Ingredient love: Cauliflower soup

 

Today, before playing with some ingredients, S. wants to play with the word ingredient.  The word is used today as a noun, but it formerly could also be an adjective.  It’s from a Latin root meaning “to step,” or “to go,” and in early modern English it meant something like “goes into”  — or, as we might say, re-translating the word back into the noun we’re comfortable with, “is an ingredient of.”   For example, here is Sir Thomas Browne: 

The horn of a Deer is Alexipharmacal, and ingredient into the confection of Hyacinth.  

 (Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 1646)

(The more pedantic among our readers may like to know, first, that “alexipharmacal” means “having the capacity to act as an antidote to poison;” and that the “hyacinth” Browne refers to is not the plant, but a pre-modern medicine made from various precious ingredients and apparently used as a general restorative.  It is claimed that the formula is similar to that of an obscure Italian liqueur called alchermes whose traditional formula included a small insect called “kermes” [hence, obviously its name] that gave the drink a bright red color.   On another blog (http://allthingssicilianandmore.blogspot.com/2009/03/alchermes-liqueur-used-to-make-zuppa.html)  S. reads that alchermes is regarded in Sicily as a homemade liqueur made by soaking various aromatics in grain alcohol.  This is also apparently used in Sicily to make the desert zuppa inglese, a version of the English “trifle.”)

This still, however, doesn’t explain our title, which refers to a proverb once shared with S. by a real practicing chief, Gordon Hamersley, whose Hamersley’s Bistro has been one of the best restaurants in Boston for more than twenty years (S. is a former Bostonian), and whose Bistro Cooking at Home is a staple in the Sherdo cookbook collection.  S. had the pleasure of meeting Gordon a long time ago, when they got in a conversation about the difference between cooking at a restaurant and cooking at home.  The difference, S. recalls Gordon saying, is that at home love is one of the ingredients.

This is not a sentimental principle but an entirely practical one.  At home, love is one of the ingredients because at home you are always, after all, at once the feared critic and the ultimate v.i.p. guest: for you, the chef (yourself) culls the best ingredients, goes the extra mile, and, most of all, always makes a dish exactly as you like it!   But love enters into it another way too: in the generosity of the guest, the one being cooked-for, who overlooks whatever flaws may be and is often enthusiastically eating and enjoying before the cook has even finished his self-critique.   And so, to rephrase the proverb slightly, one might say that in home-cooking the love is ingredient: love shapes at once one’s successes and one’s failures. 

This recipe, which is adapted from the one in Paul Bertolli’s wonderful Cooking by Hand, has literally only three main ingredients, and one of them is water.  S. positively hated cauliflower when he was younger, having mostly had it steamed into a sodden, colorless and tasteless mess; but this recipe convinces him that it is one of the most sublime of vegetables.

Slice one onion thinly, and cut one cauliflower into small chunks.  Saute the onion in olive oil at medium heat until tender but not brown; add the cauliflower and about six cups of water.  Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer until the cauliflower is tender.  Puree in batches in a blender or a food processor.  Reheat gently before serving.  If it seems too thick you can add a small amount of additional water; if it seems too thin you can very gently simmer a little longer. 

Ladle into bowls, garnish each bowl with a little extra-virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.  If necessary, add extra love.