By Janice Lindsay
“In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson.
“In the fall, a home cook's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of soup.” – Me.
Soup doesn's appeal for hot-weather dining, but it bubbles into thought as the air cools and daylight hours lessen. Soup, chowder, stew. It's such a comfort to smell it simmering on the stove or in the slow cooker, such a delight to anticipate its hot, soothing tastiness. Ladle it into bowls, add a slice of crusty bread – a balanced meal. And only one pot to wash.
Soup memories.
My grandmother's quahog chowder is my earliest soup memory – not that she made it in the fall. It was a Fourth of July tradition, the prelude to our annual clambake. We ate this steaming hot chowder only in steaming hot weather. It made no sense to me. But traditions must be maintained. Probably this tradition was born when clambakes were held on a beach, where fresh quahogs were readily available and the sea breeze was cool. My grandmother's chowder held only a tomato base, salt pork, onions, potatoes, quahogs and their juice. No creamy “New England Clam Chowder” in our corner of Rhode Island.
I haven's tasted Grandma's chowder in more than two decades, but my taste buds remember.
Oyster stew. I remember my mother making it only once when we were children. The broth was tolerable. The oyster crackers soaked in the broth were acceptable. But those slimy, grayish, bulbous dead things floating in the bowl? I stared at them, unable to muster the courage to lift one into my mouth. I have never knowingly eaten an oyster.
Campbell's tomato soup. Bustling home from school for lunch on a blustery day, we found hot tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich waiting on the kitchen table. Home, comfort, safety, all was well.
Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup. One summer day when I was nine, and my mother was working, and our father was bedridden with terminal cancer, our teen-age aunt came to fix lunch for us. I don's remember what she made for my sister and me, but for our father she opened a can of chicken noodle soup. Perhaps she didn's know you were supposed to add water. Maybe the unpracticed lunchtime responsibility flustered her and she forgot. He ate the undiluted soup without complaint, not wishing to seem ungrateful. When he told my mother about it later, she said, “Didn's it taste terrible?” He admitted only to “It was a little salty.” My ears still hear his voice.
Friday soup. A while after my father died, my mother remarried and eventually provided my sister and me with four little brothers and a baby sister. A family of nine must be frugal. On Friday my mother collected all the week's leftovers that might be compatible and made them into a big pot of soup – the last bits of Sunday's roast, maybe some peas or carrots, a little macaroni – and that was our supper. I loved Friday Soup, though it was never the same twice. And each bowl carried an unspoken reminder: Waste not, want not.
Christmas Soup. My invention, our tradition. It's “Christmas” because of the red tomatoes and pinto beans; white cannelini beans; green spinach leaves; and tiny star-shaped pasta.
Probably each culture and each family has soup traditions.
We'se now turned on the household heat. We eat supper in the dark. It's time to fetch the soup pot, celebrate our soup traditions, and honor our soup memories.
