Mum’s leek and potato soup after my maths GCSE, the lamb and barley broth made by a friend and eaten on her squeaky sofa in front of the telly, a bowl of lemon and egg soup at a taverna outside Athens just before losing my rucksack, cream of mushroom soup at the Royal Free hospital, a white bean and chestnut soup served up at a local trattoria here in Rome, Lindsay Bareham’s potage bonne femme made by my sister-in-law and served with sausage rolls after our annual family pantomime jaunt last Christmas, Anna Tobias’s mulligatawny ... to name a just few.
Maybe more than any other dish, the memory of soup lingers, whether it was good, exquisite or a bit rum. And not just the taste, but the memories attached to it: where, when, with whom. I am far from alone in this. With this article in mind, I asked friends and colleagues about soup and received similar potted histories full of life, and often quite touching detail about the making and eating of soup.
Soup also makes me think of Mona Talbott, who used to be the chef at the American Academy in Rome. Every Sunday for seven months, while Mona cooked soup, I sat on a stool in the academy kitchen documenting the details and measurements for what would become a soup book. At the end of each session, I walked back down the Gianicolo hill, taking in the expansive view of the city, with the day’s work sloshing in clinking jars, which we then ate over the following few days. I was pregnant at the time, with a furious appetite, which is the reason my son was known as a soup baby, his size put down to my considerable consumption. Apart from the eating (and learning to write a decent recipe), what I enjoyed most about that time was watching how the soups evolved with the seasons, from sturdy to brothy, to bright red with fresh tomatoes – a change somehow more apparent than in my own kitchen because it was just once a week – like watching other people’s kids grow up, maybe.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I was still making beefy and thick bean soups, throwing handfuls of dried broad beans in root vegetable minestrone – which has a sort of hummus effect – and getting kale stuck in my teeth. Now the soups we want look a bit like April itself: brothy and green with a spring in their step. Mona’s spring soups were some of my favourites, so it is her hands, ways and tips I recall: starting slowly with the onion, adding tiny pinches of salt as you go, trusting that water, rather than stock, is enough; keeping things simple, knowing you can embellish later with croutons, chilli, herbs, dumplings, cheese.
Peel and slice a large onion, then cook it slowly in a knob of butter, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and small pinch of salt until soft, then add a thinly sliced garlic clove and stir for another minute or so. It will smell good. Meanwhile, peel and dice a large potato (about 350g) and add it to the pan with another small pinch of salt, stir, then pour over enough water to cover everything by a good couple of inches. If you have one, throw in a parmesan rind. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes, adding a few handfuls of fresh or thawed frozen peas, and any chopped herbs or tender spring greens you fancy, for the last five minutes. By the end of cooking, the potatoes should be very tender. If you like, blend half the soup for a creamier texture. Taste and season with a few grinds of pepper and a heaped tablespoon of grated parmesan. Serve just so, over toasted bread or with croutons, possibly more parmesan and a zig-zag of olive oil on top.
