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It was a sunny Sunday afternoon after a winter of cold and misery. Carmen and I had scheduled a rendezvous, but after my disastrous choice of a pleasant but seedy guinguette for our last meeting, I put her in charge of restaurant reservations. She chose Au Chien Qui Fume–which, it turns out, positively bristles with history. Not to mention extreme nuttiness. According to its own take on things, this restaurant started out in 1740 as a small inn in the heart of old Paris, right off the Pont Neuf…but it was blasted away by the Haussman reconstruction and only reappeared in 1920 when a new restaurant was opened by a man who owned a poodle that smoked cigars and a terrier that smoked a pipe. I don’t know about you, but I am taking all of this cum grano salis. Au Chien Qui Fume was the belle of the old Les Halles ball, until that febrile “belly of Paris” moved to Rungis in 1971. Now it remains popular–yes for its food, but obviously also for the novelty of its dog theme–and it sits at the corner of a clean and odorless green space in sight of the storied Saint-Eustache gothic church. It’s a darling restaurant; it’s completely ridiculous; and it serves excellent food.

Ten guesses on my first course. Soup, of course: la soupe de poisson from Provence. It was a selection on “Menu Bazil à 33,70 €” and it was yummy, served with the traditional crouton, parmesan, and rouille (recipe for rouille on soupsong’s Aziminu). Second course La Daurade Royale Grillée au Thym, Tomate, Epinards, Pommes Safranées, a great fish platter–I was actually shown the whole freshly grilled fish in its wire cage before it was deconstructed into fillets and served with thyme, tomatoes, spinach, and saffroned potatoes. A glass of white wine, coffee and chocolates, a stroll in and around Saint Eustache to see where Richelieu, Mme. Pompadour, and Moliere had been baptised–an absolutely delicious day.

But what about that Soupe de Poisson? Please note its particular construction: la soupe DE poisson, not la soupe AUX poissons–intimating it’s the very essence of fish, not just made of fishes. Surely it started out with fishermen and their wives making do with the small and broken leftovers of the daily catch–smooshing them in a pot and straining the flesh and goodness out, leaving the bones and skin behind. Then, it being France, it got improved over time until at a certain point it became a masterpiece. I love that about France.

In fact, though, the soup is not that hard to make, as Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential demonstrates:

6 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves
2 small onions, thinly sliced
2 leeks, whites only, washed and thinly sliced
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 can (18 ounces) plum tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds tiny whole fish (such as porgies or whiting), gutted with heads intact, or 4 pounds fish bones and heads
1 Bouquet Garni
zest of 1 orange
3 strands of saffron
1 ounce Pernod
salt and pepper

Garnishes: Rouille, freshly grated Parmesan, croutons

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy pot, add the garlic, onions, leeks, and fennel, cover, and let them sweat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
Add tomatoes and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, then add the small fish or bones. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water to cover, as well as the bouquet garni and orange zest. Stir well; add saffron, a dash of salt and pepper, and Pernod. Lower the heat and simmer for about an hour.
Remove pot from heat and let soup cool slightly. Strain the liquid into a large bowl. Crush the remaining solids in the pot, then add them to the strainer and press as much liquid as possible from them. Return all the soup to another pot, reheat, ladle into bowls, and serve with croutons, rouille, and some grated Parmesan on the side.

Whether you make it yourself or order it out, you’ll love it. And I recommend you try it, if your travels bring you this way, at:
Au Chien Qui Fume
33, rue du Pont Neuf
75001 Paris
01.42.36.07.42

It all started with a clock. Stu bought a magnificent pendulum table clock on French eBay and needed to fetch it, somewhere on the “1000 cow” plateau (Millevaches) in Limousin (200 miles south of Paris), by noon. What’s the street address, he’d asked Madame X. “Il n’y a pas de rue, Marcy est le nom du hameau ou lieu-dit. Il y a 9 maisons. Merçi, cordialement.” No street, she said, it’s just a little hamlet called Marcy made up of 9 homes. Thanks, cordially.

Stu picked me up in Paris at o’dark thirty and I was purring by the time we broke south on local roads, down through the flat and fecund Loire then suddenly up into rocky hills spotted with dark evergreens, patches of snow everywhere. We’d arrived in the Limousin. Cows galore. Sheep and goats too. Bye bye agriculture; hello animal husbandry.

Not easy finding Marcy! You had to be zen about it–use the GPS, follow your intuition, then call Mme. X when you were in shouting distance but had lost confidence.

Suddenly, there it was: a tiny sign on a tiny road that said (in black and in French) MARCY, then (in red) “village burned on 15 July 1944″, then (in black, large print) “by the Nazis”. We were impressed that 9 houses would have the nerve to describe themselves as a village, but when we asked about it, our sellers sniffed that in 1944 Marcy been made up of FIFTEEN homes. And when the Nazis were alerted it was serving as a safe house for the resistance, they torched the place. Six homes were obliterated. We could see on the remaining 9 homes where the new stones started and the old stones left off.

I don’t know why we were so surprised. Vichy is close by. It was a great hiding place. Deeds of derring do were hoped for and dreamed of. Really thrilling to feel that life-and-death drama come up through our shoes from the rough soil. Stu, overcome, insisted on giving Mme. X the bottle of wine he’d bought for us to take the curse off the day. We were a little sad about that later. But we had made the clock purchase by noon, right on schedule, and now were loose in the Limousin, with hours to get to our nighttime destination of Limoges and me ready to read out at length about all the best sites between here and there from the zillions of books I’d brought.

On the agenda: Aubusson (capital of extraordinary handmade French tapestry and rugs since the 12th century); anything that looked remotely interesting or had a historical marker on it; above all, any flea market, brocante, troc, or roadside table that we could paw through. We were so happy with the clock, we were hungry for more deals.

And so all our good resolutions to hit Limoges’ museums and cultural activities and porcelain houses went right out the window. We bonged around the countryside, picked through flea markets, and bought loads of cool stuff, not arriving in Limoges til well after dark. Thus the shot of cathedral square in rosy fingered dawn, as we were about to head back to Paris next morning. Thus the silly picture of our soups at Kim Lin’s “Baguettes of gold”, where we ended up after striking out everywhere else.

So, what do you think about these two soups from completely different cultures on the same table? I am excited to tell you that this illustrates perfectly something I have long wanted to share: viz., the French are so nonspecific about Asian food that Asian restaurants simply cannot make a profit unless they bundle Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese menus under the same roof. Incredible, huh? It’s okay for Japanese restaurants to be pure, but no one else. In Limoges, in Marseilles, in Strasbourg, in Bordeaux, and above all in Paris, you cannot go into an Asian restaurant without being offered a menu that features Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai dishes. Forgive me, I can’t get over it. I am amazed.

But the proof is in the pudding. I ordered Potage pekinois; Stu ordered potage d’asperge au crabe. A little nutty, but a great way to end an enchanting day. We recommend it, obviously a local favorite:

Restaurant Kim Lin “Baguettes d’or”
9 rue Montmouller
87000 Limoges
05.55.79.44.52

Once upon a time, a great Hungarian actor in the 19th century had a yen for making soup–his own Hungarian version of the French poule au pot. To ensure a concentrated flavor, Újházy Ede used a rooster, then added vegetables that differed markedly in color, shape, and texture. At the end, he served the soup over delicate egg noodles to make a dish fit for King Matthias.

His friends were enchanted. Újházy was some character, as you can see in his photo. On the Budapest stage, he was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Malvolio, Molière’s Harpagon, Beaumarchais’s Bartolo, and Gárdonyi’s Gabor. He had a growly voice. My friend Sanyi translated a description that said words would explode from his enormous mouth like smoke puffs from an engine. And that, actor to his bones, his favorite word was Marha!–a Hungarian expression for stupidity–that he would deliver with such unctuous rotundity or with such heartfelt softness that the object of it felt loved rather than insulted. Plus, of course, he loved soup.

George Lang, restauranteur extraordinaire, details in his Cuisine of Hungary a number of possible variations on the original Újházy Tyúkhúsleves: brown the carrots and onions in chicken fat to achieve a Transdanubian “yellow”; add a pinch of saffron for the same effect; ditto by dry browning unpeeled onions cut in half in a frying pan and adding to the soup. Or, start out by simmering a pound of beef in the soup water before beginning the recipe. Or add marrow bones for flavor, first salting the ends of the cut bones to keep the marrow from coming out during the cooking. Or serve on the bone…or remove and discard the bones before serving.

All well and good, but the original is quite heavenly–a rich chicken soup that is just perfect for these vile and viral winter nights. Really, are you beginning to wonder, like me, if winter is EVER going to end? A blizzard rages outside my windows today AGAIN in usually snowless Paris.

Which is why, as I promised, Gergely and I met the other weekend to shop for and make this excellent soup. But we were lazy, and Woodrow Wilson Market was being dismantled by the time we got there. And here’s where Paris is so nice. We just ambled over to Trocadero, crossed the river to the Eiffel Tower and crunched over snow down Champ de Mars to end up at Rue Cler and its market. Hungry and cold, we made the soup as fast as we could, the heck with the variations. Then washed it down with a flinty Sancerre and blotted the last drops with a crusty country bread–fantastic!

Újházy Tyúkhúsleves (Chicken Soup), for 6-8 people

1 fowl (your choice: rooster, stewing hen, or tender fryer), cut into 8 pieces
12 cups cold water
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon peppercorns
slice of ginger root
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tomato (canned is fine), peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 small carrots, peeled
2 young parsnips, peeled
1 whole celery root, peeled and cut into cubes
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into flowerets
1/2 cup peas (frozen are fine)
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 green Hungarian pepper (long, thin, and spicy), chopped
parsley, for garnish
soup noodles (which are served separately)

Put the fowl in a large soup pot with the cold water, salt, and the peppercorns and ginger tied into a cheesecloth bag. Slowly bring to a simmer, removing scum as it forms. Keep at a simmer, adding the onion, garlic, and tomato, and cook for an hour (or 2 hours, if you are using a stewing hen or rooster). Keeping the heat at a simmer, add the carrots, parsnips, celery root, cauliflower, and peas and cook for an hour or more, until the vegetables are tender. Just before you are ready to serve the soup, discard the cheesecloth bag of pepper and ginger; add the sliced mushrooms and green pepper and cook 15 minutes. You may keep the chicken/rooster pieces whole in the soup–or you may fish them out, removing the meat and putting it back in the soup, then discarding the bones and skin.

While the mushrooms and green pepper are cooking, cook the soup noodles (as many as you like) separately in plenty of salted water. When done, drain, return to the pan, stir in a little butter, and keep hot until they are served. Traditionally, they are served separate from the soup.

Bring the noodles and the soup (sprinkled with minced parsley) to the table in separate dishes. Spoon the noodles into individual bowls, then ladle the soup over top.

For another variation and for recipes of Hungarian soups and other dishes, I highly recommend you visit http://www.cookbook.hu/index_angol.htm#Soups, the Hungarian recipe site (in English) of dear friend Sanyi Fenyvesi, father of my soup partner Gergely.