The Sandpoint Eater: Soup’s on!

By Marcia Pilgeram
Reader Columnist

I’m home from two weeks in sunny Spain, and just finished sorting all the bits of paper I came home with/gathered everywhere I went: menus, postcards, receipts, ticket stubs and maps. Once I separate the receipts that I can use for my taxes (deductible for my travel business), I put all the rest in a large plastic zip-type bag, date it and add to my vast collection. I have 30 years’ worth of these bags (including ones from train trips I used to oversee). 

Though it might seem like an odd thing to collect, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dug through those bags, putting me back in touch with someone I met or connecting a friend or client to a contact.

I found this ephemera-of-sorts especially valuable during the COVID-19 lockdown times, and reached out to many past connections in other countries to check on their well-being, rekindling some great relationships. 

Plenty of wine-stained menus and folded paper place mats rest in these bags, too, and I can fondly recall nearly every meal. On this trip, in Toledo, Spain, one of my favorite meals was a bowl of Castilian soup (sopa Castellana), and I savored it to the last spoonful. 

This traditional peasant’s soup originated in the Castile region and was a staple for the shepherds and farmers who spent long days herding sheep and swine and working endless hours tending field crops.

It’s a simple soup of rich broth flavored with ham and local paprika, garlic and onion, and lots of crusty bread. Just before serving, it’s topped with an egg that cooks in the broth, adding some additional protein nourishment. It’s common to find bread as a mainstay ingredient in many soups (French onion, for example), and the first known concoction was “sop” — a primitive dish of liquid poured over slices of bread.

We do love our soup. Here in the U.S., we sip more than 10 billion bowls yearly, which sounds like a lot but doesn’t come close to China’s consumption of 320 billion bowls annually. 

The origins of soup fascinate me, and some of the best soups we love today came from humble beginnings; leftover scraps and culled fish that weren’t worthy of markets were shared among fishermen for their sustenance in stews like Italian cioppino and French bouillabaisse.

Soups can be served hot or cold, thick or thin. It’s been said that in the 1700s, a French king thought so highly of himself that he wanted his royal chefs to create a clear soup so he could see his reflection — and they obliged him with consommé.

Who knows when our ancient relatives heated the first pot of soup? We do know it goes back millenia. About 10 years ago, Chinese archaeologists uncovered a 2,000-year-old cauldron of soup that still contained liquid. 

A few hundred years before that, the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates was also whipping up a soup with healing ingredients such as celery root, parsley root, garlic and root vegetables. Personally, for therapeutic purposes, I still feel like you can’t beat a batch of homemade chicken noodle soup. Besides fixing what ails us, it’s pretty darn tasty. 

Locally, you’ll find some great offerings of two or three choices on most restaurant menus.  Interestingly, women tend to order soup twice as often as men. I tend to order soups that I don’t make for myself at home (over the past 20 years, I’m certain I’ve eaten my weight’s worth of Trinity’s crawfish and corn chowder).

Another of my personal favorites is tom yum gai. It’s a hot-and-sour soup that I first tried in Thailand; and, lucky for me, I discovered it’s served at many Thai restaurants around our region.

According to the travel guide, TasteAtlas, the best sour soup in the world is sinigang, a pork-based sour soup from the Philippines. The most common souring agent is unripe tamarind, but other fruits can be used to achieve the distinct sour taste of sinigang. I’ve yet to try it, but the quest to satisfy my culinary curiosity is real (I may be adding the Philippines to my bucket list).

For now, soup’s on at my house. I’m sticking with the delicious, rib-sticking sopa Castellana. It’s a perfect choice for the fall weather coming our way. Don’t forget the egg. 

Come con gusto (“eat with gusto”)!

Sopa Castella (Castilian soup)

Serves 6
Enjoy with a glass of wine.

Ingredients:
• ¼ cup olive oil

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

• 1 ½ quarts water 

• 4 oz cured ham, diced into small cubes 

• 2 to 3 slices day-old crusty French bread, cubed 

• 1 tbs sweet paprika 

• 6 large eggs — bring to room temperature 

• Salt and pepper 

• Chopped parsley

Directions:
In a heavy deep sauce pan, heat the oil and add the garlic, cooking until the garlic is just soft. Lightly sauté the slices of bread in the garlic oil on both sides, remove from pan. 

Add the water and cubed ham, and sweet paprika. Cover and cook an hour or so, until broth is flavored (you can toss in a ham bone, too). While broth is cooking, cut bread into large cubes. Add salt and pepper as needed for flavor (may be salty enough from the ham). 

Toss in the bread cubes and lightly stir.

Carefully break the eggs into a small dish before adding to the soup, one at a time. For best results: Break the eggs, one at a time, into a small dish and carefully slide them into the broth.

Cover without stirring and let the eggs cook in the soup, for approximately 3 minutes. 

Once the eggs have the consistency you desire, with slotted spoon, carefully place egg into soup bowls, and then slowly ladle the soup into each bowl. 

To serve, top each bowl with fresh parsley.