Fruit soup

Over a hundred and fifty years ago, Lewis Carroll provided us with one of the very best tales ever to have been committed to paper, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Like Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Alice is often regarded as no more than a children's book, and contributions by the Disneys of this world have not helped in this respect.

Carroll provided us with mathematical insights, exercises in logic, word play, and many more non-childish aspects in Alice. One of these was parody, though that parody is now largely lost, as we tend to remember more Carroll's parodical versions than the originals and therefore have little basis for comparison.

One such parody that Carroll presented was in the form of Soup Of The Evening, and he based this poem on a popular song of his time called Star Of The Evening by James M. Sayles.

Carroll's amusing version goes thus:

Soup Of The Evening
by Lewis Carroll 

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

One would imagine that Carroll held soup in the same high regard as SWMBO.

I do not share their enthusiasm. At least not for the vegetable soups that SWMBO usually prepares in the Soup&Co machine that we purchased recently and which I have already written about. I am even less enthusiastic about fish soups, shellfish soups, or any other form of marine creature soups, and keep well away from cold soups of the gazpacho ilk.

As you can imagine, the Soup&Co has been put to enthusiastic use by SWMBO, so that vegetable-type soups are just about coming out of my ears. Recently, however, I have discovered a far more sensible use for the Soup&Co: it produces extremely fine fruit drinks.

And I make them in it.

The photo shows today's creation, a magnificent concoction consisting of half a mango, about 150 gr of strawberries, a largish banana, the juice of half a lime, a piece of ginger about the size of the top part of a thumb, cut up (the ginger, not the thumb), and freshly pressed orange juice. That was enough for four glasses of the size shown in the pic (roughly 33 cl. each).

These drinks are very easy to make. I started out with a book of recipes for smoothies and other fruit drinks, but once you get the hang of it, such a book becomes just a source of inspiration, not something to be rigidly followed. Basically, you just put the fruits into the machine (larger fruits being first cut into smaller pieces), add a liquid ingredient (and I've used yoghurt, horchata, Casera—a sort of sugarless cream soda—and, of course, orange juice) and mix it all up for about thirty seconds at top speed. Check for taste and consistency, adding some honey, if necessary, or some more liquid, then mix again for a few more seconds.

Tomoroow I shall make something based on papaya.

Lubbly jubbly!