MA'S HAND-ME-DOWN BRATWURST SOUP (recipe)

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Before demonstrating his acting skill by pretending to enjoy the company of a shrill "w"itch every week on Roseanne, and consequently taking a very believable turn as psycho-killer Madman Mundt in Barton Fink, John Goodman starred in a TV commercial in which he was paid to say,
"Campbell's Chunky Soup, The Soup That Eats Like A Meal." His big selling point was that you could eat it with a fork instead of a spoon.

To "heck" with that. This soup should be thick enough to eat with one chopstick.


3 salty bratwurst links, diced.

1 quart Pinto and Great Northern beans.

2 cups coffee, fresh brewed.

½ cup salsa.

(?) granulated garlic, as much as you require.

(?) chicken giblets, hearts, livers, necks, as needed.

(?) 2 cups large shell pasta.



LONG PREP VERSION: Throughout your childhood, eat at your Grampa Northrup's a lot, where a shaker of garlic is kept near the pepper and salt on the table, and used more than the salt. Listen each time he reports the latest findings on how healthy garlic will make you. Good for your heart, good for your digestion, reduces cholesterol and keeps mosquitos away!


QUICK PREP VERSION: Fine then, don't develop an appreciation for garlic. Your loss. From here, both versions proceed as follows:


Go to your Ma's to do some laundry, even though you're 27 years old1. Get those packages of bratwurst that she put in the freezer some time ago2 because they're too spicy for her, and because her finicky dog won't eat plain dog food for a week if you give her good meat.


Cook the beans and brats for an hour or two, depending on whether you're using dried beans or canned beans or refried leftovers. If it's dried beans, follow the directions on the package for what temp and how long and how much water to add. For canned or cooked beans, keep it hovering between boiling and simmering for an hour, take a guess at how much water. The real gushy butcher-shop kind of brats will be easier to cut in chunks if you let it cook all the way through first.


This recipe exemplifies my secret method for salvaging food that's too spicy or too salty or rich, or generally too potent for you, since you're too cheap to throw it away. Just cut up the potent substance real small and keep adding filler, tasting as you add so you can stop when it becomes palatable. Cheap filler is generally carbs like beans, potatoes, rice, noodles, but really anything cheap and voluminous that's not intensely flavorful will do the trick.


Now as I made this the first time, I got the beans and brats and chicken bits going good, but I knew it wouldn't have any flavor. The liver gave it a subliminal undertone, but the main broth still tasted like bean juice and sausage grease. The damn brats Ma gave me were those freaky "natural casing" kind from Meijer that turn gray when they're cooked, not the premium Johnsonville or Eckrich ones that grill up nice and brown. I only mention this because the broth turned gray to match the freaky brats, so it started to look like dishwater.


This is where I got creative, or disgusting, depending on how you like the results. I had a pot of coffee on, because we couldn't afford my Dr. Pepper habit for awhile after buying this computer. The basic boring sauces in the fridge and cupboards had not produced anything interesting the last few times I tried them. So I poured two cups of coffee in the cauldron, along with the last of the salsa, the most interesting and versatile of those basic sauces. The effect was perfect. The coffee gave a darker taste to that porky bratwurst flavor; the salsa made it a little tangy but not overpowering, and also made the color more pleasing, almost like something you'd want to eat. Bright red and green floaters now challenged the plain earth-tones3.


The coffee flavor will evaporate if you boil it for two hours, so wait 'til the last half hour to add that. You can slip some garlic in at this point, if it pleases the court.


We come now to the question of pasta. My nuclear family4 always had this weird antipathy toward soups with thin broth. If there's any clear broth running around with the chunks, you have to dump in some crackers, or preferably dry it up long before that by adding enough rice or noodles or something to soak up that dribble, get you a nice gravy consistency to the whole mess before you serve it.


You don't really have to add pasta or rice in the last ten to fifteen minutes (or until pasta reaches desired firmness). If you like runny, watery soup, you can do what you want and I can't stop you. I can't stop people from voting Republican either. Your soup is just another case of wet noodles beyond my control.


In the end, there are too many variables for me to tell you when it's done, or how many it will serve, or how to garnish it. (Of course, sprigs of kale or collard greens couldn't hurt.) Serve in bowls, even if it's dense enough to stand up on a plate.




smiley - smiley - smiley - smiley - smiley - smiley -

DISCLAIMER: BY FOLLOWING THIS RECIPE TO CREATE "MA'S HAND-ME-DOWN BRATWURST SOUP" (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS "FOOD"), YOU AGREE NOT TO HOLD MY MA LIABLE FOR THE OUTCOME OF THIS RECIPE, NOR FOR ANY INTESTINAL DIFFICULTIES CAUSED BY READING THIS RECIPE. SHE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH POURING COFFEE NOR SALSA INTO A "SOUP," NOR THE SILLY IDEA OF USING BRATS IN SOUP. THE EXCELLENT SOUP SHE MAKES AT HOME IS OF MEDIUM CONSISTENCY, RARELY SO THICK THAT IT CAN BE EATEN WITH ONE CHOPSTICK. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MAKING ANY JOKES ABOUT HER BEING A TRUCK-DRIVER, BECAUSE SHE IS, AND SHE COULD PROBABLY KICK YOUR MA'S BUTT, OR YOUR PA'S, AND MOST ESPECIALLY YOURS. HER NAME WAS USED IN THE TITLE OF THIS "FOOD" RECIPE ONLY BECAUSE SHE SUPPLIED THE BRATS TO HER BRAT, AND BECAUSE IT SOUNDS MORE DOWN-HOMEY WITH "MA" IN THE TITLE, ALMOST LIKE SOMETHING YOU'D BE WILLING TO EAT.






For more bitter recipes, please see the Art of Laze Cookbook, which you can find if you hunt around for the link on awkwardly.org.
1Age 27 at time of writing, 25 March 2000. Note that there are laws in most of the United States ensuring that children who have recently ceased being "dependents" on their parents' tax forms must be allowed to do laundry at their parents' house(s), and cannot legally be blocked from doing laundry there until age 29. The "Why Don't You Visit Your Mother More Often, At Least You Could Do Some Laundry There Ya Schmuck" Bill would have made it a federal law, but was narrowly defeated by Senate Republicans late in 1997.2As a bonus for those of you who are still reading, I present the final awful detail of this true story. The day I created this soup and wrote this recipe was March 25, 2000. After I started writing this, I dug through the kitchen garbage to find the packaging from those brats. I thought they might have some special wording to indicate why they don't look pretty like Johnsonville Brand brats. The label from the brats said "SELL BY NOV. 9, 1999."3I hope the sickening imagery throughout this recipe won't turn you off to cooking it or tasting it. But you have to admit, I can write the hind leg off a horse.4Nuclear family is right: my Pa worked on and off over the years in Cook Nuclear Power Plant in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and at one or both of the Fermi nuke plants. I am Radioactive Rob, spawn of Atomic Tom.

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