Forest Soup

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Envision if you will, a backyard bordered by a low stone wall. Above the stone wall slopes a hill of pine trees, pachysandra and rhododendrons. Two paths go up the slope, spaced about 25 feet apart, each set with a few stone steps.

This was my back yard growing up, and the hillside was an excellent place for adventure. It seemed the size of a mountain when I was young. I’m sure if I went back today it would look like a knoll.

The path going up on the left was, by some unspoken agreement, my brother’s path. Except in wintertime during a snowfall because then it became our sled hill. On a really good run you could launch off the stone wall and get some serious air.

The path on the right was mine. It passed by a flat space where the toolshed was built. That was not mine. That area was to be avoided at all costs. I did not acknowledge the Shed as part of my path. Unspeakably creepy things were in there: spiders and slugs and wasps’ nests and sharp implements and the lawn mower. I did not like the lawn mower. I did not like things that made loud noises. When Bert Rechtshaffer came to visit us on his motorcyle, I would flee the premises.

So the two paths went up the hill, and then they connected at the top in a small secret place surrounded by pine trees. This was prime real estate. This was a fort. My friend Julia and I would spend hours up there with our imaginations, anything we could find to play with, and one old cooking pot in which we’d make Forest Soup from stream water, pine needles, rhododendron leaves and dirt. We still talk about it to this day. If anything we cook turns out supremely bad, we laugh and say, “well, it wasn’t as bad as that Forest Soup.”

Forest Soup, Yard Stew, old-fashioned Mud Pies—these are delightful creations that kids make when exposed to nature. Sometimes I think it is a dying art and kids today don’t have that connection to the outdoors that Julia and I did in my backyard fort in the pine trees. Then one day, I’ll see Pandagirl and Redman outside with my old saucepan or some filched Tupperware, filling it up with water and then running around the yard to find things for the pot. It’s like Stone Soup come to life but on a purely imaginary level. Sometimes I’ll come across the birdbath, choked to the rim with grass, leaves, flower petals, chives, lavender, wood chips, gravel, and a plastic spoon or two.

When my vegetable garden is in season, things get kicked up another level. I grow a huge and varied garden and my philosophy with the kids is total hands-on.

“Mom, can we pick something out of the garden?” they will ask.

And I will say, “You can pick anything you want out of the garden.” And so into their stews go (depending on the season) peapods, cherry tomatoes, parsley, tiny matchstick green beans, zucchini flowers, nasturtiums and little baby carrots. Sometimes, some of the bounty gets rinsed off at the garden hose and they eat it. I encourage any and all snacking from the garden. Have at it. At the end of the day, it all gets tossed on the compost pile and the Circle of Life continues.

If you are acquainted with a child who loves outdoor cooking, I highly recommend, in fact I insist you get a copy of Mud Pies and Other Recipes (A Cookbook for Dolls) by Marjorie Winslow. It's seriously one of the most charming books ever written, and will get any child excited about finding the larder within the backyard, the woods, and the seashore. And it’s a nice little read for grown-ups too, a book to make you remember simpler times.

Here are a few examples:

Boiled Buttons

This is a hot soup that is simple but simply delicious. Place a handful of buttons in a saucepan half filled with water. Add a pinch of white sand and dust, 2 fruit tree leaves and a blade of grass for each button. Simmer on a hot rock for a few minutes to bring out the flavor. Ladle into bowls.

Marigold Madness

Shred several marigolds into a pan and fill with water. Set in the sun to simmer. When the liquid has turned to gold, strain into bowls and put in the shade to cool. Serve chilled.

Mud Puddle Soup

Find a mud puddle after a rainstorm and seat your dolls around it. Serve.

Literary Eats: Gone With The Wind

From Chapter XXV, Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, Macmillan & Co, New York, 1936:

Beyond Tara was the war and the world.  But on the plantation the war and the world did not exist except as memories which must be fought back when they rushed to mind in moments of exhaustion.  The world outside receded before the demands of empty and half-empty stomachs and life resolved itself into two related thoughts, food and how to get it.

Food!  Food!  Why did the stomach have a longer memory than the mind?  Scarlett could banish heartbreak but not hunger and each morning as she lay half asleep, before memory brought back to her mind war and hunger, she curled drowsily expecting the sweet smells of bacon frying and rolls baking.  And each morning she sniffed so hard to really smell the food she woke herself up.

There were apples, yams, peanuts and milk on the table at Tara but never enough of even this primitive fare.  At the sight of them, three times a day, her memory would rush back to the old days, the meals of the old days, the candle-lit table and the food perfuming the air.

How careless they had been of food then, what prodigal waste!  Rolls, corn muffins, biscuit and waffles, dripping butter, all at one meal.  Ham at one end of the table and fried chicken at the other, collards swimming richly in pot liquor iridescent with grease, snap beans in mountains on brightly flowered porcelain, fried squash, stewed okra, carrots in cream sauce thick enough to cut.  And three desserts, so everyone might have his choice, chocolate layer cake, vanilla blanc mange and pound cake topped with sweet whipped cream.  The memory of those savory meals had the power to bring tears to her eyes as death and war had failed to do, had the power to turn her ever-gnawing stomach from rumbling emptiness to nausea.  For the appetite Mammy had always deplored, the healthy appetite of a nineteen-year-old-girl, now was increased fourfold by the hard and unremitting labor she had never known before.

Literary Eats: 13, Rue Thérèse

Elena Mauli Shapiro’s 13, rue Thérèse is totally captivating, and it has pictures. This is so my kind of book. And, taking place in France, of course it has great food.

This day (still Tuesday) Louise has spent all afternoon working hard to prepare a beautiful meal. She serves it to three men, all mustached jewelers: her father, her husband, and their friend Pierre Cleper. The first course is fennel soup. They sip from their spoons and chat…

“She is a pistol, that one!” Pierre says to Henri, pointing to Louise with his trigger finger, as she gets up and clears the emptied soup bowls from the table. As she walks to the kitchen, she hears her husband declare, with pleasure and pride “That’s why I married her.”

In the kitchen, she readies the next course by putting it in serving dishes. It is a boeuf bourguignon with potatoes, Henri’s favorite. She likes the three men together; her father and Henri and Pierre have a certain chemistry. When they come together, they always laugh a lot and have conversations that border on the improper…

She brings out the potatoes first in a big bowl and then comes back with the stew in a large white tureen ornamented with painted blue curlicues, the serving spoon planted firmly inside.

“Ah,” Henri sighs contentedly. “Darling, it smells delicious.”

She smiles and puts her culinary opus in the middle of the table. The men wait for her to sit, and Henri begins to serve everyone: first Pierre, then his father-in-law, then Louise, and last himself.

For a minute, they eat silently. Everything is precisely the correct texture: the peeled potatoes split apart under the pressure of the fork; the beef shreds in the mouth, from the mere wiggling of the tongue. The vegetables are soft, but not flaccidly overcooked.

“This dish is wonderful. It warms the heart,” Louise’s father says. She blushes at his florid compliment.

“Yes, a toast to the cook,” Pierre says, and raises his glass. The other two men repeat his gesture, and they all sip from their wine. It is a deep, rich Burgundy, naturally, to match the main course.

The conversation begins to flow again but is more subdued: the main dish demands a greater portion of everyone’s attention than the soup. They thoroughly devour the contents of the tureen, and Louise is surprised: she had counted on having some for her lunch tomorrow. She will have to think of something else to eat.

They sit in a satisfied haze until her father asks if there is any cheese.

“I have a Camembert,” Louise says, “but are you sure you want some? I made a custard for dessert. Do you have room for all this?”

“Oh, I will not spoil my appetite for your custard, dear girl – I just want a tiny sliver of your Camembert, please.”

She clears everything and comes back with the cheese and a small basket of baguette slices. Her father is the only one who eats. The rest of them are saving room for dessert.

The dessert is a heavy chocolate custard, a marvel of cream and eggs and decadence. A little of its smoothness goes a long way, a good long way. They savor this sweet in complete silence, and sigh in abject surrender when they are done. “Oh, Louise, your custard has finished me off,” Pierre announces drowsily, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “You’re going to kill us all with deliciousness.”

“Why, thank you. That makes me glad.”

“I know! You are a corrupted woman like that.”

After Pierre utters this, he smiles wickedly at her, and once again she blushes. Henri shoots Pierre a sideways glance of faint disapproval: his friend is often unchecked this way when he is sated after a good meal. Being full loosens him.

Louise leaves the men to digest at the table and smoke cigarettes while she does the dishes. She is happy that she has given them all such pleasure with this lovely meal she crafted so carefully; it took her a good six hours to put everything together. This is all right, as truly this is her primary duty in life – the feeding of men. There is also housecleaning, but cleaning is very dull…

—13 rue Thérèse, by Elena Mauli Shapiro, Reagan Arthur Books, New York, 2011