When Soup Becomes a Questionable Metaphor
Posted by Moose on May 22nd, 2008. Filed under: Cooking, Uncategorized.If you tell me something, I will believe you. I think it’s good to take folks at their word, it breeds a general faith in humanity - and helps you avoid turning into a bitter, withered crone who glowers at toddlers and hits puppies with her cane. But maybe I should stop assuming someone else is right at the expense of my own instincts.
Take, for example, last night’s tomato soup. I’ve made this soup before – tomatoes, garlic cloves, fennel bulb, and a carrot, all roasted in olive oil and sea salt – and it’s lick-the-bowl-clean tasty. The recipe is from one of my well-loved (meaning “covered in splatters of oil and bits of something I assume is zucchini”) Bill Granger cookbooks. Before I go on, I need to tell you that I’m the self-appointed Leader of the Bill Granger Cult. To have Bill Granger be wrong would be to shake the underpinnings of my very existence. Bill Granger is all that embodies food perfection – ease, taste, the guarantee of a meal I can concoct without destroying the kitchen or setting off the fire alarm.
When Bill told me to shake two tablespoons of sea salt into my roasting pan, I had my doubts. “But Bill,” I told my cookbook, “Isn’t two tablespoons a bit…excessive? There aren’t that many tomatoes in here, and that much salt will make them all white and crusty.” Bill sat silently on the kitchen table, looking at me with a raised brow. ”It will be like drinking a nice, hot glass of Pacific Ocean – minus the shrimp,” I said weakly. But Bill insisted. I reread the instructions three times, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing “tablespoons” where “teaspoons” should be. I wasn’t. I thought to myself, “Well. I’ve made this before. I don’t remember altering the recipe and it’s always been delicious.” So I dumped in two tablespoons of sea salt and popped my pan in the oven.
Two hours later, my pan came out of the oven and was subjected to vigorous blending. I took my soup and my grilled cheese into the living room/bedroom/dining room/office and began to eat. After three bites, I had to race to the kitchen for water. When water didn’t vanquish the layer of salt coating my tongue, I turned to milk. When that failed, I turned to vanilla ice cream. Half a pint later, my face unscrewed and I could breathe without inhaling flecks of white. I’m still dehydrated.
When I listen to others over my own better judgment, is it a fundamental lack of confidence? Am I remembering all the times I thought I was right and, in fact, was not? When I confidently told someone to take the upcoming exit when we were really supposed to be on an entirely different freeway? I’m beginning to see how a relationship can utterly fail when one person is quite sure he’s never wrong and the other isn’t convinced she’s ever right.
“But…I see ALL SIDES,” I tell myself. “Perhaps Bill LIKES salty soup. Perhaps that’s the way real cooks do it. Maybe I’M wrong for not liking my soup so salty. Perhaps I just need to broaden my horizons and embrace the layers upon layers of sea sodium.”
Or maybe I need to dump the soup in the trash and listen to the little voices in my head when they say HANDFULS AND HANDFULS OF SALT? ARE TOO MUCH.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Wow. I have totally been there, and yeah, you are much better off defying the, uh, cookbook and realizing that your instincts (and wants and needs and ideas) are right probably most of the time. And, really, nobody can tell you how much salt is right for YOU.
Or something.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Recipes, even good ones, need to be altered sometimes. Perhaps Bill likes drinking the Pacific Ocean. Trust your instinct.
But on the other hand, a general faith in humanity is *never* a bad thing to have, especially in these times we’re living through.
Still, avoid the handfuls of salt!
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Seems like you and I have a love for pie and doubting ourselves in common. I’m going to remember this soup metaphor. It’s really a good one. Although the soup sounded delicious sans the salt mound.
(Oh, did Kristin tell you about lunch in San Jose in July? If you’re free.)
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I read that first sentence and thought, “Me, too.” Which can be problematic in my job as an attorney. Sometimes I’m paid to NOT believe someone, but it’s very hard.
Sorry about the soup. Not many things worse than sitting down to a meal you’ve been working on and being disappointed.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Trust your instincts!
(This from a woman who follows recipes TO THE LETTER.)
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Is it possible that you used fine grind salt and he was using coarse?
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
One time I saw Giada deLaurentiis give a cooking demo at the LA Times Festival of Books. Right at first, she said she would take questions as she worked. The very first questioner was this annoying woman who said “Can I help?”
Giada said yes and the woman came up to help her make some white bean salad. All the ingredients were laid out in those little glass bowls like on TV. Giada told the woman to add salt to the oh, maybe 2 cups of beans and the woman added THE WHOLE CUP OF SALT.
When Giada recovered, she asked “Didn’t you think that was maybe A LITTLE MUCH salt?”
Giada said the woman’s punishment would be that she had to eat the bean salad herself.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Now I am hungry and laughing. I think you just summed up MY ENTIRE LIFE. (By which I mean, that one time I thought a cup of balsamic sounded a little excessive but went ahead and used it anyway. Three years later, still wincing.)
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I tend to be heavy handed with my salt. I have often over salted my soup. I got used to having potatoes onhand. If you goof Even if it’s really bad) peel and quarter up a potato and put it in the pot to boil for awhile. There has only been one time that this hasn’t worked out for me.
P.S. (I believe almost everything anyone tells me, too. Frankly? I would rather be like this than the person who never believes anything out of anyones mouth. My friend told me that this is secretly how she things and now? I worry all the time when we’re talking. Weird, I know.)
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Just reading this made me bloat.
As my sister-in-law and I are always concluding, Why can’t everyone be reasonable and just see things our way?
Huh?
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
You see, that’s why I resist cooking as often as possible. I wouldn’t have known the difference–I would’ve been all, “two tablespoons? Okay.” And then I would’ve been wondering why my face was puckered up for three days.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Don’t throw it out. Just make another batch or two with no salt, combine, and freeze. Is that too practical? I hate to waste food. You could also throw some rice and chicken in there and maybe that would cut it. But then it wouldn’t exactly be tomato soup anymore.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Oof, what a bummer. Although I’ve certainly done the same thing.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
That recipe sounds delicious, except for the eighty gazillion pounds of salt part. Did you figure out how you probably made it before? Will you tell us? The sentence I’ve made this soup before – tomatoes, garlic cloves, fennel bulb, and a carrot, all roasted in olive oil and sea salt – and it’s lick-the-bowl-clean tasty. just made me SO HUNGRY.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Maybe it was a typo, and he meant 2 teaspoons of salt?
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Have I mentioned your posts always make me hungry? Now I have to go raid my fridge – oh, the torment.
On the soup note, my condolences! That Bill, building your trust and then leading you astray. Tell him to get off your table and make you some soup. He totally owes you.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:05 am
A brilliant metaphor; I’m passing it on to my girlfriends who are also suffering from an excess of gullibility. (gullibleness?)
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:23 am
Today, begining of Memorial Day week-end and it is snowing and Tomato Soup and a toasted cheese sandwich would be perfect. Why do we trust what we read? Just because someone took time write their thoughts it should be held true? Then again, maybe, it isn’t snowing? … sadly, this is true in my part of the world. I trust you – two tablespoons is way too much.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
i HATE when recipes are wrong. boo!
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
so disappointing! but i’m curious — all those other times you made the soup when it wasn’t too salty, were you listening to your instincts? maybe make a little note for next time — beside oil spatters and crusty zucchini bits, my cookbooks are littered with notes reminding me where the author got something wrong.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
I am an admitted oversalter, but even THAT sounds like too much to me. Also, you talk to your cookbooks, too? Good. I’m glad I’m not alone.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hmmm, I add to Erin\’s comment \”Not many things worse than sitting down to a meal you’ve been working on and being disappointed.\”
I say, not many things are worse than sitting down to a relationship you\’ve spent years working on and being disappointed…and are left with oversalted soup. Still, 30 is a FINE TIME of life to purge yourself of self doubt. Maybe you can make a parable, like \”If love and soup are too salty, throw them out and get a new cookbook.\”
Also, if the second batch of unsalted soup combined with the first batch doesn\’t work, try cooking slices of potatoes in it. You remove them before you eat the soup, and they absorb a lot of the excess salt. My momma told me that.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I bet you read it as teaspoons all those other times.
And now, I will have to find that cookbook because the soup sounds delicious. Curse you!
May 24th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Is it possible for you to simply dump the soup over your ex’s head? You’ll have to toss it out anyhow right? Might as well “kill-2-birds” as they say. I think that would put the icing on that metaphor cake.
So..I cook for a living and feel a bit sheepish that I’ve never heard of Bill Granger. Do you suggest starting with one of his books over another? Or what’s your favorite cookbook of his?
P.S. The potato thing totally works.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Justin Wilson, RIP, the Cajun Cook.
Three teaspoons of cayenne pepper on pork chops. Dredge them in cayenne pepper.
Totally inedible.
Maybe a few pounds of salt would have helped.
May 25th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Delurking after reading a few of your posts. “Dory Previn” by Camera Obscura is an amazing song that helped me articulate the need and timing of moving on after a break-up. Although I never came up with a quasi-analysis through cooking! Way clever, although I’m sure what you wanted at the time was a bowl of unruined soup. Oh! And have you tried grilled cheese with caramelized onions? The best! Especially with Gruyere.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
In case anyone is still reading the comments:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/014808.html
Ha!