An Exaltation of Soups (30 page)
Read An Exaltation of Soups Online
Authors: Patricia Solley
UT
W
HY
I
S
S
OUP THE
U
NIVERSAL
N
OSTRUM
?
In fact, soup goes to the heart of alcohol impacts. Because it’s liquid, it helps rehydrate poor dehydrated you, flushing out poisons and plumping the brain back up. Because it’s nutritious, it raises your blood-sugar levels, calms your stomach, and helps you stay energized while the alcohol metabolizes in its own sweet time. As for specific ingredients, well, who knows? There are lots of claims, but not much science. The bottom line is, if you want to chase that headache, no matter where you are in the world, think soup, eat soup. Thus I’ve stipulated big potfuls of the stuff in the recipes that follow. The more the better.
ENMARK
BEER SOUP
OLLEBROD
Serves 6 to 8
T
HIS SOUP IS
effective because it’s belly calming—and also because it’s a bit of the hair of the dog. One thing only: you’ve got to be planning your debauch the night before to take advantage of this recipe, as the bread needs an overnight soaking. But once the soaking is done, this takes only a minute to cook and eat. And did I mention it is sweet-tart, soft on the palate, and, yes, belly-calming comfort food?
A D
ANISH
D
RINKING
S
ONG
Vi skaler med voies venner og dem som vi kender og dem som vi ikke kender. dem skaler vi med. Skal! Skal!
We drink to our friends and to those whom we know and to those whom we don’t
know
we drink to them too.
Cheers! [raise drink] Cheers!
[lower drink]
12 slices pumpernickel bread, broken by hand into small pieces
6 cups dark ale (preferably Danish
hvidtol)
1 cup water
2 lemons, juiced and rind grated Sugar to taste
G
ARNISH
Heavy cream, plain or whipped
Small pinches of cinnamon
O
P
REPARE
1. The night before (or a minimum of 3 hours ahead), place the bread pieces in a deep saucepan and pour in the ale mixed with the water.
2. Prep the lemon.
O
C
OOK
Put the saucepan with the bread mixture over low heat and simmer until it thickens. Puree in a blender, adding the grated lemon zest and juice and sweetening to taste.
O
S
ERVE
Return the soup to the saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium-high heat. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve immediately, topped with plain or whipped cream and a pinch of cinnamon.
B
EER
S
OUP FOR
B
REAKFAST
Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712–1786) loved this traditional northern European beer soup for breakfast, calling it
Heisse Biersuppe.
In fact, in 1777 he enacted a formal proclamation against coffee for breakfast, reasoning that if beer soup was good enough for him, the monarch, it should be good enough for the common folk.
RANCE
LES HALLES ONION SOUP
SOUPE
à
L’OIGNON GRATINéE
Serves 6 to 8
HERE IS PARIS’S
answer to
la guele de bois—
that “wooden mouth” you get when you pour too much alcohol through it. It’s a marvelous soup, rich and fragrant, packed with restoratives, and very simple to make, in the spirit of rushing a bowl to one in pain. Speaking of which, some bars are savvy enough to have onion soup on the menu. A former U.S. diplomat told me about one bar in Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire, that had a barman-in-training who would traverse the length of the bar with scissors, snipping the molten cheese strings from the customers’ lips so the cheese would fall back into the bowl.
L
ES
H
ALLES AND THE
H
ANGOVER
S
YNDROME
I’d always heard about onion soup at Les Halles, the central market of Paris, sold as a hangover remedy in its all-night cafés, but now I’ve seen it, pictured in James Whistler’s
Soupe ä Trois Sous
(1859), showing four bums dozing at two tables over wine and cups while a soulful-eyed, sharp-bearded
boheme
on the left stares straight over his empty onion soup plate at the artist.
½ cup (1 stick) butter
8 cups thinly sliced onions
3 tablespoons flour
12 cups (3 quarts) Beef Stock
1 cup brandy
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon pepper, or to taste
G
ARNISH
Grated Gruyère cheese
Dry toasts of French bread drizzled with olive oil
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
O
P
REPARE
1. Prep the ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
2. Prepare the garnish: cut 6 to 8 slices of French bread ½ inch thick and toast them in a 350°F. oven for about 15 minutes, until they are dry toast. Drizzle each with a little olive oil and set aside. Grate the cheeses and set aside.
O
C
OOK
1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot over very low heat and add the onions, stirring constantly. Sweat for 5 to 10 minutes, covered, until they are soft and golden, then sprinkle them with flour, stirring, and add 2 cups of the stock. Turn up the heat to medium high and stir until the mixture is thickened.
2. Add the remaining stock and the brandy. Return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Season with salt and pepper.
O
S
ERVE
Ladle the soup into individual, oven-resistant bowls and top each portion with a handful of Gruyère cheese. Place a piece of toast on each portion, sprinkle with the Parmesan, then run the bowls under a broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is melted. Carry to the table immediately on a tray—those bowls are hot.
P
LAYWRIGHTS
P
IXILATED IN
P
ARIS
British playwright Harold Pinter recalls the night he spent carousing Paris with his friend Samuel Beckett, the Irish playwright, in the 1960s. “He was showing me his Paris and after a night of drinking he took me to Les Halles for a bowl of onion soup at 4
A.M.
I collapsed with fatigue and awful stomach cramps and fell asleep on the table. When I woke, as if from a dream, Sam had gone, so I slept some more. Over an hour later he returned with bicarbonate of soda and said simply: ‘For your stomach.’ It was then I knew that this was a man who understood everything about the human condition.”
UATEMALA
SPICED TOMATO-EGG SOUP
CALDO DE HUEVO PARA LA GOMA
Serves 6 to 8
W
OW
! P
IQUANT AND
astringent until you bite into that rich and creamy egg. This is a beautiful and unusual soup, quite nice with corn bread as breakfast on a cold day (make the broth the night before) or as a warming lunch, using two eggs per person instead of one.
R
IDDLE
M
E
T
HIS
Q
UESTION
: What am I?
In marble walls as white as milk
Lined with a skin as soft as silk;
Within a fountain crystal clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this stronghold,
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.
4 large ripe tomatoes or 8 canned, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped, reserving the juice for another purpose
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 hot chile peppers, seeded and minced (serrano or jalapeño is nice)
8 green onions, white and some green part, finely chopped
2 cups fresh epazote leaves, finely chopped (or hydrate 2 tablespoons sifted dried epazote leaves in ½ cup hot water for 30 minutes and mix with 1 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley; if you can’t find the dried epazote, substitute 2 cups of the finely chopped parsley with 1 tablespoon dried oregano)
8 cups (2 quarts) water
2 teaspoons salt
6 to 8 eggs (1 per person)
