Io Saturnalia to all my dear readers! Saturnalia, the festival of Saturn, runs from December 17 to the 21, the Winter Solstice and it is a time when all people are free and all people are equal. This holiday started a long time ago in the city of Rome. For a few days, all the slaves were free and off work. The masters had to cook supper parties for their households, including the slaves who ate in the dining room of the master and were served by the master’s family.
It was a time of great revelry and people would give each other presents of sweets, candles and toys for the children. Sound at all familiar? Saturnalia was such a joyous festival that even when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire, church authorities could not stop the celebration of Saturnalia. So, they created the festival of Christmas which took on most of the joyous aspects of Saturnalia.
As Christ was supposed to be the light of the world, they celebrated his birthday on the 25 of December which was the feast day of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The 25th is the day the sun begins to move north again after apparently being stuck on the same point on the horizon for a few days. So lots of pagan customs came to the new holiday of Christmas.
These few days are a time of gifts. I propose to give you a couple of my favourite recipes to make you healthy and happy in the year to come: squash soup and lamb cassuolet. The squash soup started as a West African soup but as I do not grow sweet potatoes, I used squash and many of the other ingredients were changed. It has become a new recipe but still harks back to the tasty cooking of West Africa.
The lamb cassoulet is a recipe whose time has come on our islands as we have a good flock of sheep between our two islands. Cassoulet is usually prepared with preserved goose but so few people raise geese that we are much better off with a lamb recipe. This recipe makes the tough meat of the ribs and other cuts for stewing into a mouthwateringly delicious and decadent meal.
So for the soup, I never cut up a raw squash, preferring to simply stab it a few times so I can bake it without causing it to explode. I bake a squash until it is soft enough to cut and peel easily and I take it out of the oven and let it cool before cutting it up. This is vastly easier than trying to chop and peel a fortress of a Hubbard squash. The leftover cooked squash can be frozen for later use.
Denman Peanut Soup
Chop two onions up and begin to fry them in oil or lard. After a bit, add several cloves of garlic chopped, a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chili flakes and fry for a few minutes. Add a quart of good stock, not made with a cube!, several chopped carrots, 4 cups of chopped squash, 2 cups of tomato juice, 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of honey. Simmer the soup until all is cooked and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. You can puree this soup if you like and then garish it with fresh chopped scallions, parsley or cilantro.
The cassoulet recipe is from a cookbook printed in 1968. For this recipe you will need 1 cup of dried navy beans, 4 cups of cold water, one large whole onion, 3 whole cloves, 1 clove of garlic,
2 fresh pork hocks or a few slices of bacon, 2 pounds of lamb ribs or stew meat, 2 tablespoons of lard, 1 onion chopped, 1 teaspoon of powdered mustard mixed with 2 teaspoons of cold water, 4 teaspoons of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper, 1/2 a cup tomato puree or sauce, 1 cup of stock, 8 carrots quartered.
Place the beans and the cold water into a 4-quart saucepan with the four cups of cold water. Bring the water to a full boil for two minutes. Remove the beans from the heat and place them on a mat and cover the pot with a fluffy kitchen towel for an hour. Do not drain.
Press the cloves into the whole onion and put in with the beans along with the garlic and the pork or bacon. Cover and cook for two hours until the beans are tender. Sear the lamb and add the chopped onions to the pan until the onions are soft. Add the meat and onions to the beans. Add the mustard mixed with the two teaspoons of cold water. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix carefully and cook for another one and a half hours. This is a great recipe to make in a slow cooker.
