Soup is: good chowder served from an abalone shell at Pop Ernt’s on Monterey wharf back in the 30s — I can hear the kindly weatherbeaten waiter drawling his litany, “Well, tonight we have rock cod, mackerel, abalone . . .” (and I, of course, was much preoccupied with the imminent arrival of the Del Monte Express outside our sunporch window); and soup is an unctuous brew of Cream of Tomatoes at that San Francisco landmark Jack’s, poured from silver urns deep as Wonderland rabbit holes; it’s leek-and-potato soups in modest French restaurants of the 50s served with butter floating on the top (”very strange,” thought a young GI in Orléans); it’s the soup of one’s first bouillabaisse in Nice, served in two courses; it’s goulash soup high on a hill in Budapest; it’s that haunting she-crab brew at Perdita’s in old Charleston, S.C.; it’s an outrageously rib-sticking “Prime Rib” soup in the Oregon Cascades; it is of course that soup so ceremoniously eaten by the mama, papa and working girl in Charpentier’s Louise (what could it be, a thin veg broth, I’ll bet, big on carrots); and it’s even the canned, pleasantly doctored soups of one’s childhood family dinners.

        My mother used sometimes to combine cans of tomato and pea soup with a little curry powder, and that led, some years later, to the frothy item of this page.

In a large pot soften 1 chopped medium-sized onion in a tablespoon or more of butter.

Add 3/4 cup of yellow or green split peas, 1 ham hock, 2 diced tomatoes, a very good dash of dry sherry and a 49-ounce can of good quality chicken broth (or the equivalent of homemade — note that the commercial sort does come with “1/3 less salt”).* Bring all this to a boil and simmer, covered, for at least an hour.

Now skim the excess fat off the soup and remove the hock, separating the meat from the bone, editing out the thick skin and fat and cutting the good stuff into fairly small pieces, then put the meat back in the soup.

At this point you’re ready to purée your soup, in batches, tranferring the results to a serving bowl and stirring in a good half cup of cream, into which you’ve mixed several tablespoons of curry powder, commercial or homemade.  Then sprinkle all with a nice heap of minced parsley.

Serve your Purée Mongol with large croutons: cube slices of French bread and cook them slowly in a non-stick pan with a smidgen of butter, turning them occasionally, until they’re crisp and brown.

* If you use a little less broth you can freeze the remainder, beginning an emergency cache.

        Here in the U.S. at least, we’ve been in the Great Black Bean Era for fifteen or twenty years.  Few self-respecting young chefs in New American Cuisine restaurants would be caught without a dish or two involving this ingredient seemingly despised by those blind French and Italian masters of cuisine across the pond.  Chinese, to be sure, have been sending black bean sauces out of their kitchens since the year 1, and occidentals like the canny proprietor of New York’s original Coach House were featuring black bean soups several decades ago.  But the crescendo of the 80s was a giant one.  Here we offer a fairly basic soup recipe — no chilies, no sour cream, no lime, no rum, just a tinge of tomato, a bit of ham, and with the egg and lemon punctuation that strikes me as rather crucial.  If you’re feeling down, this is culinary penicillin.

        Cars, of course, run more smoothly after they’ve been washed, and this soup will taste even better if you serve it in large pottery bowls that’ve been sitting indolently about the house looking decorative and having no idea to what wonderful purpose an inventive home chef de cuisine will put them.

Soak overnight about 1/3 pound of black beans in water to cover.

In your soup pot soften in a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil 1 chopped onion and enough chopped celery to equal about 2/3 of the onion, along with some minced parsley and thyme.

Add the beans, drained, and 1 ham hock, a 14-ounce can or a little more of tomatoes (the “ready cut” variety will save you having to scissor the tomatoes into sufficiently small pieces) and most of a 49-ounce can of chicken broth (or homemade if you have it).  Bring all this to a boil and simmer covered for 2-1/2 hours at least. Late in this stage water may be added — guardedly!  – if the soup is beginning to cook away.

Remove the ham hock and cut the meat into small pieces, then stir them into your soup. Some skimming of excess fat will be advisable.  Now serve your black bean soup with chopped hard boiled egg and lemon slices.

SPINOFF NOTE:   The next day when you’re debating what to do with the rest of your bunch of celery, chop several spoonsful into what I call Marcus’ Potato Salad, along with boiled, cooled and diced red or yukon gold potatoes and those other embroideries, peeled and chopped cucumber and red onion, some minced parsley, and a dill Dijon mustard mayonnaise spiked with a few drops (or more!) of dry sherry. You can serve this salad with garlic sausages and tomato halves, or as part of an antipasto misto.  Don’t stint on the mustard and cucumber, and don’t overchill . . . and note that this salad is even better if orchestrated with sprinklings of paprika and turmeric.

        A variation on the preceding, this desert minestrone.  It’s a bit hotter.

        Now the Southwest has been such a force in American cooking lately but I’m afraid I haven’t had much experience of its cactal countryside.  My one time in Santa Fe I was in a constant fidget under that Big Top of a threatening-and-often-thundering sky that seemed to be administered by an unstable god out of a Wagnerian opera.  But the enchiladas at La Fonda couldn’t have been tangier, the zigzaggy Native American interior design was right up my alley and my interview with the composer Hans Werner Henze, a rather icy but cordial enough character, didn’t go too badly.  As for his opera The Bassarids which the Santa Fe Opera was staging, well, listening to its trendy aridity was hard work with no time off for good behavior.

Soak overnight about 1/3 cup of pinto beans in water to cover. Next phase, soften in a tablespoon or more of olive oil: 1 chopped onion, a thinly sliced carrot and 1 chopped sweet red pepper along with 1 pressed garlic clove.  Add the beans, drained, and 4 cups of water, a good teaspoon of cumin and a respectable smidgen of cayenne, bring to a boil and simmer, partly covered, for 1-1/4 hours.

Now brown (but don’t overcook) 1 chorizo or Italian sausage per serving, drain the sausages on paper towels and slice them, then add to the soup with a 28-ounce can of tomatoes and a 14-ounce can of chicken broth (or equivalent homemade); simmer all for 30 minutes. Serve this soup with a sprinkle of minced parsley.