30 A pause, a harvest & a recipe (ribollita)

The writer, above, in place in Carhaix, became known as Angela Duval, who lived and wrote in central Brittany in the first half of the C20th. Notice the dog!

I’ve been having a pause. It’s been longer than I would like and I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it (having been wired rather than relaxed), but the thing is if one doesn’t listen to the psyche, soul, to bring being into balance with doing, it’ll be forced upon you via the body. I do know I needed it: it was overdue by several years, or possibly decades.

A consciously-chosen pause, whether of five minutes, a day of retreat or a five-month sabbatical can be an extremely fruitful thing, and help you revitalise/revision your whole life. Another time I’ll write more about this, and its significance in relation to the retreats I lead on the Isle of Iona, but for now, it’s enough to say here that I must be feeling a bit better as I’ve written a long blog (come on, they’re not really newsletters, are they, no matter how Substack bills them?) on the politics of food(!). That’ll be the next post. This one’s intended to be short(ish).

In July, the airspace here was dominated by the raucous hooliganism of the family of magpies, hatched in the meadow trees and who, I think, pinched one by one the dozen smooth white marble pebbles from the Isle of Iona with which I’d lined the shallow water-bowl for the bees and butterflies, to give them exits instead of drowning. (It cost me 33 euros to eliminate the possibility of said stones lining the stomach of one of the dogs, Bran, who likes licking cool smooth things.) In August, it was the carrion crows, screeching. Now it’s the extended jay family – and their noise makes the rest of them seem like tea-party conversationalists. And I love them.

Suddenly the plot is brimming with things to harvest. At last there are some tomatoes. We’ve had sweetcorn cobs, baked in their inner leaves or steamed, for a couple of evenings. Today I weeded the sweet potatoes and lifted a couple – as big as anything in the shops from further south. And look at the ripening quinoa now! – We have yet to try harvesting, threshing, drying and storing. Fingers crossed.

Harvest Ribollita
I love thick peasant soups. There are a few in my forthcoming vegan cookbook, and here’s one we’ve recently made with ten different vegetables from the garden (smug or what), plus stock from various carrot tops, beet tops and herbs from the garden made by my daughter. You need to eat this with a piece of toast in the bottom of the bowl, perhaps rubbed with garlic, or with a slice of bread or toast ready to immerse in the top, drizzled with olive oil.

Ribollita is infinitely variable, but the constants are beans and kale (or any other member of the cabbage tribe really).

recipe for 4
Today is the 1st of September and now we are harvesting a great deal of our food from the potager. TM is cooking ribolitta, a thick and nourishing peasant soup from Tuscany in Italy; everything in it excepting the olive oil and bread but including the stock has come from our garden. I like to use borlotti beans, but you can use any podded bean. It shares some ingredients with the French Mediterranean pistou which precedes it in my book. It’s finished with a good handful each of cavallo nero, the Italian dark kale, and rainbow chard. The constants are the kale and/or chard (or cabbage) and the beans; later in the year we’ll use leeks instead of the courgettes.

Antonio Carluccio purées half of the beans (this improves it in my opinion). You could of course simply whizz half the soup, and leave the other half whole.

Serve it with a drizzle of olive oil on top of each bowl, and some bread, preferably crusty. For a really authentic ribollita, use stale or two-day old bread (or toasted fresh) and either incorporate it into the soup at the bean stage, or rub garlic on the slices and put them on the bottom of the soup bowls. (I suppose you could make croutons but don’t tell the Italians.)

Its name means ‘re-boiled’ – this comes from the fact that the soup tastes even better the next day.

1 big onion
3 cloves garlic
2 carrots
1 large potato
2 large courgettes
3 tomatoes or 1 mug of tomato purée/pulp
2 mugs podded beans, pre-cooked
2 handfuls green beans (optional)
1 big handful kale
1 big handful (rainbow or otherwise) chard
fresh or dried herbs – thyme or oregano ideally
stock or bouillon to cover with 2 or 3 cms extra
olive oil

Slice the onion and sauté it with the chopped garlic in a little oil. Chop the potato finely, and add. Chop the carrots finely and add them too. Chop courgettes and tomatoes and throw them in.

At this point, add some stock and bring to the boil. Once the potatoes have started to soften, add the cooked podded beans, and the chopped green beans; tear the herbs up and add them too.

Let it cook for 20 to 30 minutes, then wash and finely slice the greens. Cook until those are wilted. Whizz part of the soup to make it thick.

Serve with a dash of olive oil and some bread on top, on the side, or in the bottom of the bowl.

This isn’t particularly photogenic, but more to the point I forgot. Sorry. It tastes great though – especially the next day.

I’d love to know if you make this.

PS Later: several people have made this and let me know. Jill Lewis also sent a photo; when I’ve uploaded it I’ll post it.


Till next time, go gently amongst the noise and haste, my friends, and thank you for reading.