The Most Folksy Onion Soup

I reached for one of my cookbooks, looking for inspiration, and after a few minutes, I came across an onion soup recipe. This reminded me of the first soup I ever cooked as a teenager: onion soup with pieces of bread and grated cheese.

Onion soup is a typical poor man's dish across almost all of Europe, much like soups thickened with bread that were popular until the early 20th century. Onions, first wild and then cultivated, were easily accessible, and cheap vegetables, and bread were the staple food of the poor. When it became too old and hard, it was never thrown away, not just because it was almost religiously revered (I still remember my parents teaching me in the 1970s to pick up and kiss fallen bread), but because food was always scarce. Old bread was, for example, used in soups.

Today, onion and bread soup is an excellent way to use up stale bread.

Ingredients:
- 4 slices (about 180 g) of bread (see notes)
- 500 g net onions (6 large onions), half red and half white (see variations)
- 50 g linseed oil and sun-dried tomato oil, half and half (see variations)
- 1 teaspoon ground garlic
- Ground bay leaf and allspice 1/2 teaspoon
- 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/3 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 (2 × 200g) blocks of smoked tofu
- 2 liters of broth
- A large handful of parsley
- 2 tablespoons of lime/lemon juice

Preparation:
1. Toast the slices of bread in the oven at about 200 degrees until they are scorched and start to brown.
2. Cut the tofu blocks lengthwise into three large slices and bake at 190-200 degrees until browned.
3. Slice the onions into feathers and stew them covered on low heat for 10-15 minutes until the onions caramelize and start to turn golden. Long stewing brings out the sweetness of the onions. Towards the end of stewing, add the spices and fry for a few minutes while stirring. Frying with the spices brings out maximum flavor.
4. Pour in the broth and add the whole slices of bread. Increase the heat and carefully bring to a boil. The soup should only lightly "bubble," not boil! Do not stir!
5. Finally, add the parsley, lime juice, season with salt, and gently stir. The goal is for the bread not to completely disintegrate, but to break into large pieces. Set aside for a few minutes, literally 2-3, so the parsley can blanch.

Variations:
- You can use a mix of onions or only white or red onions.
- I used linseed oil with sun-dried tomato oil because I had it on hand. But of course, you can use other oils, like plain canola oil. Oils were a staple in old folk cuisine.
- For a heavier, smoky flavor, you can season the soup with smoked salt or smoked paprika.

Notes:
- Do not use toast bread or "fluffy" bread; the best is wholemeal or wheat-rye bread, even with seeds (I used such bread because that's what I had on hand).
- I used smoked tofu from Food For Future, Penny's vegan brand, which is smoked but soft. I do not recommend the common hard, very hard, smoked tofu found in stores. Both classic tofu and various flavored tofu work well in this recipe if you have access to them.

Serving:
Serve with pieces of baked tofu.

This is truly folk cuisine: using available, cheap, seasonal ingredients or what we have at home. Onions, vegetables, legumes, and since the 19th century, potatoes and flour products. Here I used half and half linseed oil and sun-dried tomato oil because I had it on hand. It ties into Polish folk tradition, where linseed oil was a staple, and Italian tradition, where sun-dried tomatoes have been the "meat" of the poor for centuries. Onions and bread are universal ingredients, the staple foods of the poor across Europe.

The most famous French onion soup, with added grated cheese, made its way from the tables of the poor to royal courts in the 18th century. The recipe came from Italy, brought to France by Caterina de' Medici, the great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence, in 1533 when she left Italy to marry King Henry II of France. Nothing is stopping us from adding tomatoes to this soup in the spirit of Italian cucina povera.

Fresh herbs have long enriched the often bland food of the poor. Here, parsley, but also coriander, and even a bit of mint can enhance the soup's flavor. Similarly, herbs like thyme or savory can be used.

There's no going back to folk cuisine as it was centuries ago or even a hundred years ago. The people themselves would resist it with their hands, feet, and ballots. No one in their right mind would want to live and cook like a hundred years ago, without frozen foods, canned goods, multicookers, or electricity for grinding, grating, and blending.

Another interesting example is manna, showing how our diet is influenced by social conditions. Edible manna, Glyceria fluitans, was once widely gathered by peasants in Poland and probably many other parts of Europe for food. It is not suitable for cultivation; the seeds are small, and the yield is low. When food shortages became less common and labor (and therefore its cost) increased, it became cheaper or more feasible to buy food than to gather manna.

Today, it could make a comeback as a middle-class fashion, a hipster whim, and because of the way it is harvested, it could cost more than... anything. It would cost a lot anyway. And it would be sold as the food of our peasant ancestors, with the next wave of fashion for folk roots and traditions. 

But would it have anything to do with true folk cuisine?

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