Salman Rushdie, Always Full of Surprises
Who knew that Salman Rushie took a break from writing The Satanic Verses and traveled to Nicaragua in the summer of 1986 for three weeks? He’d been invited by the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers, which called itself “the umbrella organisation that brought writers, artists, musicians, craftspeople, dancers and so on, together under the same roof,” on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the Sandinista rise to power.
His account of his travels is, of course, extremely interesting–and particularly so to me when in July, he visited the Enrique Acuña co-operative and lunched with five resettled campesinos. “With the generosity of the poor,” he says, “they treated me to a delicacy at lunch. I was given an egg and bean soup, the point being that these eggs were the best-tasting because they had been fertilized. Such eggs were known as ‘the eggs of love.’ When people had so little, a fertilized hen’s egg became a treat.”
I could not wait to discover this recipe.
I looked through my Latin American cookbooks. I scanned the library catalogs of DC’s Martin Luther King library and my local Falls Church library. Almost as an afterthought I googled key words. And there it was, on my very own website:
SOPA DE FRIJOLES (serve hot as a meal to 4 people)
This traditional soup of Nicaraguans–who generally prefer red beans to black–is both unusual and delicious. The red bean puree is light and smooth, contrasting with the crisp onion, chunky red pepper, and bursts of intense pork from the chicharrones (pork rinds). The poached egg on top enriches the soup–especially if it’s fertilized!–a yellow sun on a clay earth terrain.
- 2 cups dried red beans, soaked overnight in water to cover
- 8 cups water
- 10 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2 Tablespoons corn oil
- 1 and 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1 cup chicarrones (pork rinds)
- 1 cup sweet red pepper, chopped
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- salt to taste
Garnish: 4 eggs, fertilized if you can find them
Discard the soaking water and put the beans and garlic into a Dutch oven with the 8 cups of water. (You don’t want a narrow pot, because you’re going to poach 4 eggs in it at the end.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until soft, about an hour. Purée and return to the pot.
Sauté the onions in the corn oil over medium heat until lightly crisp. Add the pork rinds, red pepper, and black pepper, and stir for a few minutes. Scrape everything into the soup pot, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Season with salt.
When ready to serve, raise the heat to medium. Carefully break the 4 eggs into different spots of the pot, where you see bubbles forming, then cover, and let poach for several minutes. Carefully ladle into bowls and serve immediately.
Sopa de Frijoles is terrific–and just one of a vast repertoire of traditional Nicaraguan soups. Stay tuned, for example, for August 27′s post on Nicaragua’s famous Corn Island Crab Soup, celebrating the abolition of slavery in 1841 by order of England’s Queen Victoria and Mosquitia’s King Robert Charles Frederick.