.
O
C
OOK
1. Strain the fruit, reserving the soaking liquid, then pour this liquid into a large soup pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the sugar to dissolve, then add the soaked fruit, cinnamon sticks, and salt. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until done, 15 to 20 minutes. (At this point you can take the soup off the heat and hold until you are ready to serve dessert.)
O
S
ERVE
1. Reheat the soup over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and transfer the solid fruit pieces to a tureen or distribute evenly among small dessert soup bowls, removing and discarding the cinnamon sticks.
2. Dissolve the potato starch in the cold water and slowly pour into the bubbling fruit juice, stirring constantly. Then let the juice thicken to a boil without stirring.
3. Remove the soup from the heat immediately and pour over the fruit. Garnish with great dollops of whipped cream and sprinkle sugar on top.
REECE
LEMON SOUP
SOUPA AVGOLEMONO
A
NCIENT
G
REEK
S
OUP
B
OASTINGS
But what I have accomplished in this [cooking] art of mine, no play-actor has ever accomplished at all. This art of mine was an empire of smoke. I was a sour-sauce maker at the Court of Seleucus ….
—D
EMETRIUS
in
Areopagile,
quoted in Athanaeus’ D
EIPNOSOPHISTAE, A.D.
200
Serves 6 to 8
A
N EXQUISITE AND
provocative soup for lemon lovers. Nothing’s prettier than a paper-thin lemon slice sprinkled with minced fresh parsley floating in an egg-thickened milky broth, but one spoonful of its savory tartness and your appetite is raging. Of cultural interest: this soup is very pure and simple compared to its Lebanese cousin.
8 cups (2 quarts) Chicken Stock
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
⅔ cup raw long-grain rice
¼ cup lemon juice
3 raw egg yolks
Salt and white pepper to taste
Paper-thin slices of lemon and minced fresh parsley, for garnish
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Bring the stock to a boil in a large soup pot over mediumhigh heat and add the lemon zest and rice, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes.
2. Whisk the lemon juice and the egg yolks in a small bowl.
3. Stir the lemon sauce into the simmering soup until it clouds and thickens a bit. Season with salt and pepper.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into bowls and float a round of lemon on each portion, then top with parsley. Serve immediately.
J
UDAS
R
EFLECTS ON THE
F
IRST
C
HRISTMAS
… A
LREADY IN A.D.
32
Jostling in [Judas’s] mind were the signs and prodigies which had surrounded this youth from his birth, and even before: how, when the marriage candidates were assembled, the staff of Joseph—among so many others—was the only one to blossom. Because of this the rabbi awarded him to Mary, exquisite Mary, who was consecrated to God. And then how a thunderbolt struck and paralyzed the bridegroom on his marriage day, before he could touch the bride. And how, later, it was said, the bride smelled a white lily and conceived a son in her womb. And how the night before his birth she dreamed that the heavens opened, angels descended, lined up like birds on the humble roof of her house, built nests and began to sing; and some guarded her threshold, some entered her room, lighted a fire and heated water to bathe the expected infant, and some boiled broth for the confined woman to drink….
—N
IKOS
K
AZANTZAKIS
,
twentieth-century Greek novelist, from T
HE
L
AST
T
EMPTATION OF
C
HRIST
UNGARY
CHRISTMAS WINE SOUP
BORLEVES
Serves 6 to 8
A
SUPERB CHRISTMAS
Eve dinner tradition, this elegant soup is nicely dry, light, and lightly spiced, just heady and festive enough to lead off a holiday dinner and spark the appetite for good food and good conversation.
7 cups good-quality dry white wine (Hungarian
Hárslevelü
is traditional)
1½ cups water
1 cup granulated sugar
8 whole cloves
2 small cinnamon sticks
8 egg yolks
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Pour 6 cups of the wine and the water into a large soup pot with the sugar, cloves, and cinnamon and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
2. While the soup is heating, beat the egg yolks with the remaining 1 cup wine in a medium bowl until they are creamy. When the broth is at a boil, drizzle 1 cup of it, little by little, into the egg-yolk mixture, beating constantly so the egg yolks don’t curdle.
3. Incorporate a second cup of the hot broth into the eggs, then beat the egg-yolk mixture into the remaining broth. Whisk constantly while reheating and let the soup thicken a bit.
O
S
ERVE
Strain the soup, then ladle it into small elegant bowls or cups. Serve immediately with your best silver spoons.
H
ECTOR
B
ERLIOZ AND THE
R
ÁKÓCZI
M
ARCH
George Lang, in his
Cuisine of Hungary
, repeats a favorite local story about this French composer visiting Somló and sampling the wines. In a state of intoxication, Berlioz heard a gypsy girl, also fired by the local wine, play an impassioned air on her violin. Inspired by it, he later developed it into his famous March. No surprise about all that inspiration. The 1802 vintage of Somló wine was said to be so potent that it could be lit with a match and burn like brandy.
H
UNGARIAN
W
INE
Hungarian wine is possibly the best kept secret in the world. Hungary’s vines have been under cultivation in Hungary for thousands of years—Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius directed his legions to plant them throughout “Pannonia” in the third century
A.D.
—and Hungary’s wine is planted just as firmly in the national character. Consider, for example, that its national anthem thanks God for Hungarian wines, from the poet Ferenc Kölcsey’s “Hymn”:
Ears of ripe corn wave to us
Across Cumanian meadows,
Tokay grapes extend to us
Honey dripping shadows
Likewise, an old Hungarian proverb says that a man needs only four things to be happy in this world: wine, wheat, peace, and a beautiful wife … with wine in first place.