The first fall meal of the year has a place of honor in the chronicles of meals. This is a season in which the body demands hot and satisfying food after a long summer, during which we made do with light food, generally cold, with plenty of fruit, vegetables, cheeses and fish.
The cool weather, on the other hand, awakens a longing for piping-hot casseroles and a desire for dishes with more complex flavors. And all this now sends us off to stir and rattle pots, full of enthusiasm and creative joy.
Add to this the soil yield, which is particularly excellent these days. The weather surprised us favorably this year; and the market yield no longer looks like an end-of-season sale. This is the first year in a long time in which the fall season is actually being felt − proper downpours, clear and chilly days, and images of foliage that at long last match the songs about fall.
In previous years, we got gentle rain showers, at best; the heat index dropped only slightly; the leaves fell so fast that we didn’t always remember to watch the foliage; and the market, emptied of summer vegetables and fruit, was left pale and ashamed, without worthy produce. Pillars of blooming squills and the bird migrations were the only reminders that we were in an undefined season, a season without produce, whose connection to the word, “fall,” is purely accidental.
This year, the market attests to a genuine fall fiesta − from sweet avocado, mushrooms of all sorts, upright asparagus stalks, fresh lettuces and delicate mangold leaves (Swiss Chard); through crunchy apples, at once sweet and sour, juicy pears, splendid quinces and aromatic guavas; to pudgy pumpkins, Jerusalem artichokes with a dank scent of soil and giant pomegranates dotted with red seeds heavy with sweet juice.
More than anything else, it is time for the small root vegetables. If we rummage thoroughly through the greengrocer’s jute sacks, we will find an enormous array of vegetables whose size is no indication of their quality − small sweet beets, delicate baby onions, tiny orange carrots, tender leeks, fennels with an intoxicating licorice smell, blushing turnips and minuscule celery roots (celeriac). These vegetables have not had time to rest in the ground and grow fat on rainwater; and their young, concentrated and rich flavor and wonderful sweetness will awaken the taste buds, along with memories of the days when we ran through the streets in sandals and shorts, rain fell and the smell of fall was in the air.
Baby leek, Jerusalem artichoke, and mushroom soup
Ingredients 10-12 servings:
6-7 peeled Jerusalem artichokes 400 grams net weight
2 tablespoons olive oil
A little salt and black pepper
8 young leeks (400 grams net weight), sliced into thin rings
2 small celery roots, peeled and diced small
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
4 thyme branches, tied with kitchen twine
2 baskets Champignon mushrooms
2 baskets baby portabella mushrooms
8 medium portabellas
8 shitake mushrooms 1.5 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups white dry wine
2 liters boiling water
1 bunch parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup semolina
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
Pinch ground nutmeg
Preparation:
Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Slice the Jerusalem artichokes into thin coins (2 millimeters-thick). Place them in an oven pan lined with baking paper, drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil over them, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and roast for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large pot, fry the leek rings and diced celeriac in 4 tablespoons of olive oil until softened. Add the chopped garlic and bouquet of thyme, and fry for 2 minutes.
Wipe (do not wash) and slice the various kinds of mushrooms into 5-millimeter slices. Add them to the pot and steam for 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and white wine, and cook on a high fire for 15 minutes. Add the boiling water, roasted Jerusalem artichoke, and parsley. Cook for 5 minutes and turn off the fire.
Shortly before serving, fry the chopped garlic in olive oil for half a minute in a small pan. Add semolina and seasonings, and stir-fry for another minute. Transfer the contents of the pan to the pot with the hot soup, stir well, cover and cook for 2 minutes. Wait another 5 minutes before tasting and adjusting the seasonings. Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with Parmesan (optional).
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