Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (22 page)

Prepared with the necessary care, this “modest” soup—whence the epithet “peasant”—will, I am certain, be enjoyed by all, including the not so modest.

400 grams (about 14 ounces) of stale, soft brown bread

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of white beans

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of oil

2 liters (about 2 quarts) of water

1 head of a medium-sized Savoy or regular cabbage

1 red cabbage, about the same size and perhaps more

1 bunch of beet greens and a little thyme

1 potato

some rinds of bacon or prosciutto cut into strips

Put the beans on the fire in a pot with the water and bacon rinds. Beans, as you already know, are placed in cold water and if they absorb it all, you may add some hot water. While they are boiling, finely chop and mix one quarter of a large onion, two garlic cloves, two celery stalks the length of the palm of your hand, and a good pinch of parsley. Sauté all of this in oil, and when it begins to brown, pour into the same pan the vegetables, starting with the coarsely chopped cabbages, then the beet greens or chard, and finally the potato (cut into chunks). Season with salt and pepper, and then add tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. If the vegetables are too dry, moisten them with the bean broth. When the beans are cooked, toss one quarter of them, whole, into the vegetables, adding the bacon rinds. Pass the other beans through a sieve and dissolve them in the broth, which you will then pour into the pot with the vegetables. Stir, allow to a boil for a moment, and then pour everything into a soup tureen in which you have already placed some thinly sliced bread. Cover for twenty minutes and then send to the table.

These amounts serve six people. It is good warm and even better cold.

Among ordinary soups, this ranks with the best.

To serve four people, place 4 deciliters (about 1-2/3 cups) of white beans on the fire with a suitable amount of water. Once cooked, strain them, pass them through a sieve and then stir the purée into the bean broth, adding half a head of chopped white or Savoy cabbage and seasoning with salt, pepper, and thyme leaves. Boil for about two hours.

In a pot on the fire put a generous amount of oil and two whole cloves of peeled garlic. When the garlic cloves have begun to brown, discard them, and add to the oil some tomato sauce (recipe 6) or
tomato paste diluted with water. Season once more with a pinch of salt and pepper. After it has boiled for a while, pour this sauce into the pot containing the broth and the cabbage. Finally, when the cabbage has finished cooking, pour in the cornmeal a little bit at a time with one hand, while mixing well with the other hand to prevent lumps from forming. When the mixture is of the desired consistency, that is still rather liquid, boil a little longer, and then send to the table.

Strictly speaking, this soup cannot be termed “lean,” since it contains eggs, butter, and Parmesan cheese. But it can come in very handy when you have no meat broth.

Cook the semolina in water. Before taking it off the stove, salt it, melt in a piece of butter proportionate to the amount of semolina, and flavor it with a little tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. Break two or three eggs into a soup tureen, mix them with grated Parmesan cheese, and pour the semolina over them. If making soup for only one person, one egg yolk and two tablespoons of Parmesan cheese will suffice.

If Esau indeed sold his birthright for a plate of lentils, then it must be admitted that their use as food is ancient, and that Esau either had a great passion for them or suffered from bulimia. To me, lentils seem more delicately flavored than beans in general, and as far as the threat of “bombarditis” is concerned they are less dangerous than common beans, and about equal to the black-eyed variety.

This soup can be made in the same way as the bean soup. The broth of lentils and black-eyed beans, however, also makes a nice soup with rice, which is prepared and seasoned in the same way. You must, however, make sure to keep the broth more watery, because the rice absorbs so much of it. It is easier to achieve the desired consistency if you wait until the rice is cooked before adding the necessary amount of strained lentils to the broth.

Proceed as for risotto with clams (recipe 72).

If you are serving seven to eight people, two cloves of garlic and a quarter of an onion will do. This will yield an excellent dish, with no need for butter or Parmesan, provided that you know how to make a good soffritto. Slice some bread, which you will roast and then dice.

Here too, a few pieces of dried mushroom add a nice touch.

As one often hears mention of spaghetti with clam sauce as a meatless first course, I will describe how to make it, though to my taste rice is preferable for this dish. If you want to try this spaghetti, follow recipe 72, chopping the spaghetti small enough to eat with a spoon, and cooking it in the water in which the clams have opened. Drain the excess water, and dress the spaghetti with the sauce, adding a little butter and Parmesan cheese.

Certain customs of the Florence market are not to my taste. When they clean the frogs, if you are not careful, they will throw away the eggs, which are the best part. Eels should be skinned. The legs and loin of mutton should be sold whole. Among pig entrails, the liver and caul fat should be preserved, as should the liver and sweetbreads of milk-fed veal. The rest, including the lung, which being tender could be served, as in other countries, as part of a mixed fry, are usually given to the tripe seller, who generally sells them to the broth maker. Perhaps the so-called tripe of milk-fed veal also falls into their hands, and in any case I have never seen it at the market. In Romagna, however, it is added as an extra, and, in pea season, when roasted in a pan with a piece of loin, it is so good that it is even better than the loin itself.

Before describing frog soup to you, I wish to say a few things about this amphibian of the batrachian order (
rana esculenta
) —the metamorphosis it undergoes is truly worthy of note. In the first part of its existence, the frog can be seen darting around in the water like a fish, all head and tail. This is what the zoologists call a tadpole. Like fish, they breath through gills which are first external in the shape of plumes and then become internal. During this stage of their development, tadpoles feed on vegetables and have an intestine which, like that of all herbivores, is much longer than that of carnivores. At a certain point in its development, around two months after birth, the tadpole reabsorbs its own tail, grows lungs in place of gills and puts forth limbs—that is, the four legs which previously were invisible. It transforms itself completely, and becomes a frog. Feeding on other creatures, especially insects, its intestine shortens to adapt itself to this kind of food. The common opinion that frogs are fatter in the month of May because they eat grain is therefore incorrect.

All amphibians, toads included, are wrongly persecuted. In fact, they are very useful in agriculture, and in gardens of all kinds, where they destroy the worms, snails and many insects on which they feed. The skin of toads and salamanders exudes, it is true, a poisonous, acrid fluid, but in such small amounts in proportion to the mucus in which it is mixed that it is quite harmless. It is, in fact, this copious secretion of mucus on the part of the salamander that allows it to withstand the heat of fire for some time, thereby giving rise to the myth that this amphibian is gifted with the virtue of being able to go through fire unharmed.

The broth of frogs is refreshing and soothing, and as such is recommended for chest ailments and inflammations of the intestine. It is also suitable to be consumed at the end of any inflammatory illnesses, and in nearly all those cases where the invalid requires a mild diet.

The white meat of frogs, lamb, goat, pullet, pheasant, etc., is low in fibrin and rich in albumen, and therefore especially suited to sensitive people and people of delicate digestion, and to those whose work does not involve strenuous muscular activity.

And now for the frog soup: two dozen frogs, if large, could perhaps suffice for four or five people, but it is better to have too many than too few.

Remove the legs and set them aside. Finely chop two cloves of garlic with a generous amount of parsley, carrot, and celery, adding some basil if it is to your taste. If you have a horror of garlic, onion will do. Place the mixture on the fire with salt and pepper, and a good amount of oil; when the garlic begins to brown, toss in the frogs. Stir occasionally to prevent the frogs from sticking to the pan. When most of the moisture has come out of them, toss in some chopped tomatoes, if you have them, or, alternatively, some tomato paste thinned with water. Continue boiling and, to finish the dish, add as much water as needed for the soup. Keep this on the fire until the frogs are cooked and the flesh begins to come apart. Pass everything through a sieve, pressing well to make sure that only the little bones remain behind. Boil the legs, which you have kept separate, in a bit of this strained broth and, when they are cooked, bone them. Then mix them into the soup along with pieces of pre-soaked dried mushroom. Serve with sliced bread, toasted and cut into rather large cubes.

One of the fish that best lends itself to a good broth is mullet, which in the Adriatic begins to grow handsome and fat in August, and often reaches a weight of over 2 kilograms (about 4 pounds). If you cannot get mullet, you can use umber or grayling, bass, or the angler fish. The flesh of these fish is more delicate and more easily digested than mullet, compensating for the fact that the broth they make is less flavorful.

If you are making a soup for seven or eight people, take a mullet (or “baldigara,” as it is called in certain seaside areas), weighing at least 2 kilograms (about 2 pounds). Scrape off the scales, gut and clean it, and then poach it in a suitable amount of water.

Finely chop a generous quantity of onion, garlic, parsley, carrot and celery, and place on the fire with oil, salt and pepper. When this mixture begins to brown, add tomato sauce (recipe 6) and fish broth. Boil a while and then strain the broth. Use some of this broth to cook a small quantity of chopped celery, carrot and dried mushroom, which will add flavor.

The bread for the soup should be toasted and cubed, then placed
in a soup tureen. Pour in the hot broth along with the additional seasonings, and send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side.

The mullet family has a stomach with strong muscular walls similar to the gizzard of birds. The angler fish,
Lophius piscatorius
, of the family
Lophidae
, attracts smaller fish with a movable silver fin on its head, and then devours them. It too is prized for its broth.

With 500 grams (about 1 pound) of fillets from a variety offish you should be able to make enough soup for four to five people.

Finely chop 1/4 of an onion, some parsley and celery. Put on the fire in a pan with oil and, when it has browned, add the fish, which you will keep moist with water, tomato sauce (recipe 6) or tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper. Allow it to cook well and then add the water for the soup—1 liter (about 1 quart) of water in total should suffice for this recipe. Pass the mixture through a sieve, pressing well against the mesh. Then put it back on the fire and bring it to a boil again. Break three eggs in a tureen and mix them with three spoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Pour in the broth slowly, and before serving toss in small cubes of bread which you have toasted or fried in the condiment you prefer: butter, oil, or lard. If you like to see the eggs and Parmesan cheese making little lumps in the soup, you can beat them separately and pour them in the pot when the broth is boiling.