* Each month I share my virtual meal with Ilva and
Simi.
This month we are inviting you to
eat with us some soup.
Come in. Please, come in!
Sit down and get comfortable.
Here is some bread. Here is some soup. It is not much, but is from
my heart. And it is very wholesome and good for you. Hope you like
it.
This is my grandma Nitsa’s bean soup, just as she used to cook it. Poor thing, I remember her with her arthritic
knotted fingers chasing the beans around the tray, always making sure she checked
for any tiny pebbles or dirt that could've possibly mingled with the rest
of the beans. And that was a lengthy
cleaning and checking, as we were big family she was cooking for. It was her staple food for many reasons. She was deeply religious and following holy
fasting more often than I can remember.
Her essential meal was dry bread with few marinated dried olives and a
plate of plain bean soup. So plain and
so simple, that we colloquially would call any guileless thing “easy as a bean
soup”.
She believed that we have to love and respect the
little thing we get in life and her food was an echo of the life the way she
saw it – humble and genuine.
We grew up hearing and reading the classic books about
our national heroes at the sundown of the 19th century, living in
exile, fighting the oppression of the Ottoman Empire. They were young, brave, passionate, desperate. With every gathering for concocting a
national upheaval, amongst the revolvers, firearms, barrels of dynamite, sables
and many passionate letters written to Garibaldi inviting him to fight for
their righteous cause, there were few copper pots, with simmering bean soup
inside. “Freedom or Death” was their
oath and as they crossed their rebellious hearts with one hand, they would sip
a warm poor’s man bean soup with the other... It became unofficial and inseparable symbol
of the hard life rebels and expatriates had.
Now you are sitting here with me – an expat with no
much to rebel about and with no government to tumble, but very much ready to
move the earth and change things with words and vision.
It tastes nice, isn’t it!
Lets sip some hearty bean soup... lets enjoy its
simple and humble taste... (can I get you some more?)
…and lets hope it keeps me close to the pulse of my
beginning.
GRANDMA NITSA’S PLAIN BEAN SOUP
Ingredients:
½ kilo of dried white beans
2 medium brown onions
Olive oil
Salt to taste
Method:
Clean and soak the beans overnight. The next morning strain the water and change
with fresh one. Bring it to the boil and
discard the boiled water. Rinse well and
cover the beans with fresh water. Cut
the onions finely and add three tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of
salt. Cover with a lid and bring to
gentle simmer. Let it cook for more than
two hours or until the onion has melted down and completely dissolved. The salt in will keep the beans intact and
will prevent from getting mushy. Just
before serving add more salt to taste.
Thank you for visiting!
Ciao,
Sophia
*Soundtrack from the acclaimed Bulgarian movie "Exiles"
© 2014 - sophia terra~ziva. all rights reserved
