An Exaltation of Soups (62 page)

Serve the soup very cold. When you’re ready to take it to the table, mix it one last time, then pour it into cups and garnish each portion with your choice of fruit, such as sliced and seeded grapes, apple slices, or melon balls, or small shrimps or slivered toasted almonds.

U
NITED
S
TATES
NEW ORLEANS SEAFOOD GUMBO
C
REOLE
/C
AJUN
G
UMBO

Serves 6 to 8

A
LTHOUGH GUMBO TRADITIONS
in New Orleans are most strongly and longly associated with Lent’s
gumbo z’herbes
, rich seafood gumbo is extraordinarily popular at Christmas along the Cajun Louisiana coast. It’s said that the original French settlers from Acadia—they were driven out of that Canadian colony by British troops in the 1750s during the so-called French and Indian War—were adapting their native French fish stews to local ingredients that often had come by way of Africa. The word
gumbo?
Bantu for “okra.”

This recipe is literally groaning with seafood—a richness appropriate for such a high holiday. It’s a heavenly combination of textures and flavors. And it’s a beautiful dish, earthy colored like the bayous but punctuated with the traditional red and green colors of Christmas.

Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.

1. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a heavy pot (ideally iron), then sprinkle the flour on it, whisking like crazy as it cooks to a dark milk-chocolate color.

2. As the roux approaches this color, reduce the heat to medium and start adding the vegetables, stirring hard with a wooden spoon. Let cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are tender, then pour in the stock, season with the thyme, salt, pepper, and cayenne, and stir until the roux is dissolved. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour.

3. In a separate saucepan, bring the water to a boil over high heat, stir in the rice, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and set the rice aside. It will hold until the final assembly.

4. Stir the okra into the broth. Re-cover the pot and let cook for about 10 minutes. Then add the shrimp and cook for a few minutes, until they turn pink, then toss in the crab by handfuls. When the crab is warmed through, pour in the oysters with their liquor and cook just until their edges curl. Remove from the heat immediately.

Spoon ½ cup of the cooked rice into each bowl and ladle the gumbo on top. Garnish each portion with a little parsley. Serve immediately.

O
NCE UPON A TIME
, Professor Maulana Karenga, then chairman of California State University’s black studies program, had a dream. It was 1966 and Karenga wanted to find a way to unite African Americans in a powerful way—to connect this diverse group with a common identity, common values, and common culture.

This was not an easy thing to do. African Americans came to America as slaves and, later, by choice—from Africa, from the Caribbean, from places all over the globe. Very specific and diverse cultural traditions were brought into the mix or lost altogether. New traditions have been created, totally unconnected to the past, mostly on regional levels. Old tribal religions have been largely replaced with Christianity and Islam. How on earth to reconcile all the differences? How to find a common culture that all would embrace?

Dr. Karenga reached into the heart of humanity to bring forth Kwanzaa, all the way back to the earliest rhythms of civilization, when all peoples set their clocks to nature’s cycles and the harvest.

Kwanzaa
means “first fruits of the harvest” in the East African dialect Kiswahili. There is no festival by that name in any African country, but the features of Kwanzaa would be very familiar to people who celebrate harvest festivals across that continent.

Celebrated from December 26 through January 1, the seven days of Kwanzaa are a time of feasting and gift giving, but they are
most especially a time to reflect on family and community values—seven of them, one for each day of celebration.

On the first day of Kwanzaa, families put the
kinara
, or seven-branched wooden candleholder, in an honored spot. Seven candles
—mishumaa saba—
are placed in it: three red candles on the left, in memory of the blood shed by so many over so many years; three green candles on the right, in hopes for the future; and one black candle in the center, symbolizing unity and pride. Each night, families gather to light the candles and discuss the meaning of the day, and then begins a feast of traditional dishes, often beginning with an African soup.

C
AMEROON
BITTER-LEAF SOUP
N
DOLÉ

Serves 6 to 8

T
HIS NATIONAL DISH
of Cameroon originated with the Douala people along the Atlantic coast and spread throughout the region. It started out as a simple soup with the bitter leaf known as
ndolé (Vernonia amygdalina)
, which was used medicinally both to stimulate the digestive system and to reduce fevers. Then, as a taste for the leaf developed, it became the soup of choice for marriages and baptisms, but a soup also stuffed with the most precious meats and fish in honor of the occasion. The simple recipe below, popular for everyday meals, is common to Nigeria and Cameroon, and still serves to stimulate the appetite, though it substitutes other greens for the nearly unobtainable
ndolé
leaf. It’s a rich and pretty soup with its generous garnish of crushed peanuts contrasting with the dark green leaf and bright red tomato bits.