Food
Michele Roberts on soup that saw duty at the Somme
Published 02 June 2003
Soup that saw duty at the Somme, and other leftovers from my childhood
One of the most delicious dishes I have ever eaten was made by my Italian friend Giuliana. She scooped up little golf balls of cooked risotto, sticky with chicken stock, shaped these in her palm, dusted them with flour, pushed a cube of Fontina cheese into each one, and then dropped them into hot oil and deep-fried them. The resulting delicacies, crisp on the outside, melting on the inside, were called suppli. There were never quite enough suppli to satisfy our greed, because they were made of leftovers, and Giuliana's risotti were so good that they got gobbled up. Subsequently, I learned always to make too much risotto for supper, so that we could have suppli next day in abundance.
In our throwaway culture in Britain, the joy of leftovers is not much prized. Into the bin with the bits, supposing you've bothered to cook at all in the first place. People used to believe in thrift as a saving grace. In my French grandmother's house, where butter papers were smoothed and laid in the kitchen drawer, pieces of string coiled into ready loops, corks kept for firelighters, we learned how to cherish and how to reuse and were scolded for too much recourse to the dustbin. Lessons from wartime and the Occupation.
Grand-pere's philosophy was that something that had been made by human hand should never be thrown away. The grenier at the back of the garden was stacked full of old Camembert boxes, chipped saucers, handy pieces of cardboard. The soup we had every night was kept in the fridge in the lidded brown enamel can that Grand-pere had carried in his pack in the First World War. The leftover soup was poured back into it after supper. The leftover vegetables of the day went into it, too. Grand-pere called it la mere soupe, because it gave endlessly and never ran out, and he swore that at the bottom of the pot was a residue dating back to 1918. Often the resulting soup was a beige sludge of carrot and potato puree, but none the less second helpings were always pressed upon us.
More successful leftovers were dished up courtesy of Grand-mere's cookery book, written by one M Pellaprat, which had a chapter entitled "L'Art d'Accommoder les Restes". Lots of rissoles, I remember. Leftover chicken was minced and mixed with whatever was to hand, formed into patties and tossed in the frying pan. Or it went into pancakes as a filling or was served in a freshly made sauce brune. Leftover vegetables, once the soup can was full, might go into souffles or tarts. Leftover rice could be stuffed into tomatoes or courgettes and then baked.
A Jewish friend told me that, back in her home in Israel, the care and time you expended on stuffing vegetables was a measure of your love for your guests. Yes, she stuffed mushrooms, too. The Normandy versions were plain to the point of blandness, but the Israeli ones called for spices. Giuliana's take on these dishes might involve adding a handful of anchovies, olives and raisins. Or perhaps almonds and chopped sage, a shred of lemon peel. It all depended on what was to hand.
You didn't need recipes. You were free to play and invent. The point of leftovers was to enjoy the challenge they posed, to exercise all your art and ingenuity in turning them into something mouth-wateringly good. Grand-mere enjoyed effecting these transformations. Thrift in excess veers towards the dour and stingy, perhaps, but for her it was about providing delight despite slender means. Hers was a modest notion about working with what you had; what you were given; and conjuring pleasure from it. Grand-mere's signature dish was concocted from leftover egg whites. First she whisked these to snowy peaks. Then she demonstrated their freshness by holding the bowl above her head and inverting it. The egg whites stayed - miraculously, we thought - in the bowl. They never fell out. Next she folded in some grated Gruyere. Finally, she dropped spoonfuls of the mixture into hot olive oil and quickly deep-fried them. The fritters were sprinkled with salt, and popped into the clamouring mouths of the family who stood around holding out their plates.
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