I recently interviewed Joa Studholme who is the mixer and namer of paints for Farrow and Ball, and she gave fascinating insights into where the names came from. A great job indeed!
The erotic pottery wormhole made me laugh - in some long-ago-read book of Germaine Greer's she said that Italian peasant teenagers (if I remember correctly), because concerned for a girl's virginity, would happily practice anal sex with minimal disapproval. Perhaps your gourd ceramicists were the same? Although why would you care about virginity if not RC/Christian? Oh oh, my prejudices are showing. Also, this rabbit hole could swallow the whole afternoon...
I love soups, and make them all winter and summer. My summer ones rely heavily on pesto. Also, I live in constant search of good Singapore Laksa, it's hard to find good ones in London, and I can't imagine outside London would be a cinch.
I was AMAZED at the anal sex but then I suppose in the absence of contraception there weren't many options... You'd think they'd have found a marvellous herb or something. I am laughing at your erotic pottery wormhole. Laksa is so delicious. There used to be a vg place in Soho but this was nine million years ago.
Have fallen down rabbit hole into soundscapes . YouTube so useful on those pressing autumnal questions: What did a Carnyx sound like ? And the Rebel Yell , surprisingly high pitched .
Soups: essence of home-cooking. I never ever order soup in a restaurant apart from fish soup (which requires numerous ingredients, many difficult to source, as well as being laborious to make) as it seems a waste of an opportunity to eat something I am unlikely to cook at home.
Perhaps it’s because my mother made soup so often that I don’t think of them even needing a recipe. As you say, it’s just a soffrito to get things going, a starch or starchy veg, other veg, herbs/spices plus flavoursome stock. (I never make meaty soups.) As long as there's flavour you can’t really go wrong — but, yes, don’t stew them into a nondescript sludge.
Where does history start? Isn’t it interesting that so many of us have blank spots (despite an old-fashioned education that didn’t just cover WW2). I am utterly uninterested in anything before the mid-C17th. I think it’s to do with art. I loathe most religious and classical painting which gets rid of the earlier centuries (apart from Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the detail of whose quotidian scenes are divine). As soon as Hogarth, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Velázquez heave into view I am all agog. That’s partly because of the delightful portraiture but mostly because I love everything domestic, from architecture and interiors to cooking pots and gardens.
Yes, I am unappetised (?) by meat soups too, even though I LOVE a stew. Start of history is such an interesting question. I agree with you - for me it's also probably to do with art, though I do like those sinister religious allergories etc. And thank you very much for kind remark!
I have been thinking about soups this week so thank you for the lovely ideas and recipes. It is time to make my own as I am bored of the supermarket offerings. Somehow though, there is always a fondness for Heinz Tomato!
As soon as the temperatures begin to drop I am genetically programmed to make soup. I simply cannot not do it - my late husband used to dread the array of plastic boxes in the freezer (labelled? Hahahah, no of course not - it’s the guesswork that keeps it interesting). An Ulster childhood and decades in Perthshire have predisposed me to start peeling and chopping any vegetable within reach as the nights start to come earlier. But then years in Switzerland added their own slant so pea and ham is now finished off with chunks of little smoked sausages (which had to be counted out to ensure fairness). Butternut, sweet potato and ginger is bliss - I make vats of the stuff and then don’t have to think about lunch for a week. I absolutely must make the bean and pesto one… and thank you for all the Marylebone ideas - my favourite stomping ground (but have you ventured further afield and found Choosing Keeping? impossible to leave without at least one purchase. Even their Christmas catalogue is delicious.) 💖
Mmmm, pea and ham with smoked sausage, how delicious. I'm glad other people's freezers are full of surprises. I always feel mine is chaos and is not being put to its best use - I only really have it for frozen parathas, frozen spinach and peas. Everything else in there, even things like stock, are so badly labelled that they are kind of a mystery. YES re Choosing Keeping, who have featured in various posts heavily- THE BEST of shops.
I love Autumn! My mind is boggling re the connection of the bedtime habits of the Moche people and the squash jug. My history is so bad I’m ashamed to say I’d not heard of the Moche; will remedy. One of my first soup memories, in fact cooking memories, is making Jane Grigson’s curried parsnip; utter bliss. Like all her books, the recipes don’t have the precision of modern books but I love them all the same. I don’t think she’s credited enough, a bit like Delia.
Hahaha, mine too. I'd never heard of them either. Jane Grigson's books are so wonderful, we make a Stilton & pear thing called Locketts' Savoury from one of them every Christmas.
Being half-Polish I also grew up on sorrel soup. I live for soup really, always have, and it’s your friend in those times when you’re too fed-up to even chew. (See also mashed potato.)
These gorgeous soups have reminded me I must make Bee Wilson’s ‘Mellow Soup for Frayed Nerves’ in her book ‘The Secret of Cooking’ (which has a lot of really good ideas in it). It’s just as the title suggests, a really delicious vegetable soup and a doddle to make. My mother also used to make a lovely soup from ham bone stock, red lentils and onions with freshly grated carrots from the garden stirred in at the end, and served with a big handful of chopped parsley. The carrot gave it a sort of sweetness and crunchy texture that was so good with the salty oniony ham base. Yum. My mum was a really good cook.
Your mum's soup sounds amazing. That Bee Wilson book is absolute genius from start to finish. I literally COULD NOT love it more. Haven't made that soup tho, but I will.
Woke up to grey skies and drizzle so this is the perfect post. Definitely making soup for lunch, with Bold Beans (absolute game changer for getting more protein into my vegetarian teen!). I had no idea squash was not native to the U.K. and also revert to a Monty python image of the past. The Robert Harris book was excellent and I still think about it years after reading and wonder of that would happen.
Thank you for the lovely autumnal food inspiration.
You're welcome and I do too re R Harris, it pops into my head all the time. So sinister and yet also so distressingly.... plausible is overstating it, but not un-likely.
I love Anna Jones' recipes, they are so simple, but utterly delicious. Last winter soup became an almost eventful thanks to Seasonal Soups by Fraser Reid, especially his Chestnut, Carrot and Thyme. Such a warning, lovely post!
That Neanderthal link to BBC science is brilliant 🤣. Just ordered those books on bookshop.org , I can’t believe I have never heard of it and so much better than dreaded Amazon.
Spring here but I love soup any time of year and I’m off to make that delish dahl right now. And the Boule In is a delight - I have one of their lavender heart soaps permanently in my Sydney bathroom 💜
I recently interviewed Joa Studholme who is the mixer and namer of paints for Farrow and Ball, and she gave fascinating insights into where the names came from. A great job indeed!
Not food related, I just wanted to thank you, India, for your Living Proof serum recommendation in last week's ST. I'm going to be trying that.
You're very welcome. Please let me know how you get on. I'm religiously applying it every day.
The erotic pottery wormhole made me laugh - in some long-ago-read book of Germaine Greer's she said that Italian peasant teenagers (if I remember correctly), because concerned for a girl's virginity, would happily practice anal sex with minimal disapproval. Perhaps your gourd ceramicists were the same? Although why would you care about virginity if not RC/Christian? Oh oh, my prejudices are showing. Also, this rabbit hole could swallow the whole afternoon...
I love soups, and make them all winter and summer. My summer ones rely heavily on pesto. Also, I live in constant search of good Singapore Laksa, it's hard to find good ones in London, and I can't imagine outside London would be a cinch.
I was AMAZED at the anal sex but then I suppose in the absence of contraception there weren't many options... You'd think they'd have found a marvellous herb or something. I am laughing at your erotic pottery wormhole. Laksa is so delicious. There used to be a vg place in Soho but this was nine million years ago.
Have fallen down rabbit hole into soundscapes . YouTube so useful on those pressing autumnal questions: What did a Carnyx sound like ? And the Rebel Yell , surprisingly high pitched .
Now I might have to go and find out about carnyx (what is it??) for myself
I’ve got a bit of a problem with my hand and arm so use a soup maker - can you recommend an interesting recipe book?
There's one in the post but there are also so many online that I'm not sure you need a book!
Soups: essence of home-cooking. I never ever order soup in a restaurant apart from fish soup (which requires numerous ingredients, many difficult to source, as well as being laborious to make) as it seems a waste of an opportunity to eat something I am unlikely to cook at home.
Perhaps it’s because my mother made soup so often that I don’t think of them even needing a recipe. As you say, it’s just a soffrito to get things going, a starch or starchy veg, other veg, herbs/spices plus flavoursome stock. (I never make meaty soups.) As long as there's flavour you can’t really go wrong — but, yes, don’t stew them into a nondescript sludge.
Where does history start? Isn’t it interesting that so many of us have blank spots (despite an old-fashioned education that didn’t just cover WW2). I am utterly uninterested in anything before the mid-C17th. I think it’s to do with art. I loathe most religious and classical painting which gets rid of the earlier centuries (apart from Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the detail of whose quotidian scenes are divine). As soon as Hogarth, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Velázquez heave into view I am all agog. That’s partly because of the delightful portraiture but mostly because I love everything domestic, from architecture and interiors to cooking pots and gardens.
All of which is why I adore your writing, India!
Yes, I am unappetised (?) by meat soups too, even though I LOVE a stew. Start of history is such an interesting question. I agree with you - for me it's also probably to do with art, though I do like those sinister religious allergories etc. And thank you very much for kind remark!
I have been thinking about soups this week so thank you for the lovely ideas and recipes. It is time to make my own as I am bored of the supermarket offerings. Somehow though, there is always a fondness for Heinz Tomato!
You are so welcome, and Heinz Tomato is very often the answer!
As soon as the temperatures begin to drop I am genetically programmed to make soup. I simply cannot not do it - my late husband used to dread the array of plastic boxes in the freezer (labelled? Hahahah, no of course not - it’s the guesswork that keeps it interesting). An Ulster childhood and decades in Perthshire have predisposed me to start peeling and chopping any vegetable within reach as the nights start to come earlier. But then years in Switzerland added their own slant so pea and ham is now finished off with chunks of little smoked sausages (which had to be counted out to ensure fairness). Butternut, sweet potato and ginger is bliss - I make vats of the stuff and then don’t have to think about lunch for a week. I absolutely must make the bean and pesto one… and thank you for all the Marylebone ideas - my favourite stomping ground (but have you ventured further afield and found Choosing Keeping? impossible to leave without at least one purchase. Even their Christmas catalogue is delicious.) 💖
Mmmm, pea and ham with smoked sausage, how delicious. I'm glad other people's freezers are full of surprises. I always feel mine is chaos and is not being put to its best use - I only really have it for frozen parathas, frozen spinach and peas. Everything else in there, even things like stock, are so badly labelled that they are kind of a mystery. YES re Choosing Keeping, who have featured in various posts heavily- THE BEST of shops.
I love Autumn! My mind is boggling re the connection of the bedtime habits of the Moche people and the squash jug. My history is so bad I’m ashamed to say I’d not heard of the Moche; will remedy. One of my first soup memories, in fact cooking memories, is making Jane Grigson’s curried parsnip; utter bliss. Like all her books, the recipes don’t have the precision of modern books but I love them all the same. I don’t think she’s credited enough, a bit like Delia.
Hahaha, mine too. I'd never heard of them either. Jane Grigson's books are so wonderful, we make a Stilton & pear thing called Locketts' Savoury from one of them every Christmas.
Being half-Polish I also grew up on sorrel soup. I live for soup really, always have, and it’s your friend in those times when you’re too fed-up to even chew. (See also mashed potato.)
And as for those pots. Blimey.
The pots are STILL making me laugh.
These gorgeous soups have reminded me I must make Bee Wilson’s ‘Mellow Soup for Frayed Nerves’ in her book ‘The Secret of Cooking’ (which has a lot of really good ideas in it). It’s just as the title suggests, a really delicious vegetable soup and a doddle to make. My mother also used to make a lovely soup from ham bone stock, red lentils and onions with freshly grated carrots from the garden stirred in at the end, and served with a big handful of chopped parsley. The carrot gave it a sort of sweetness and crunchy texture that was so good with the salty oniony ham base. Yum. My mum was a really good cook.
Your mum's soup sounds amazing. That Bee Wilson book is absolute genius from start to finish. I literally COULD NOT love it more. Haven't made that soup tho, but I will.
Woke up to grey skies and drizzle so this is the perfect post. Definitely making soup for lunch, with Bold Beans (absolute game changer for getting more protein into my vegetarian teen!). I had no idea squash was not native to the U.K. and also revert to a Monty python image of the past. The Robert Harris book was excellent and I still think about it years after reading and wonder of that would happen.
Thank you for the lovely autumnal food inspiration.
You're welcome and I do too re R Harris, it pops into my head all the time. So sinister and yet also so distressingly.... plausible is overstating it, but not un-likely.
Every one of your heartwarming posts fills me with joy ... as much as Anna Jones' delicious coconut and tomato laksa 💫😋
Thank you so much, that is LOVELY to hear.
I love Anna Jones' recipes, they are so simple, but utterly delicious. Last winter soup became an almost eventful thanks to Seasonal Soups by Fraser Reid, especially his Chestnut, Carrot and Thyme. Such a warning, lovely post!
Thank you! I don't know him, I will go and find him. I am very pro chestnut.
A revelation!
That Neanderthal link to BBC science is brilliant 🤣. Just ordered those books on bookshop.org , I can’t believe I have never heard of it and so much better than dreaded Amazon.
That link has been making me laugh for at least 10 years. It never, ever stops being funny. I'm glad you liked it too!
Spring here but I love soup any time of year and I’m off to make that delish dahl right now. And the Boule In is a delight - I have one of their lavender heart soaps permanently in my Sydney bathroom 💜
How nice, a little bit of France/Suffolk so far away!