Gypsy Soup

Hello, dears! The Soup Lady has fallen into mid-summer torpor and not even a nice chilled soup could snap her out of it. But what have we here? Look what came into my mailbox: a soup that calls for fried bread!

Would it surprise you to hear that the Soup Lady is something of a carbohydrate addict? Let's just say that Elvis had nothing on me in the Foods-You-Think-Couldn't-Be-Fried catagory. You know this one's a keeper.

This letter came to me from faithful Friend Of The Soup, James Jackson who apparently wants us to belive he knows What's Going On. Let's make the soup and find out.

"Dear Soup Lady,
This is my stepmom’s recipe. She’s from Spain. Despite the geographical proximity to France, the Spanish seem to have gone the opposite route when it comes to food. Instead of 500 ingredients per dish/soup, the Spaniards seem to rely on three basic ingredients to accomplish everything food-wise – with the exception of Paella & this soup.
From what my stepmom tells me, this is one of those dishes that is so prevalent in Spain that there’s no “official recipe” for it, yet debate will be heated should two cooks discuss it – sorta like bbq here in the States, I guess.
I’ve made endless variations on the recipe, & all are tasty, but none as good as the first I tasted. This is another one of those soups, like your Vichyssoise recipe, that works best with just water instead of stock. I think the brilliant thing about this soup is that all flavors are present & accounted for. Stock seems to muddle the flavors in this soup.

Gypsy Soup (a.k.a. Peasant Soup) – 6 servings
[all notations in parentheses are via my stepmom; she always insists on “fresh” so where she notes “canned” or “frozen”... she’s backed up her ideas with taste tests.]

2 quarts water
.5 tsp salt (adjusted down to compensate for sodium in the canned items below)
1 cup garbanzo beans (for simplicity, use canned, not drained)
1 cup white beans (for simplicity, use canned, not drained)
.5 lbs string beans (for simplicity, use frozen)
1 cup cubed pumpkin (depending on the time of year/mood substitute butternut or acorn squash, sweet potato – pumpkin really is best, though!)
3 small pears, peeled, cored, cubed (the firmer/less ripe, the better)

Comments

[maggie]

I remember the true gypsy soup
made in the camps around a fire when the wind was howling and the snowflakes flying
Everyone who had been out hawking or skimming the hedges, brought back whatever they had gathered during the day and it all went into the soup pot with river water or if that was not available plain old snow
If you had nothing to bring to the pot you popped in stones and sometimes stones and snow where what made up the soup, never tasted anything better, hunger tends to highlight all flavours