Slow Soup
Denise >
I’m making soup. A whatever’s-in-the-garden soup – today’s random combination.
Potatoes lifted in autumn and stored in crates. Parsnips and carrots dug just earlier this morning. Curly kale picked fresh from the garden – so hardy, it continues to grow new leaves regardless of the winter weather. And leeks : thank heavens for the onion family – theres’s one for every season
Dicing and slicing, J steals away chunks to eat raw: the aroma and taste are so bound up with the idea of winter, the memories and associations, with scenes from Silas Marner or Under The Greenwood Tree. Or my own childhood. Me too, says J.
Winter foods. Grown slowly, accumulating memories of the passing seasons, memories released and relived in the digging, cleaning, preparing, cooking – and eating. We take time. We find time. The more we give, the more we get back. Slow-food is Time-food – and Time’s an ingredient we’ll never find on the supermarket shelves.
There is a richness, a completeness, a peace and fulfillment in winter foods. Thank heavens for seasons!
Jonathan >
Thank heavens for Denise’s Slow Soup!
I feel sorry for people who have never experienced this sort of soup – something I have known from childhood and which most of my family still serve up regularly. Now trying to encourage my daughters to add it to their still fairly limited repertoire. Strangely, I was thinking only recently of rereading Silas Marner, but I can’t remember what triggered the thought…
Sounds delicious and homey, welcoming and warm. There are nothing like memories of that kind; like quiet hidden treasures, they enrich our lives and spirits.
D > Food – and aromas of food in particular – are so powerfully evocative, aren’t they!
Amen! Yes amen!
Such beautiful writing about such simple, wholesome food!
Soup sounds good today. Especially after seeing this.
Love this post, I can almost taste that soup from here! Hope you had a good Christmas 🙂
Lovely. For the first time ever we abandoned all the conventions, including (by agreement with our family) presents, turned off the TV, and just did simple things enjoying the fruits of our labours.
Sounds idyllic!
I love slow winter food. What a blessing to be able to pull it from your garden!