In Wisconsin, in the beginning, the milkman came to the back door. I loved it when Mom would meet him there and order cottage cheese and sour cream. That meant she had something special planned. We drank a lot of milk, whole milk. We poured cream over our berries and butter was used in everything.
Our Kansas friends were aghast when they saw us pour cream on our cereal. (They talked funny. They said meilk and we said melk. They said lawyer and we said loiyer. ) They were even more surprised when we rolled our corn-on-the-cob over a pound of butter to load it up with sweet goodness that found its way down our chins.
The local bakery sold a bran muffin with a caramel pecan glaze. We ate those muffins with a knife in our hands. Every bite got a slice of butter. We buttered our hamburger buns, we melted butter into every square of our waffles, we mashed our potatoes with cream, butter and sour cream for extra flavor. We baked with butter, fried in butter, garnished every vegetable with butter. Nary a day without dairy. In fact, if you wanted to use margarine you had to cross the border into Minnesota to buy it.
And here I am to present you with Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup. It would be dishonest if I didn't tell you that it is no where near as delicious as a Scandinavian recipe I have in my files. The texture is right, it is good. It is good in a different way than a Wisconsin Creamy Soup is good. To be honest, I will rename it.
Good and Silky Broccoli Soup
In a heavy soup pot, heat: 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Add and cook until translucent: 1/2 onion, chopped and 2 cloves of minced garlic
In a small pot cover 1 large cubed potato with water and bring to a boil. Cook until soft. Drain reserving potato water.
In another small pot steam 2 cups broccoli florets. Reserve the water under the steamer.
Measure the potato water and the broccoli water and if necessary add water to make 2 cups. (Or you can use 2 cups of vegetable stock)
Now, add the cubed potatoes, the broccoli florets and the water to the soup pot with the onion and garlic. Cook together for a couple of minutes. Puree. (You can use your blender or an immersion blender). Season with salt and pepper. Serve piping hot.
Minnesota is a dairy state and did not allow margarine to be sold unil 1963 and it came in a plastic pouch with a yellow tablet that had to be broken to release the color, then kneeded into the white margarine so it would look like butter. Wisconsin didn't allow margarine into the state until four years later, in '67. I don't know if the margarine was white or colored by then. I grew up in MN and distinctly remember the white pouch with the yellow tablet and kneeding that mess to look like butter was nearly a half day job. It never, ever came close to the taste of butter and for that reason, my dad hated it. Our family went back to using butter. My dad was a farmer and declared that he would rather support the dairy industry, no matter what the butter itself cost.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected. We never used margarine. My Aunt must have gone to Iowa to get her margarine. Thanks for the history lesson.
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