Tag Archives: Soup

Soup, Words and Doughballs

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We have a family birthday on Christmas Eve and I always cook a meal at home rather than going out to a restaurant because they’re always busy with works’ nights out at the moment, so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen around now. There really ought to be a law against people giving birth around Christmas time!

So I’ve been thinking about what to have for the birthday meal and as we’re all keen soup people I’ve decided to give Kinloch Castle Tomato Soup a go after seeing the recipe over at Peggy Ann’s Post. Have a look at her recipes here. It sounds tasty and should look nice and festive.

If you look at the Newfoundland Soup recipe above that one you’ll see a recipe for soup which I’m fairly certain originated from a Scottish soup because that’s the sort of soup that I make all the time – winter and summer. (What summer?! I hear you say.)

Mind you I don’t often put dough balls/dumplings in my soup, I tend to keep those for winter warmer stews. But you’ll see that the dough balls in Newfoundland have the name ‘dough boys’. That’s quaint and interesting I thought, and then a couple of days later I found myself having a bit of a smile to myself because it had come into my head that it’s one of those wonderful transatlantic mistranslations that happen over the years.

Obviously it was originally dough buoys! I think that in America those floating markers in the sea are pronounced boo-ies or something like that. But in English – bouy is pronounced boy and obviously dough balls/dumplings do behave like buoys in the sea as they bob about and float on the surface of the stew or soup. I think it was Winston Churchill who said: Two nations divided by a common language. Well I was always told that he said it anyway. Whatever, I’ll be thinking of them as dough boys now!

My husband tells me doughboys was a nickname given to US soldiers in World War 1. (He’s interested in that sort of thing.) Apparently it dates from an even earlier US war. Who knows what the origin was? But I like to think of them as markers in a sea of stew or soup.

If you watch the film of Annie Proulx’s novel The Shipping Forecast you can see that there still is Scottish influence in Newfoundland where they are keen consumers of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes and Snowballs. It shows up in the book too, lots of Scots seem to have gone there at some point and stayed, probably coming from Scotland helps you withstand the terrible weather they have there.

Anyway, if you haven’t already visited Peggy Ann’s Post why not hop over now! Her most recent recipe is for pizzelles, which I’ve never even heard of!

Tomato and bean soup

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tomato and bean soup

At last, the Formula 1 racing season has started. A large part of number one son’s life revolves around it. So it was a very tiring weekend and we have had to put up with lots of yelps of excitement in the wee small hours. Roll on Europe. I can’t really complain because it is probably my fault that he is such a big fan as I was a fan in the 60’s and 70’s. I think mainly because Jackie Stewart lived near us and went to the same school as me although not at the same time – I’m not that old. Well, what has all that to do with soup? It builds up your strength for the gruelling season of F1 viewing. So this is the recipe for no. 1 son’s favourite soup.

1 mugful of dried haricot beans soaked overnight
3 tomatoes, quartered or about 12 tiny ones
2 onions
4 carrots
3 sticks of celery
2 200g tins of chopped tomatoes
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp tomato puree
chopped parsley and thyme (to your taste)
Roughly chop the onions carrots and celery and whizz up in a blender with water. You will have to do this a few times to deal with it all. Reserve some of the carrot and celery just roughly chopped if you like chunky bits in your soup as we do. Add all of this to a large pan with the haricot beans and tins of tomatoes. Then. add the tomato puree, dried oregano and chopped parsley and thyme. Lastly, add the quartered tomatoes and more water. I use my pressure cooker for this recipe as then you don’t have to bother about soaking the beans first, just cook at pressure for about 20 minutes. I add enough water to make about 12 bowls of soup. If you don’t have a pressure cooker then just boil it all up for about 1 hour. Season to taste. Try it, you’ll love it. If you can’t be bothered with the dried beans, try using ordinary tinned beans. Obviously you will only have to boil the soup for about 20 minutes then. I’ve never tried tinned beans but I think it will work fine.