Happy to be in the soup

Whether it's a laborious bouillabaisse, a sophisticated French consommé or a citrusy avgolemono, no dish is as comforting or democratic as soup, says Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

OF soup and love,’ goes an old Spanish proverb, ‘the first is best.’ Although a bowl of steaming broth may not have quite the allure of Cupid’s arrow, soup will rarely let you down. In fact, one can quite understand why Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of pottage. Because there’s a variety for every whim, mood and desire, from the parsimoniously spartan to the downright Baroque. It can be blessedly, fundamentally simple, little more than vegetables simmered in water. Or garishly, lavishly ornate, like Paul Bocuse’s Soup Elysée, for which black truffles and foie gras are drenched in golden consommé, all beneath a puff pastry lid.

One particular favourite of Queen Victoria, consommé de faisan aux quenelles, took three days to prepare. On the first day, the pheasant meat and bones were simmered for hours to extract every last molecule of flavour. The second saw fresh meat minced, returned to the consommé with vegetables, clarified with a mixture of beef mince and egg white, then strained through a very fine cloth. The third day was spent making the quenelles, breast of chicken mixed with a thick white sauce and cream before being forced through a sieve, shaped into small ovals, and poached. All that work, gone in a few regal sips.