Free An Exaltation of Soups by Patricia Solley

be beyond sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.
M OROCCO
WEDDING LAMB SOUP WITH RICE AND BEANS

H ARIRA
    F ROM THE
G ULISTAN
    Whose wife is tender, wise, and true,
In fact, Beloved, just like you,
Although he merits no such thing
Will live, as I do, like a King.
    —S AADL ,
thirteenth-century Persian poet
    Serves 6 to 8
    T HIS SPECIAL WEDDING version of the rich, lemony
harira
that traditionally breaks the fast during Ramadan uses rice as a symbolic ingredient and dispenses with the eggs used to thicken traditional
harira
recipes. It’s wonderful, as all
hariras
are, and a great start to both an extravagant banquet and wedded bliss.
    1½ cups dried chickpeas, or two 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    1 pound boneless lamb, cubed into bite-size pieces
    2 medium onions, chopped
    1 large red pepper, seeded and chopped (hot or sweet, as you prefer)
    1 teaspoon cinnamon
    1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
    1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
    ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
    2 pounds ripe or canned tomatoes, chopped, juice reserved
    1 cup red lentils, washed and picked through for stones
    10 cups (2½ quarts) water
    ½ cup rice
    Salt to taste
    Cinnamon and lemon slices, for garnish
T O P REPARE
    1. The night before, soak the dried chickpeas overnight in lots of water. The next morning, drain and husk the chickpeas by rubbing them between your palms.
    2. Prep the remaining ingredients as directed in the recipe list.
T O C OOK
    1. Heat the oil over low heat in a large soup pot, then add the lamb, onions, red pepper, cinnamon, black pepper, ½ cup of the cilantro, and the parsley. Cook, stirring, over medium-low heat for 5 minutes.
    2. Add the tomatoes, turn the heat to medium, and continue cooking for another 15 minutes.
    3. Stir in the lentils, chickpeas (unless you’re using canned chickpeas), reserved juice from the tomatoes, and the water, then bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for l½ hours.
    4. Add the rice and cook another 30 minutes. If you’re using canned chickpeas, add them now.
    5. Stir in the remaining ½ cup of cilantro and the salt. Let simmer for another 5 minutes.
T O S ERVE
    Ladle the soup into festive pottery bowls and sprinkle with cinnamon, pinching the grains between your thumb and forefinger to get a fine dusting. Serve lemon slices on the side—or you may pass around tiny bowls of fresh lemon juice with tiny spoons on the side. My family was served
harira
with bowls of lemon juice at a dinner hosted by a friend remotely connected to the Moroccan royal family, and I watched my lemon-loving young daughter across the low-slung table methodically spoon some 30 spoonfuls into her soup until she’d delicately emptied the entire bowl.
    C ILANTRO /C ORIANDER - THE T WOFER H ERB
    This member of the parsley family is now in the produce sections of most supermarkets, but I’d never seen nor heard of it in 1983, when I first set foot in the souks of Morocco and found it everywhere, called “Moroccan parsley.” Love at first bite. Native to southern Europe, cilantro has been cultivated for thousands of years by many, many cultures—for its seeds (often called
coriander
, from the Greek
koris
, or “bed bug,” because of the buggy smell of the seeds when they’re still green) and for its leaves (often called
cilantro
, its Spanish name). In ancient Egypt, the seeds were bruised to mix with bread. Romans prescribed the leaves, freshly chopped, for invalids and brought the plant with them to England. There, in Tudor times, the seeds were part of a highly spiced wedding drink called Hippocras—perhaps for their reputed aphrodisiac effect—and, indeed, if consumed in large quantities, coriander acts as a narcotic. What else does it do? It combats flatulence, and women throughout the Arab world chew the seeds to ease labor pains.
T URKEY
BRIDE SOUP

E ZO G ELIN ÇORBASI
    Serves 6 to 8
    T HIS RICH TURKISH SOUP is attributed to an