I posted this on my "food" blog, "Red Wine With Fish," just about a year ago. December is the time of year when hot, hearty soups are on the menu, so here is the story of my best. Winrow cousins pay special attention: this is Grandma Winrow's recipe (more or less):
Years and years ago there was a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon which began with the voice-over narrator, the incomparable Bill Conrad, proclaiming, "Everybody can do something! For example, Homer Noodleman of Sioux Falls, South Dakota can put six flashlights in his mouth!"
Bullwinkle's special talent was that he could remember everything he ever ate.
Well, I can't remember everything I ever ate, but fortunately I can remember how I was taught to cook some of the things I've eaten, and that's where our story begins today.
I have this friend, Holly Inder. Now, when I met Holly many years ago her name was Holly Brayton, and I'm still inclined to call her that, because frankly, I only met her ex-husband once and the encounter was so forgettable that I can't even remember what he looked like, much less anything he said. Everybody can do something, as Bill Conrad said, and one thing James Inder did very well was blend quietly in with the furniture. So to me, Holly will always be Holly Brayton. I don't really know who Holly Inder was. A mistake, would be my best guess.
With that by way of non-sequitur, Holly and I were talking the other day about split pea soup.
Holly and I met in late 1985, when we were both preparing to go overseas with the foreign service for the first time. Now, Holly was a foreign service brat; she grew up overseas, then went to work in State Department telecommunications when she was in her twenties. Her father had been a telecomm technician during his own career; she was more-or-less following in his footsteps. I was 30 when I joined the foreign service and had never been overseas in my life.
Consequently, Holly has been to a lot of places I've never been. She stayed in the foreign service after I quit nine years ago, and continued to travel.
So when I get an opportunity to whip on Holly a place I've been that she hasn't, well, let's just say it's like taking the trick in a gin game. I like it.
So there we were, talking about split pea soup. Holly says to me, "There's a place in California I've heard about, where there's a restaurant that serves nothing but split pea soup."
"Buellton," I said, with an inward gloat.
"You've been there?"
"Yup. The town is called Buellton, the restaurant is called Anderson's, and yes, split pea soup is the premier item on the menu," I said.
Then, unable to resist savoring the moment a bit more, I added, with just a touch of world-weariness, "Buellton. Yeah, it's right off Highway 101 north of Santa Barbara on the way to San Luis Obispo. I ate there with my dad a couple of times on our way to Arroyo Grande to visit my aunt and uncle. Not far away from Buellton is another tourist attraction, Solvang, a fake Danish village. You can buy all kinds of baked goodies there."
I was lovin' this, as they say in the marketing department at McDonald's.
But I was just warming up.
"Yeah, Anderson's makes some of the best split-pea soup you ever tasted," I told Holly. "I don't know if it's available in other states, but in California you can buy it canned in the grocery store. Yeah, it's good." Then, with a pause for effect, I added, "But mine's better."
Anyone out there old enough to remember Walter Brennan on the old western series The Guns of Will Sonnet will recognize how I savored this moment. Remember the scene where Brennan, as old Will Sonnet, has the following exchange with Claude Akins?
Claude: Ah, you Sonnets. I wish I had the third one in front of me right now.
Walt: You mean James? Now that's a foolish wish, mister. From what I hear, James is the third best shot in the west.
Claude: The THIRD best?
Walt: James is darn good. But he's better. (Jerks his thumb at Dack Rambo, his grandson.) And I'm better'n both of 'em. No brag, just fact.
Yesiree Bob, my split pea soup's bettern' Anderson's. (Spit.) No brag, just fact.
And there's a darn good reason for that. Family tradition.
That is correct. My grandmother taught my mother how to make split pea soup, and my mother taught me. And my grandmother was the best cook who ever lived. Ergo, when I make split pea soup, I'm making it the way my grandmother did, and there's no better. Anywhere.
I can prove it. I did. I told Holly that I had put up a big pot of split pea soup just the day before, and that I would bring her some the next time I saw her. Well, I happened to be going down to Landmark Mall a few days ago to do some Christmas shopping, and Holly doesn't live far from there, so I took a Tupperware container of my split pea soup with me in the car, ran it over to Holly's place and dropped it off.
She called me the next day to tell me that it was every bit as good as I said it was. And that's saying something, because Holly is a better-than-average cook herself, and moreover, one of those women who don't mind admitting when a man can cook something better than they can. When she lived in Guam a few years ago, Holly had a boyfriend named Frank, so she told me, and this guy, an ex-Marine, really liked to cook. When he and Holly weren't canoodling, they were cooking. "But Frank was a better cook than I was," she cheerfully admitted.
Well, I can say this with all confidence: not all of my kitchen experiments turn out well. I really screwed up the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving this year. But I can say with all confidence that nobody, and I mean nobody, makes better split pea soup than I do. Because when I cook this stuff, my grandmother is looking over my shoulder. Dante, steered through Hell by Virgil, had no better guide than that.
So make a list, run to the grocery store, get out your kitchen utensils, follow these instructions and prepare to go to heaven. But don't forget the Beano.
How good is this stuff? When my father was 90 and we were having trouble getting him to eat anything at all, he would polish off three bowls of this soup if I put it in front of him. That's how good it is.
Oh, by the way, I wouldn't dream of serving split pea soup without cornbread on the side. You know cornbread. In some parts of the east they call it johnny cake. In a future blog posting I'll tell you about the time I introduced a roomful of Russians to cornbread. Anyway, included with my split pea soup recipe is also my cornbread recipe, for those of you who don't mind going the extra mile rather than just grabbing a box of cornbread mix at Safeway.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S (AND MOTHER'S) SPLIT PEA SOUP
Ingredients:
Two 8 oz. packages of dry split peas
1 large onion
4 large carrots
2 smoked pork hocks or smoked ham hocks
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
6-8 bay leaves
Soak the dry split peas overnight, or at least for a couple of hours. They will expand, and you'll need to add more water. Then dump them in a soup pot and bring them to a boil. When they come to a boil, turn the heat down low and let them parboil until they're soft, usually 45 minutes to an hour. A whitish foam will arise from the boiling peas. Skim it off and throw it away.
Dice up the pork or ham hock as best as you can and put it in a saucepan with about two cups of water. Start it boiling too, then let it simmer on low until you have soup stock.
When the peas start to get nice and mooshy, drain some of the water out of them and add the soup stock. If you're using smoked pork hock with a bone, fish it out and chop as much meat off of it on a chopping board as you can. Throw the meat in with the peas and stock. Then dice up the onion and carrots and add them to the soup.
Then add the seasonings. salt and pepper to taste, maybe a tablespoon of garlic powder (less if you don't like garlic) and then add the whole bay leaves. Just let the bay leaves float in the soup.
Simmer on low heat for about another hour. Then turn the heat off, cover the soup and let it cool for three hours. When it cools, it will be thick -- almost as thick as soup that comes out of a can, Add as much water as you need to get it to the thickness you like, re-heat and serve. Remove the bay leaves before serving.
One great thing about soup: the more it's re-heated, the better it gets.
KELLEY'S CORNBREAD FROM SCRATCH:
Ingredients:
1 cup white flour
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp. cooking oil
1 tsp. salt
Pre-heat oven to 375. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, whip or mix until you get smooth batter, pour the batter into a greased 8 X 8 square baking pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. I like to spice my cornbread up by adding such things as salsa, grated cheese, diced jalepeno or bits of bacon. Experiment with your own ingredients, but the basic batter stays the same.
And for making a kitchen smell wonderful, nothing rounds this meal out like a freshly-baked apple pie. I'm back in my mom's kitchen on a November night just thinking about it.
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