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A fascinating story of the rote beete suppe, or the root soup, its origins in divided Germany, its travels through Poland and finally to India.
A fascinating story of the beet root soup, its origins in divided Germany, its travels through Poland and finally to India.
It was 1975. Two Indian friends were visiting a common German friend in East Berlin, then the capital of the German Democratic Republic. That German friend’s parents had years ago left their Nazi-occupied country and settled along the Polish-Ukraine border. She had found her way back to divided Germany. That evening she served them a pink, sour soup. It was something she’d learned from her mother.
It had enticed the taste buds of my father-in-law, one of the visitors, so much that he learnt the recipe from her. Making it several times during his stay in the country, he eventually forgot all about it when he returned to India in the early 1980s. That is, until recently, when the sight of saure sahne (sour cream), leftover from my mushroom soup experiment, brought back the unique flavour of the beetroot soup and he delighted us with blending it all together again.
The dish is a popular soup in Eastern Europe, finding its way into Poland and Germany, through people carrying stories and special recipes along as the settled in newer parts in the region, in the aftermath of the war. The elaborate version of this soup, with many vegetables and even meat, is referred to as borscht (in Russian) and by differing names as dialects change across borders. This is a red hot (or pink depending on how much sour cream you like in it) soup not only in its form but also in the debates surrounding its origin.
This dish has now traveled to me, sans borders and the limits that names and places often impose on people, traveled like all good things do, free as stories from life should be. And now I’m sharing it with you.
This recipe serves two.
Ingredients:
1 big bulb (or 2 medium or 3 small) of Beetroot
200 gm Saure Sahne (Sour Cream)
2 tsp Butter
Salt to taste
Method:
Peel, wash and clean the beetroot bulb. Chop it into small pieces, preferably squares.
In a grinder mix the chopped beet root and sour cream to make a paste.
In a pan heat 2 tsp butter, add a little salt to taste, add the beetroot & sour cream paste.
Stir for a minute and add water according to the consistency you want.
Once boiled, cool it.
Add Black pepper as per taste and coriander as garnish.
Cover image via Eattrainlove
Manika is a textile and craft storyteller plus human sight-seer by day and mommy reader/hugger by night. Someday she wants to live in a library. Until then, a book nook will do. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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