I look out my window and its snowing, not heavily, but enough that you can tell its snow and not rain. Yes, the fall is almost over in more ways than one. Soon we'll be electing a new prime minister and searching for what's new in christmas lights. And what did we eat at home ,when I was little, when the evening light fell?
When we were young and my father was still alive, it was always understood that every evening meal would begin with soup. Not canned soup, mind you, canned soup only appeared when my father was working out of town. No, soup was always homemade and so there were a lot of varieties to choose from, beause my mom could make soup from almost anything she had around the house and believe me sometimes her soups were more like stews than soups. There was canja (chicken soup) made either with rice or tiny noodles thick and warming to the soul. There was green bean soup made with meat and carrots, potatoes and plenty of long green beans that had been sliced small. Sometimes my mom would puree the vegetables together and leave out the meat and then you'd get this creamy mixture that was filling and elegant to look at. There were hearty vegetable soups with chunks of tomatoe, greens and assorted vegetables, either pork ribs or beef shanks for added flavour and of course the ever present chorico cut into chunks or slices.On special occasions there was caldo verde; a creamy potatoe soup with either kale sliced very tiny (this was of the utmost importance; the kale had to be cut ever so thinly and ever so small otherwise it had to be done all over again until it was small and thin enough)or watercress if it was plentiful and cheap at the time (watercress is usually quite expensive for a little bunch). Than you'd add the sliced chorico, this time sliced almost paper thin and you'd have a colorful christmas soup with a green and white background and red circles of sausage that everyone would manage to finish off in a few minutes.I can recreate all of these soups and I'm sure that my daughter would like it if I did it more often. All I know is that my daughter learned very early in life and my little nephew whose only five knows already that even though their mothers can cook really good food and cook well, there will never be anything like "a sopa d'avo" grandmother's soup.
Go To Page: 1
The copyright of the article Comfort Foods - Part 3 in Portuguese/Brazilian Cooking is owned by . Permission to republish Comfort Foods - Part 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
