French Provincial Cooking (39 page)

It is interesting to follow the way French recipes develop as they are carried round the world by French cooks, emigrants and all those thousands of people who have enjoyed French cooking in its native land and who on returning home have reproduced various dishes with the modifications suitable to the climate, the conditions and the local products of another country.

As I have already observed, it is rare to come across iced soups of the vegetable purée variety in France, and
crème vichyssoise
is, as is well known, an American soup. But it was evolved by a Frenchman, Louis Diat, for forty-one years
chef des cuisines
at the Ritz-Carlton in New York. Based on the ancient formula for
potage bonne femme,
the leek and potato soup known to every French housewife, the iced
vichyssoise
was served for the first time by Louis Diat at the Ritz-Carlton in the summer of 1917, and has since become famous all over the United States. Diat’s recipe makes a delicious soup, its sole disadvantage to English readers being that it is almost impossible to obtain leeks in the summer months, the time when one would most naturally think of serving iced soups. But I expect it won’t be long before leeks, like celery, are grown at seasons of the year other than those we have come to expect, so here is the recipe:

‘Finely slice the white part of 4 leeks and 1 medium onion and brown very slightly in 2 ounces of sweet butter. Then add 5 medium potatoes, also sliced finely.

‘Add one quart of water or chicken broth and one tablespoon of salt and boil from 35 to 40 minutes. Crush and rub through a fine strainer.

‘When the soup is cold add 1 cup of heavy cream. Chill thoroughly before serving, at which time finely chopped chives may be added. This quantity is sufficient for eight people.’

NOTE: The American quart is 32 oz., or a little under 1
English pints; and the American measuring cup contains 8 oz., or half the American pint. In American kitchen terms sweet butter means unsalted butter.

In spite of it seeming, under the circumstances, rather impertinent to criticise M. Diat’s recipe, I cannot help remarking that the soup seems better to me without the onion, so I substitute another couple of leeks instead. Also I use an extra
pint of water to cook the soup and correspondingly less cream, for to my taste 8 oz. makes the soup too cloying.

This is one of the nicest, freshest and simplest of summer soups. Those who claim not to be able to taste the difference between frozen and fresh peas will perhaps find it instructive to try this dish. Not that a very excellent soup cannot be made with frozen peas, but when fresh peas are at the height of their season, full grown but still young and sweet, the difference in intensity of flavour and of scent is very marked indeed.

Quantities are 1
lb. of peas, the heart of a cabbage lettuce,
lb. (yes,
lb.) of butter, 1
pints of water, salt and sugar.

Melt the butter in your soup saucepan; put in the lettuce heart washed and cut up into fine strips with a silver knife; add the shelled peas, 2 teaspoons of salt and a lump or two of sugar. Cover the pan; cook gently for 10 minutes until the peas are thoroughly soaked in the butter. Add the water; cook at a moderate pace until the peas are quite tender. Sieve them, or purée them in the electric liquidiser. Return to the pan and heat up. A little extra seasoning may be necessary but nothing else at all. Enough for four ample helpings.

 

 

This is a typical Provençal fish soup made from all sorts of the little shining red, pink, brown, yellow and silver-striped fish which one can buy by the basketful from the market stalls in the Vieux Port (although much of the Vieux Port quarter was destroyed by the Germans in the last war the fish stalls are still there). I don’t think it is possible to make the soup without all these odd little Mediterranean fish, which are too bony to be used for anything except
la soupe
, and I have not attempted to cook it since I lived on the Mediterranean shores, but still the method, which was shouted above the hubbub of the market to me many years ago by the fishwife at a market stall, is worth recording.

For six people you buy rather over 2 lb. of fish
¹⁶
and a couple of dozen of the very small spider crabs they call
favouilles.
In your earthenware or copper soup-pot you heat a few tablespoons of olive oil, and in this you melt the sliced white part of 2 leeks or an onion, adding a couple of chopped, large, ripe tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, a sprig or two of fennel and of parsley. Then you put in all your fish and let them take colour before adding a good 3
pints of water, a seasoning of salt and pepper, and a good pinch of saffron. Let all this cook together about 15 minutes, then put the whole thing through a fine sieve lined with a muslin or cheese-cloth, so that none of the little bones can get through into the broth. Pound the fish a little with a wooden pestle so that the very essence gets through into the broth. Return the broth to the saucepan, see that the seasoning is right (the soup should be rather highly spiced) and in it cook some short, chunky pasta, about
lb.

As soon as the pasta is cooked, serve your soup very hot, with grated Parmesan or Gruyère cheese separately if you like.

Durand, the famous Nîmois chef, gives the formula for this soup in his book
Le Cuisinier Durand,
published in 1830. It is enriched with eggs and, at the last minute, with a mixture of
aïoli,
the garlic mayonnaise of Provence—in fact it is a Languedoc version of the Provençal
bourride.

Ask your fishmonger for 2 or 3 cod or halibut heads; he will probably sell them for quite a small sum, and they are good value, containing plenty of white flesh, and their gelatinous quality gives body to the broth. Other ingredients are an onion, a carrot, and a couple of large leeks, 2 large tomatoes, a clove of garlic, parsley and whatever other herbs you happen to have available—tarragon, fennel, lemon thyme, plus olive oil and seasonings. For the thickening of the soup you need egg yolks, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil.