I am just getting this crime off my chest.
At the weekend I made a winter soup on an industrial scale from the home-grown vegetables in the raised bed. I had pulled up the crop of parsnips, carrots and leeks and meticulously cleaned them before chopping and dropping them into an industrial-sized pan of vegetable stock steaming away on the hob with the last of the bulbs of garlic. All good so far.
Then I remembered a couple of remaining lines of something green-leafed in the veggie plot. It was never identified as I had failed to mark the rows properly when the seeds were sown. Spinach, kale, cabbage? All soup-worthy so I returned in the fading light to pull out an armful of them, knocked off the clinging soil, hacked off the roots to free the leaves and plunged them into a bucket of water before heading indoors to add them to the pan with some seasoning.
Forty minutes later the soup was served to the hungry family for their supper. The military-green soup was carefully ladled into the bowls, a warm loaf of sourdough alongside and tumblers were filled from the tap. A job well done. Until, grit. And lots of it. On the tongue, in the teeth. It was not even good wholesome mud, the sort of speck found on a lettuce leaf that children should eat uncomplainingly, unless it wriggles. I used to eat earth as a toddler and thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember the taste. And dog biscuits for that matter. Boneo and Winalot were my personal childhood favourites and I can’t believe that I was the only one! No, this soup was not fit for human consumption. It was, well, sandy. Nobody at the supper table ate more than their first spoonful.
Apart from me of course. I led by example and hated every mouthful. Six full large freezer boxes contain the vile soup, blocks of greenish ice frozen in time at minus eighteen degrees Celsius. I’m going to have to eat the damned stuff as I hate food waste. I tried some for lunch today but as I type this I can still feel the grit between my teeth.
Author of Below The Strandline
