TOMATO SOUP-A KNOTTY RECIPE WITH A DIFFERENCE

TOMATO SOUP- A KNOTTY RECIPE WITH A DIFFERENCE 

Warning :- People on fad diets and prudes, please do not touch my post with a barge-pole. I MEANT DON'T READ FURTHER...

A friend posted a picture of a cartload of red, juicy, almost organic tomatoes (because well…they had been squirted with pesticide) by her well-meaning ‘Mali’. I wrote back saying these tomatoes fill my senses to the brim- I want a bowl full of hearty, tomato soup doused with cream. The heavy rains that we have been blasted with, translated the want into an unabashed craving. This afternoon I caved in- rather I dug in ravenously into a ‘droolicious’ bowl of that craving.

Here’s how I went about it. 

 I opened my vegetable drawer. The cold air caressed my beauteous broccoli and chives, my humble okra and coriander, my exotic, fresh basil and baby carrots. The red tomatoes blushed deeper and their taut surfaces brushed against my callous touch. I cherry-picked them, one by one and placed them in the colander. The water trickled off their tautness. They looked irresistible- with the bubble of wanton water on their red sides.

They were completely jolted as I immersed them in a pot full of boiling water to blanch them.  Their resilience put to a climactic test- they came out crinkled- their red tautness unbroken. Nevertheless they peeled off without resistance.  My perforated spoon spooned them into my blender. They jumped out of their left over skin. They filled my home with a waft that was unmistakably ‘tomatoish’. My tomatoes swirled like mad dervishes- with a boiled onion, bulbs of garlic, some peppercorns and a pinch of pink salt. They danced mellifluously in my jar, their redness rising and ebbing like a flamenco dancer who knows no coyness. 

Into the bumbling butter flowed the redness from the blender jar. It now danced and brushed against the walls of my ancient wok. When the shavings of Parmesan swirled into it- the redness swelled with pride and power- the waft now reached a crescendo. 

In went a bay leaf and a log of cinnamon- because the redness loves bold flavours. It coated the wooden ladle- the ladle that added a dash of cornflour mixed with a bit of water. The ladle was lost in the swell and ebb of the redness. It was loathe to come out.  The ladle spooned the soup into wanton bowls. The whiteness of the cream on it - the redness screamed.

Never the one to be quiet- never the one to be subdued-  the Tomato Soup steamed.

Until it was held by the tongue-engulfed in the mouth-smoothened down the throat. The tomato-soup was eaten.  A deep, guttural sigh broke  out.

 The tomato soup played the symphony of the senses.