An Exaltation of Soups (11 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
“L
ADY
N
IGHT
S
ONG OF
Autumn”
She opens her window
To the autumn moon’s light.
She puts out the candle
And slips off her silken shirt.
Softly she smiles
Within the curtains of her bed.
She raises her body—
An orchid fragrance spreads.
—A
NONYMOUS
,
from China’s Six Dynasties Period,
A.D.
300–600
RANCE
BRETON WEDDING SOUP
SOUPE DE MARIAGE BRETAGNE
M
AXIM
M
E
T
HIS
There are successful marriages, but no blissful ones.
—F
RANÇOIS
D
UC DE LA
R
OCHEFOUCAULD
,
seventeenth-century French writer and moralist, M
AXIM
113
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: What turns without moving?
Serves 6 to 8
I
FOUND THE
inspiration for this recipe in the town of Guimiliau—actually for sale as a book about Breton cooking, in the Ossuary, or former bone house, of Guimiliau’s parish close. Maybe it’s a sad statement about the preemption of old holy places for tourism, yet a think piece, too. Recipe books served up in the place where food and life end physically suggests that the bone house still has the power to feed the spiritual life of the village. And the milk soup? Delicious—sweet and garlicky.
6 to 8 slices stale bread
3 tablespoons butter
4 large onions, very thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
10 cups milk
Salt to taste (preferably
sel de mer,
with its tang of the sea) White pepper to taste
O
P
REPARE
Toast the bread in a 350°F. oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until dry and crisp. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
O
C
OOK
1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot and brown it over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until they are browned. Add the garlic and stir until well browned.
2. Pour in the milk, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until the onions are tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
O
S
ERVE
Arrange the toasted bread in six or eight bowls, depending on the number of guests, and ladle the soup into each, serving immediately.
N
OTE
: Ironically,
soupe au lait
, or “milk soup,” is an expression in France for someone who is short-tempered and boils over easily. Uh, oh.
B
RETON
M
ARRIAGE
C
USTOMS
According to Pierre-Jakez Helias, in
The Horse of Pride: Life in a Breton Village
, “Custom still required that the newlyweds not be left to themselves until the evening of the third day. The first night was dedicated to the Virgin; the second, to Saint Joseph. And then came the ‘milk soup’ ceremony, which was both symbolic and rather spicy. The recipe for that soup varied from one region to another and depended on the young people’s imaginations, but it always included a string of garlic cloves. The milk in the soup proclaimed that the couple’s life together would be pleasant; the garlic warned them to expect many disappointments. The younger guests would generally bring it to husband and wife at the banquet table, heartily singing the song of their ancestors—a sad ballad that was meant to make any bride of good stock weep with one eye and laugh with the other. Then the bom-bardists and bagpipers would strike up another milk-soup tune that was livelier and well known for its tendency to ‘dry away the tears,’ prompting all the people at the tables to loudly rejoice.”
RANCE
BRETON HONEYMOON SOUP
SOUPE À L’OIGNON
“J
OHNNY
”
B
RETON
“J
OHNNIES
”
This honeymoon soup is also called
“la soupe de Johnny,”
dating from the nineteenth century, when Breton onion sellers, or Johnnies, braved the rough waters of the English Channel to sell their wares from door to door in England. They could be spotted from a distance throughout England and into Scotland, wearing black berets and riding bicycles slung with strings of fat onions from the fertile Breton fields that are still producing delicious onions today.
Serves 6 to 8
H
ERE IS A
superb soup that goes to the heart of robust country humor. No sooner do the Breton bride and groom drink their sobering wedding soup than they are escorted by well-wishers straight to the bedroom. Leaving the couple some privacy, the well-wishers return to the kitchen and prepare this soup. Once it is ready—and it takes only about an hour to make—these “friends” carry it back to the bedroom and burst in on the couple, singing,
“L’apportons-nous la soupe, la soupe? L’apportons-nous la soupe à l’oignon?”
or “May we bring the soup, the soup? May we bring the onion soup?”
8 cups (2 quarts) water
Salt to taste
1½ pounds big onions (about 4), quartered
2 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tablespoons tapioca
1 egg yolk
½ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
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, then add the salt, onions, and potatoes. When the water returns to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle in the tapioca and boil gently, uncovered, for 10 more minutes.
2. Puree the soup, solids first, and return to the pot. Taste for seasoning.
3. To finish the soup, whisk the egg yolk into the cream, lighten with ½ cup of the hot pureed soup, then stir into the pot and simmer for a few minutes to thicken.
O
S
ERVE
Stir the butter into the soup as an enrichment, then ladle the soup into bowls and carry it to the lucky couple … and serve the rest to the other members of the party.
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: What am I? I’m a strange creature, for I satisfy women, a service to the neighbors! No one suffers at my hands except for my slayer. I grow very tall, erect in a bed. I’m hairy underneath. From time to time a beautiful girl, the brave daughter of some churl, dares to hold me, grips my russet skin, robs me of my head and puts me in the pantry. At once that girl with plaited hair who has confined me remembers our meeting. Her eye moistens.
Mercy! Can’t guess? Here’s another one with the same answer:
Q
UESTION
: Quick; quite mum; I die notwithstanding. I lived once, I live again. Everybody lifts me, grips me, and chops off my head, bites my bare body, violates me. I never bite a man unless he bites me; there are many men who bite me.
Puzzled? These are riddles #25 and #65 from the Old English
Exeter Book
, made public by Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter in 1072.
