adrian_turtle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle) wrote2023-09-11 03:08 pm
adrian_turtle) wrote2023-09-11 03:08 pm
generational shift
Last year, I bought something called a "soup sock," that isn't as silly as it sounds. It's a cheesecloth bag, big enough to hold an entire chicken. If you want to make chicken soup and strain it through cheesecloth for a clear broth, you don't need to pour the pot of soup through a strainer. You can just put the chicken in the cheesecloth bag before cooking it.
They include a recipe in the package, because of course they do. I've kept the recipe card because it IS silly, especially for something called "Mama's Old Fashioned Chicken Soup." It contains a whole chicken, 2 onions, and 2 tablespoons of fresh cracked pepper. So far, so good. It also contains 3 cups of diced celery, and 2 packets of sugar substitute.
It shouldn't feel so very peculiar that "Mama's Old-Fashioned" could refer to a Boomer or Gen-X woman who relies on artificial sweeteners (because she doesn't have a teaspoon of sugar in the house? Because she can't imagine using a half a cup less of celery?) But on the other paw, I know my grandmothers used saccharine tablets everywhere it was appropriate and some places it wasn't, and my mother preferred aspartame. I have cousins-in-law who are already mothers of college students, and they cooked with sucralose for decades, though generally the kind that can replace sugar cup-for-cup.
They include a recipe in the package, because of course they do. I've kept the recipe card because it IS silly, especially for something called "Mama's Old Fashioned Chicken Soup." It contains a whole chicken, 2 onions, and 2 tablespoons of fresh cracked pepper. So far, so good. It also contains 3 cups of diced celery, and 2 packets of sugar substitute.
It shouldn't feel so very peculiar that "Mama's Old-Fashioned" could refer to a Boomer or Gen-X woman who relies on artificial sweeteners (because she doesn't have a teaspoon of sugar in the house? Because she can't imagine using a half a cup less of celery?) But on the other paw, I know my grandmothers used saccharine tablets everywhere it was appropriate and some places it wasn't, and my mother preferred aspartame. I have cousins-in-law who are already mothers of college students, and they cooked with sucralose for decades, though generally the kind that can replace sugar cup-for-cup.
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I don't find celery bitter, but that much of it would just be monotonous. I'd replace a third of it with carrot and another third with potatoes. I don't think chicken soup generally has potatoes, but my family are potato fanatics.
P.
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I know people who don't eat anything made with matzo meal during Passover, and they customarily put potatoes in their chicken soup. Why on earth not use matzo meal during Passover? Because the word we translate as "leaven" is not, technically, the same as yeast leavening. It's more like "what happens when you let wet flour sit around for more than 20 minutes before baking it." And there's flour in the matzo meal, so you shouldn't get it wet and let it sit around for more than 20 minutes. This spring, a local geek fed matzo meal to a sourdough starter. And the sourdough starter ate it, and went on to make perfectly good bread. I know 3 people who recoiled in horror and decided to stop eating matzo ball soup during Passover.
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The rest is frankly above my pay grade! P
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Speaking as a person with celiac, if I was putting gluten-free noodles into soup, I'd try Rice Ramen brand, because those are intended to be served in soup. They're available with or without the soup packet, as just plain noodles.
My pick for gluten-free pasta is that I bought an electronic pasta machine and make my own. You put in your choice of flour -- gluten-free in my case -- plus water and maybe egg, and in about ten minutes you have pasta that is freshly made and amazing! There's a whole rabbit hole of online communities about home pasta machines, and there is a store in Italy that sells additional dies that can be used to make pasta in different shapes. I am not sure how well homemade pasta would stand up to sitting in soup, but I think it would do reasonably well.
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Are you the Pamela Dean who wrote the book Tam Lin -- one of my all-time favorite books? Just curious! If it is yours, thank you very much for writing it!!
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P.