As a child, when I was growing up in a small, rural town in north-central Massachusetts, my mother would make this soup frequently in the autumn and winter; but my sister and I always insisted on it for Halloween, due to its orange color. We called it Halloween Soup. And it was a staple for those cold, spooky, costume laden nights.
We didn’t know that it had a fancy French name, Soup au Pistou, or that it’s just a French version of Italian minestrone soup, or that it was created by Julia Child. Pistou is a condiment that originates from Southern France. It is similar to pesto, but is not made with pine nuts. The recipe comes from Julia’s cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. All that we knew was that it was delicious, orange, and was a good hearty soup that kept us going as we went out trick-or-treating on a cold, late-October night.
The weather in Massachusetts on late-October evenings is always very cold, sometimes with freezing rain, or even early snow on the ground. I can’t count how many times we went out with a winter coat on under our costumes. So, having this hearty soup for supper before going out was not only necessary for us, but became a fun holiday tradition too, one that my mom started and my sister has carried on with her children and that they now share with their own children.
The best part for mom, was that the soup was even better the next day, having time to thicken with the flavors melding together, so she would usually make it the day before, and then on Halloween night, not have to rush dinner before scrambling to get us into costumes and makeup and hairstyles for trick-or-treating. And, since this was the 1970’s, our costumes were always homemade, quite elaborate, planned since summer, and sewn by mom. They took a lot of time.
This soup recipe makes a lot, so we could get at least two meals out of it and then mom would freeze the other half of it to keep for later on in the season. If you’re not feeding a crowd, you can easily halve the recipe, or do as mom did, and put some away in the freezer.
Can anyone guess what my costume was in October 1977? I was very proud of the fact that I was the only Princess Leia that I saw that evening with a real black wig, twirled into cinnamon buns on the sides of my head. No other little girl in my town had one like that!
Soup au Pistou (a French Vegetable Soup)
From Mastering the Art of French Cooking By Julia Child
Ingredients:
3 quarts water
2 cups each: diced carrots, diced boiling potatoes, diced white leek or onion
1 Tbs. salt
1 cup cooked white beans
1 cup cooked kidney beans
2 cups diced green beans (fresh)
1/3 cup broken vermicelli (or spaghetti)
¼ cup bread crumbs
1/8 tsp. ground pepper
4 cloves mashed garlic
6 Tbs. tomato puree
¼ cup chopped fresh basil or 1 ½ tbs. dried
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
¼ to ½ cup fruity olive oil – this will be added slowly and it only absorbs so much
Instructions:
Simmer water, vegetables and salt slowly in a kettle or large soup pot for 40 minutes.
Twenty minutes before serving, add beans, green beans, noodles, bread crumbs and pepper to boiling soup.
Simmer about 15 minutes or until green beans are cooked.
Prepare the pistou while soup is cooking:
Place garlic, tomato puree, basil and parmesan cheese in a mixing bowl and blend into a paste with a wooden spoon; then, slowly and in a thin stream, beat the oil into the mixture.
When soup is ready, take out a cup of soup and gradually beat into the pistou. Pour back into the soup and stir.
Serve with hot French bread or hard toasted bread rounds basted with olive oil.
We didn’t know that it had a fancy French name, Soup au Pistou, or that it’s just a French version of Italian minestrone soup, or that it was created by Julia Child.
Susan is a case manager at Strive!; the housing program serving adults with unique developmental and mobility challenges.