Anyway...the point is...that before going vegetarian, I LOVED French onion soup. And after going vegetarian, I continued to love it for years to come. Because I had no idea there was meat in it! My mom wasn't much of a cook, and she definitely never made anything as complex as soup from scratch...that's what cans were for, right? So it must have been something I just ate out at restaurants, and therefore I had no idea how to make it or what was in it. I remember finding out --was it in high school or college?-- that French onion soup had beef broth in it while sitting in a restaurant with my friends eating it. I vaguely remember the awkward moment of wondering if I should stop eating mid-bowl, or if I could put off the knowledge entering my brain until the bowl was finished.
So, now that I have this beef stock, my first recipe choice was to go back to my old favorite soup. Sally Fallon's recipe calls for 5 red onions. I'm following her recipe exactly this time, but my husband has told me something that sounds good...He says that on the menu of Morton's Steakhouse there is a five-onion French onion soup, with shallots, leeks, yellow onion, red onion, and garlic. Incidentally, I can't remember where I read this, but I saw recently that shallots are the most nutritious onions of all, packing the highest nutrient density than any onion. Maybe it was Joel Fuhrman
, don't know.I made the soup according to the Nourishing Traditions
recipe. Now, as a vegan-minded person, my intuition was jumping all over the place. Serving my daughter bone broth is a decision I have made based on the information available at this point in time. But in order to serve it to her, first I had to prepare it. The whole thing just felt so... wrong a lot of the time. For two hours I had to gently cook onions. That was fine, onions I'm happy with! Yay onions! But then I had to pull out the beef stock, and it's so weird to hear intuition screaming so loud and choose to ignore it. I mean, that's dead animal flesh. Right there! In my kitchen! In my pot! And then, if I can bring myself to eat it...in my body?!?! At least it doesn't smell as bad as it did before, now that it's in the soup. This is what a vegan freaking out looks like. (Actually my husband does cook his meat in my, I mean our, kitchen for his consumption, but I have been able to ignore it; there's something about doing it myself that is so unnerving.)
My daughter and I ate the French onion soup for dinner. The familiar taste came back to me, but I realized when I had eaten it in restaurants ages ago, it had always had a giant layer of cheese at the top...accounting for most of the reason I liked the dish. And I think I remember some croutons involved too. So this bowl was a little bare compared to my memory. I was able to eat some spoonfuls...little tiny, bird sized, hesitant spoonfuls. I bet if any Traditional Fooder reads this they will be thinking I'm ungrateful and not understanding the value of what was right in front of me, rejecting what they feel is the best food on earth. I remember that feeling...When I watched the amazing movie Simply Raw
there was a visitor at Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona who had a whole vast buffet of gourmet raw food in front of him, and all he could say was, "gross". It was infuriating! That was the best food on the planet, does he know how many people would give anything to be there at Gabriel Cousens' healing center eating that food!?So, I know what it sounds like, but it was just, okay...sortof edible. My daughter, who usually eats up my soups like there's no tomorrow, said.."I know it's from scratch, but it just doesn't taste very good. It's weird tasting."
This is where we're at. I am going to try the rest of the recipes in Nourishing Traditions and it's going to work out. Next up, the minestrone...
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