Springtime in Sardinia means fava beans, peas, and a variety of other vegetables and fruit. One favorite way with fresh spring peas is in a minestra. A minestra can mean both a soup and a first course. But the difference between a zuppa (soup) and a minestra is that a minestra is usually a thicker […]
Hasu – A Spicy Soup of the Algerian Jews
March 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Bread bakers set aside a portion of yeasted dough to act as a starter for the next batch of bread. This starter is called a sponge, poolish, levain de boulanger in French, and biga in Italian. But in this medieval soup of the Jews of North Africa it is the foundation to a soup. The […]
Andalusia’s Dried Bean Soup for A Winter Weekend
January 17, 2018 by Leave a Comment
A winter weekend soup that can more or less be an entire meal is a dried bean soup from Andalusia. Dried beans are popular everywhere in the Mediterranean. They also have a flavor a tad different than the fresh bean, which means they are ideal in earthy and deeply flavorful soups such as this one […]
Cold Weather January Soup Is A Lentil Bulgur Soup from Turkey
January 9, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Winter is a time for soups. This soup is one I came across during a particularly cold April in Turkey. In Turkey, soups are favorite preparations during the winter. One forgets how cold it gets in the Mediterranean and these soul-satisfying soups are quite perfect for warming up and feeling good about exorcising that piercing […]
Country Soup-Rustic Corsican Soup for Winter
February 22, 2017 by Leave a Comment
This is the most famous of all the Corsican soups. The soup is simply called minestra which in the Corsican culinary pantheon is simple soupe paysanne, country soup. Although it’s called a soup, it’s meant to be so thick you could eat it with a fork. Shepherds would take some leftover with them into the […]
Make A Spicy Jewish Soup from North Africa
February 15, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Bread bakers set aside a portion of yeasted dough to act as a starter for the next batch of bread. This starter is called a sponge, poolish, levain de boulanger in French, and biga in Italian. But in this medieval soup of the Jews of North Africa it is the foundation to a soup. The […]
Soup for Happiness and Dinner
October 20, 2013 by 2 Comments
My good friend Deborah Madison was in town to talk about her magnificent new book Vegetable Literacy and we got a chance to catch up and talk about the food state-of-affairs. For Deborah, she was sick of hearing about farm-to-table and for me I roll my eyes when I hear mass hysteria in the form […]
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