Garlic soup

Eastside Road, April 16, 2014—

NOW THEN, a little more on that delicious garlic soup. After writing about it yesterday I took the trouble to verify, rather than simply make assumptions. Yes indeed: it does involve egg yolk.

The recipe comes from Richard Olney's marvelous book Simple French Cooking, where it appears with the following note:

Aïgo-bouido is Provençal for "boiled water."It is believed to be a cure-all. The rustic accompaniment is always dried bread crusts. The simplest version — reserved for those who are seriously ill — is nothing but a couple of cloves of garlic boiled in a quart of water with a branch of thyme and a sage leaf, strained over some olive-oil-soaked crusts of dried bread… The following recipe is a "super"version, as aïgo-bouidos go. For those who fear raw garlic, it cannot be too highly recommended. Whether or not one likes raw garlic, there is no doubt that it is powerful and aggressive in flavor and difficult to digest (although good, they say, for the heart). Cooked garlic is delicate and subdued in flavor, an aid to digestion and a "calmative".

I quote at this length to entice you to buying and reading this marvelous book, which speaks naturally and informatively and entertainingly about important things. Olney goes on, of course, to give the recipe itself, which involves bay, sage, thyme, lots of garlic, all cooked in water; a binding pommade of egg and egg yolks; olive oil of course; bread of course of course. Cook has a cold: this will offer relief — and, I hope, a calmative.

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