Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
An Exaltation of Soups (7 page)
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Place the kelp and cold water in a soup pot and bring just to a boil over medium heat. Remove the kelp (you can reserve it for one more stock-making session).
2. Return the broth to a boil over medium heat, stir in the bonito, and immediately remove from the heat. Let it sit for 2 to 3 minutes, then strain (also reserving the bonito for one more round) and use as needed. The stock will keep for a few days in the refrigerator.
T
IP:
Many Asian markets sell
dashi
stock granules
(hon-dashi).
ONCENTRATED
S
TOCKS
Stock is heavy, it spills, it spoils, it’s cumbersome to store, and it’s not easy to carry around if you’re on the road. Thus the evolution of today’s bouillon cubes and soup bases. But the history of concentrated stocks is ancient, “portable soup” being a mainstay of nomadic cultures nearly a thousand years earlier. A fourteenth-century Italian chronicler, in fact, described how, in medieval times, the Magyar warriors who swept into Europe on horseback from the Urals made their instant soup: they’d boil heavily salted beef in huge kettles until it fell off the bone, then cut it into small pieces, dry it in the sun or in an oven, grind it to a powder, and carry it in bags so that, on a campaign, all they had to do was boil up some water to make a proper soup. A recipe from the eighteenth century follows on the next page.
T
HE
H
ISTORY OF
C
ONCENTRATED
S
TOCK
It’s downright romantic. Count Rumford (1753–1814), an American-born physicist, inventor, and all-around dashing character, is credited with popularizing “portable soup” while in the service of the Duke of Bavaria. Using the highest technology of the time, he mass-produced a fully nutritious, solidified stock of bones, inexpensive meat byproducts, and other ingredients; fed the Duke’s army with it; then transferred his findings to the private sector—effectively inventing the concept of municipal soup kitchens. The sensation this concentrate caused is captured in the 1773 journals of Scotsman James Boswell, best known as literary groupie to Samuel Johnson: “A page of my Journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.”
—
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, September 13, 1773
“P
ORTABLE
” S
OUP
To make a Veal Glue, or Cake Soup to be carried in the Pocket, take a Leg of Veal, strip it of the Skin and the Fat, then take all the muscular or fleshy Parts from the Bones; boil this Flesh gently in such a Quantity of Water, and so long a Time, till the Liquor will make a strong Jelly when it is cold: This you may try by taking out a small Spoonful now and then, and letting it cool.
Here it is to be supposed, that though it will jelly presently in small Quantities, yet all the Juice of the Meat may not be extracted; however, when you find it very strong, strain the Liquor through a Sieve, and let it settle; then provide a large Stew-pan, with Water, and some China Cups, or glazed Earthenware; fill these Cups with Jelly taken clear from the Settling, and set them in a Stew-pan of Water, and let the Water boil gently till the Jelly becomes as thick as Glue; after which, let them stand to cool, and then turn out the Glue upon a piece of new Flannel, which will draw out the Moisture; turn them once in six or eight Hours, and put them upon a fresh Flannel, and so continue to do till they are quite dry, and keep it in a dry warm Place: This will harden so much, that it will be stiff and hard as Glue in a little Time, and may be carried in the Pocket without Inconvenience.
You are to use this by boiling about a Pint of Water, and pouring it upon a Piece of the Glue or Cake, about the Bigness of a small walnut, and stirring it with a Spoon till the cake dissolves, which will make a very strong good Broth. As for the seasoning part, every one may add Pepper and Salt as they like it, for there must be nothing of that Kind put among the Veal when you make the Glue, for any Thing of that sort would make it moldy…. So may a Dish of good Soup be made without Trouble, only allowing the Proportion of Cake Gravy answering to the abovelaid Direction: Or if Gravy be wanted for Sauce, double the Quantity may be used that is prescribed for Broth or Soup.
—
The Lady’s Companion, 1753
LARIFYING
S
TOCK
Nothing is more elegant than a crystal-clear hot broth or cold jellied stock that shows off the design of an exquisite porcelain bowl, such as the jellied consommé recipe. Clarified stock, in fact, is the very soul of soups served in classic French cuisine—and it is easy to accomplish, if time-consuming.
Homemade stock at room temperature (if your stock is hot, cool it down with ice cubes)
1 egg white, slightly beaten, and 1 crumpled eggshell per 4 cups of stock
O
P
REPARE
Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Pour the stock into a large soup pot and stir in the egg whites and eggshells. Put the pot over very low heat and very slowly, without stirring, bring the mixture just to a simmer. As the sediments coagulate with the egg whites, a thick scum will rise to the surface of the liquid. Don’t succumb to the temptation of skimming the pot. Just push the scum aside so you can keep an eye on the simmer of the stock—anything close to a boil will disturb the clarifying process.
2. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, then carefully remove the pot from the heat and let stand for anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour.
3. When you are ready to collect the stock, just push the scum aside and ladle the stock through a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth that have been dipped in hot water and wrung out.
4. If you’re not going to use the stock immediately, cool it down quickly, uncovered, and then either refrigerate it or freeze it for later use.
E
NRICO
C
ARUSO
S
INGS FOR HIS
S
OUP
In a newspaper interview, the world-famous operatic tenor Enrico Caruso recounted the following story about his life at age twenty-one in 1894: “I went into the artillery and my major wanted to know who was that fellow who was singing all the time…. One great day he took me to a friend, a wealthy amateur musician, who listened to me and taught me the tenor roles in
Cavalleria Rusticana
and
Carmen.
One day I did not sing at all. The major sent for me. ‘Why did you not sing today, Caruso?’ ‘I cannot sing on greasy soup.’ Next day, my soup was strong and there was no grease on it.”
S
OUP
T
ALES FROM
V
ERSAILLES
The French king Louis XIV, the Sun King, was known to eat four bowls of clear soup with both lunch and dinner, commissioning his chefs to create a consommé so clear it would reflect his royal image. Alas, some seventy years after his death, this same clear consommé was the last thing his grand-daughter-in-law Marie Antoinette could choke down before she was led to her destiny with Monsieur le Guillotine on October 16, 1793.
“THE MEANING OF SOUP”
The meaning of soup has been lost.
Life moves slowly, with a warm, oozing tread,
It smells like river mud, like cows and slow earth.
The woman under a man knows that smell.
An odor as nourishing as good soup,
A nutritious weeping, a few patient days
(Here is where we eat, drink, breathe, and make love.)
Must I explain? Is there anyone who doesn’t know this?
Life is a heavy humus, sweet and black.
It has the heat of the loins and insists on shedding tears.
It is the dammed up river of the woman we love,
The ripe fruit of exhausted hours,
And a job, a house, an impulse, a routine.
Because all of us live and life is just like that.
It is not love, or happiness, or ideas, or the future.
It is just a hot, thick, dirty soup.
—G
ABRIEL
C
ELAYA
,
twentieth-century Spanish poet
T
O
C
ELEBRATE AND
R
ECOVER FROM
G
IVING
B
IRTH
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
—W
ILLIAM
B
UTLER
Y
EATS
,
twentieth-century Irish poet,
from “A Prayer for My Daughter,” 1919
O
NCE UPON A TIME
, a baby is born. Any baby. Hallelujah! No matter how dire the time or circumstances, it’s inevitably a time of joy… and also a time of ritually sustaining mother and child with gentle foods, to bring them into health and strength.
Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
’Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning’s back,
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.
—W
ILLIAM
B
UTLER
Y
EATS
,
“A Prayer for My Son,” 1928
In times past, of course, “prenatal care” and postpartum nutrition were largely in the hands of women—family members, maids, and midwives. Moms-to-be “ate for two” when food was plenty, and made do when it wasn’t, but customarily they got preferential treatment in expectation of the value a healthy baby would eventually bring to the family.
Most soups for new mothers are meant to be served the first weeks after delivery—the critical time when these women need to regain their strength and produce rich breast milk … and lots of it.
Not surprisingly, these soups look a lot like traditional soups for the sick and convalescent: lots of meat, lots of digestible things, soft and bland but packed with protein. It is good advice to this day to feed new mothers this way, like so much folk wisdom and so many traditions that have stood the test of millennia.
The recipes that follow, with the exception of
Gee tong
, are offered in small “at home” portions, meant to be prepared quickly and served immediately, though they could easily be doubled to serve family members and guests.
Gee tong
, of course, is specifically designed to be reheated for the new mom and to last a week.
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: “What is it that a mother loves dearly, but that won’t look at her and won’t talk to her?”
Q
UESTION
: What am I?
“Unseasoned, uncooked, and served up at no table. Yet emperors, kings, and princesses all eat this food.”
