…and hopefully gatherers someday.
I’m forever seeing threads of connection across a variety of foods and drinks, practices, and more.
Like this set.
While doing some research for a piece on spices, I came across English Poacher’s Soup and it made me think of hunting and game. And that made me think of Nigerian Fisherman’s Soup, and how fisherpeople would use part of their catch to make the soup. And then my thoughts went to hunting and gathering, and I wondered what the equivalent soup for gatherers would be called, and if it existed. I’m not delving deep into all three today but here are my notes on two of the three, for which recipes exist.
My hope is that in future, I might find a soup with historical ties and records that connect it to gathering, and foraging.
Nigerian Fisherman’s Soup
Nigerian fisherman’s soup is the preserve of the Niger Delta region. As the name suggests, it is choc full of seafood from fish to a range of shellfish including prawns, crabs, periwinkles, snails, clams and more.
According to Iquo Ukoh in her book, Memories on a Platter, “this is one soup that typical fishermen will cook while at the seaports after their day’s catch.”
It is often thickened with a starchy element – garri, pounded yam, or cocoyam, sometimes with okro.
It is also similar to Rivers Native Soup.
English Poacher’s Soup
Named for the ingredients, the bulk of which is game, or wild-caught meat, Poacher’s soup, according to Elisabeth Aryton in The Cookery of England (1977) first came to public knowledge in the 19th century. At the time, laws about game and hunting were “in force unreformed” and so there would have been no public admission of the dishes preparation or existence.
But there are records from which one can infer a level of knowledge, and perhaps popularity about the soup which is more “stew or pottage rather than soup….and is a complete meal.”
In Anne Cobbett’s The English Housekeeper: Or, Manual of Domestic Management (1851), there is a recipe which uses “any kind of game”:
This excellent soup may be made of any kind of game. About 4 lbs. of any of the coarse parts of venison, beef, or the same weight in shanks, or lean mutton, for the stock; boil in it celery, onions, carrots, turnips, what herbs you like, and ¼ oz. of mixed black and Jamaica peppers. Simmer three hours, then strain it. Skin and cut up a black cock, a woodcock, a pheasant, half a hare, a rabbit, a brace {108}of partridges, or grouse, or slices of venison; any one, or parts of several of these, according to what you may require and what game you may have. Season the meat with such mixed spices as you like, then flour and fry it in the frying-pan, or put them, at once, into the strained stock, for the frying process is not actually necessary. Put in with the pieces of meat, about 10 small onions, 2 heads of celery cut up, and 6 peeled potatoes; when the stock comes to a boil, add a small white cabbage, or a lettuce quartered, black pepper, salt, and allspice if you like. Simmer till the meat be tender. If the meat be composed of small birds, the vegetables must be put into the soup and cooked before the meat, for that must not be overdone. This may be enriched by wine, catsup, anchovies, and forcemeat balls.
Now I need to find a soup that gatherers might have made. I imagine it would have roots and greens, and a host of other things.
If you know any recipes, please point me to them.
Thank you!
