Pease porridge hot…
When the temperature struggles to make single digits by lunchtime, that’s a good day to make soup for supper.
Yeah, I’m thinking about food again. It seems to happen every day, several times a day in fact, and at this time of year thinking about food gets me to thinking about soup. And when I get to thinking about soup I usually get busy making soup so that by the time the sun’s down and the moon’s up the whole house smells good and I’ll be eating soup for the next several days.
Ahh…life is good! Ain’t it?
How does that old nursery rhyme go… “Pease porridge hot. Pease porridge cold. Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.” Well, I’ve got pease porridge in the fridge. It hasn’t been there nine days, but it’s likely to be a week before I see the end of it. Good soup isn’t something that can be made in small quantities, but then again, who’d want to? It would be a mighty poor excuse for soup if what is served tonight doesn’t taste better tomorrow and even better the day after and the day after that.
I learned the essentials of soup-making from my dad…not that he ever sat me down for formal tutoring sessions or provided detailed written instructions as to the how-longs and goes-intas of that kettle of slow-simmering goodness. No, it was strictly learning by watching…watching him brown up a well-seasoned. meaty soup bone, tossing in chopped onions and celery to sizzle and steam before adding water – how much? ‘Nuff – to start things on the way to a hearty broth that would, in due time, host more onion and celery, rounds of carrot, tomatoes and whatever leftover vegetables might be lurking in the recesses of the refrigerator. Add to that his secret ingredient -- a serious serving of diced rutabaga -- and after a long Sunday afternoon at the back of the stove, come suppertime it would be ready to cook up Mom’s egg dumplings and send us warm and ready into the week to come.
That basic stove-top tutelage served me well in my pursuit of higher education. For a goodly number of us, college was a secular sort of voluntary poverty – academic pursuits providing a respectable cover for putting off adulthood and responsible employment. A lack of regular income coupled with a tendency to disproportionately invest available cash resources in barley pop and other non-nutritive consumables rewarded the ability to combine the most inexpensive of resources in a way to provide day-to-day sustenance – and so I learned that, with a generous dollop of imagination – almost anything can be made into soup. So, for certain, we stocked beans and veggies, macaroni, canned milk, chicken necks and bacon rinds … and when times got truly tough, tap water, coffee creamers and a pocket-full of filched fast-food condiment packets could be turned into an unreasonable facsimile of Campbell’s Cream of Tomato Soup – a dinner menu sure to inspire a sincere search for gainful employment. Preferably in a restaurant…
When the family was young I learned the kids just weren’t that keen on soup and the busy-ness of everyday and demands of the nine-to-five put soup-making on the back burner, so to speak. But now, when on most day’s there’s precious little to demand my straying far from home, putting a pot on to simmer midway through the day gives me an imperative to exercise – if periodically strolling from the keyboard to the kitchen to give the stew a stir can rightfully be referred to as exercise.
It's really cold outside, but here in my kitchen its cozy warm, the air richly scented by cured pork and onion. It’s a good place to be in a world and at a time when good places are at a premium. No, I’m not ignoring the world out there, and neither should anyone else, but for now, for a few minutes, a few hours, I’m just going to let it be “out there.” For now I’m just going to be here, be warm, be content…and make soup.