Elixir:

When I was asked to write an introduction to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s version of her mother’s split pea and barley soup that had traveled from the once Polish city of Brest-Litovsk, to Canada, and back to Poland (all in the last century), I didn’t quite know what to say. I wanted to safeguard the original and also find my own place at the table, even if I wasn’t Jewish and my own family’s ties to Poland were nearly two centuries removed and thus not tangible in any meaningful way. I sat with it a few days and nothing came to mind, so I decided to start cooking anyway.

As I recreated mother Doris (Dvoyre) Shushanoff’s recipe it suddenly occurred to me I’d been in this situation many times before, only in another direction. When I was a young girl I liked to read big fat English novels about the plague years or the beheading of Mary, Queen of the Scots, while imagining myself to be the peasant girl suddenly at the center of the story. Curled up in the corner of some room I’d be hanging out with my book, hearty “peasant” bread and butter by my side, getting into the times though period food likenesses. Later on, I graduated to darker tomes from other locations, like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and while the peasant bread still made an appearance it was often accompanied with my own weak tea to drink just like Raskolnikov’s landlady served him in the novel. (Which is, incidentally, still my favorite way to steep tea!) In these instances, the readings evoked the period food, but here, today, the period food evoked the memories, both my own and those of others that now reside inside me, and I am marveling anew about how cooking the past evokes such moments of empathy. Digesting my first scrumptious bowl of Barbara and Doris’s hearty soup I remembered Doris and the cold winters in Eastern Poland after World War I, as Barbara asked, and I also remembered my own recipes that grew out of hard times. I am pleased to add this soup to my own collection courtesy of COVID-19 and in honor of all those struggling for breath, literally or figuratively. For those of you who want to partake, this is stick-to-your-ribs healthy goodness, as my own grandmother would say.

As for the recipe itself, I braved the supermarket late at night and gathered all the ingredients bar celery and parsley root, and if I had fully understood the implications of the additional green tops of leeks I would have gathered even more of these superb flavor enhancers. Wow! As it was, I only had the three recommended leeks and the smell that was wafting up from my pot as the tops boiled was so good that I skipped the whole removing-them-from-the-pot-before-adding-in-additional-ingredients part, and left them in until the very end, simply hunting the easily noticeable dark green strips with a fork if they were tough, which most were not. This also served to save time as I no longer had to wait for the leeks to be cooked before adding vegetables. Otherwise, I prepared the rest as directed. It was perfect.

My mother is now ninety-one and a shadow of her former vibrant self. She was born Doris (Dvoyre) Shushanoff in the city of Brest-Litovsk (Brisk in Yiddish, Brześź nad Bugiem in Polish, and Brest in Belarus today) and came to Canada when she was twelve. She was a fastidious mincer (you had to see the precision with which she minced radishes) and equally fastidious about kashering meat and skimming the foam from broth to produce a crystal clear chicken soup. Above all it is her split pea barley soup that I identify with her. Here it is, in my version.

Bring 8 cups of water to boil in a large pot. Meanwhile, carefully wash 3 large leeks, preferably organic. Place the dark green tops (plus the dark green tops of other bunches, if you have them or can salvage them from a farmers' market--some people throw them away!) into the water and simmer until they are very soft, about 30 minutes.

At the same time, in a small pot, simmer 1 pound (or 2 1/2 cups) of washed green split peas (organic if possible) in 4 cups of water. The fresher the split peas the quicker and softer they will cook; soak overnight for even faster results. Cook till soft, about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the white part of the leeks in half, wash free of sand, and slice thinly. Scrub two large sweet carrots, a knob of celery root the size of your fist (with the dark green stalks) or six stalks of celery. The dark green variety from Chinatown is flavorful, especially if your celery root did not come with its top. Add a large parsnip, a parsley root (if you can find it). Dice the celery stalks and leaves. Leave everything else whole. Organic vegetables preferred.

By this time, the leek tops should be soft and grey green. Lift them out with tongs and drain in a colander, saving all the liquid. As they are cooling, put all the vegetables into the leek stock and simmer. Wash and add 2/3 cup washed and soaked barley (preferably large, darkish, and unpearled, from health food store) and 1/2 cup soaked large white limas.

Soon as the leek tops have cooled enough to handle, squeeze all the goodness out of them, put all the drained liquid into the pot, discard what remains of the leek tops.

Now, look in on the peas. If they have softened nicely, you can mash them with a spoon, whisk them, puree them in the pot using a hand blender, or give them a turn in the food processor: they should be smooth. Add them to the soup pot. Cover and simmer gently.

As the whole apartment fills with the aroma of roots releasing their concentrated goodness and the pulses swelling as they rehydrate, go off and do something else--or sit at the table and look off into space, daydreaming, reading, the radio humming. Check the pot in about 40 minutes. Add more water if necessary.

Soon as the vegetables are cooked through, remove them. Mash them coarsely with a fork or dice them. Return them to the pot. Add kosher or sea salt to taste.

Soon as the limas and barley are soft, the soup is ready to serve. Wash the fresh dark dill (a good handful) and chop coarsely, stems and all (as well as finely chopped dark green tops of the parsley root or flat-leaf parsley) and add at the last minute or, even better, serve the soup with finely chopped fresh herbs added to each bowl or served in a bowl so each person can help themselves.

Serve it forth. With coarse bread--either Essene sprouted grain loaf (from health food store or sprout the wheat and make your own) or Lithuanian sour rye cut from a crusty round loaf the size of a millstone (or make your own from whole rye). Sweet tub butter for those who still eat butter. Half-sour dill pickles--the butcher has them. Cold buttermilk.

When the soup has cooled, put some in the fridge and pack the rest into containers and freeze so you don't get bored eating 4 gallons of the same thing every day in a row. When reheating, thin out with water (or leek stock or vegetable water) as needed and refresh with fresh chopped dill. Dill freezes well in little packets and can be chopped into the soup that you defrost. Or, add fresh chopped dill to the top of the container of soup just before freezing.

Remember Barbara's mother Dora when you serve it forth and the cold winters in Eastern Poland just after World War 1.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Manhattan, January 7, 1994

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is a child of Polish Jews who was born in 1942 in Toronto. She serves as the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Cheryl Harned is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A public historian, she works at the intersections of material culture, personal identities, and the public lives of collected objects.