kabocha french lentil soup

there’s a line from a wordsworth poem that’s been kicking around the inner recesses of my brain for a few years now:

as if his whole vocation/were endless imitation

at first i thought it was the unusually pleasing rhyme, the solid satisfaction in the way the syllables fall that made the line resonate with such persistence. recently it’s been more than that though—it pegs an insistent anxiety that’s been taking shape on my back burner for a long time.

originality. or, perhaps, lack thereof. inspiration and its origins. and not just in our “vocations,” or what we claim that we “do for a living.” it’s an imitation that echoes in each and every one of our actions. i’m not even talking about anything as all-encompassing or ideological as, say, gender role imitation—i’m more preoccupied with the facsimiled shards of other people that we pick up and hold on to, subsuming them under our own skin and calling them our own often enough that we eventually forget the name of the street corner at which we found them in the first place.
i realize more and more every day just how much i’m a catalog of the people in my life that have inspired me, people that i love. my mannerisms, my sense of humor, my aesthetic values, my interests. i worry that i’ll never have a completely independent thought, an idea in a vacuum. i might simply imitate, parroting pieces off of those i look up to for the rest of my life.

more specifically, getting back to the vocation bit—i’m terrified of the mimicry involved in food writing. i don’t mean the literal following of a recipe—that doesn’t bother me at all—i’m more getting at what it is that inspires all of us. if you read a food blog regularly for a few months you might start to think that the author’s life is nothing but immaculately sunny days, parks and beaches and farms and ice rinks with a cherubic curly-haired toddler in tow, friendly neighbors forever leaving baskets of pristine persimmons on their doorsteps.

of course that’s not reality—it’s just us mimicking one another, pretending to live a life that we’ve convinced each other is some semblance of perfection. it's beautiful, if hackneyed. and on an even more obvious level, far too many food pieces follow the “i had never eaten X food, until Y happened, and it was the most delicious thing ever” stencil—why, i’ll never know, but it’s become de rigueur.

i notice these endless imitations, and i catch myself slipping into them, and it freaks me out. if i'm honest with myself, i know i don't want the kind of walk in the park/camping trip/baby galoshes life that always looks even less real through an expensive camera lens. i consider myself a happy person for the most part, but i don’t anticipate spending the rest of my life sugarcoating words if i’m feeling depressed or angry or irritable. we are human beings, and i’m realizing that what my favorite food blogs (literature in general?) all share is that very humanity that i’m struggling to exhume from the veneer of endless imitation. if nothing else, that’s what i’ll always find inspiring.

i’m still getting over being sick (does it show?) and so i’m going to fall back on a favorite staple: lentil soup. i’m sorry if i’m beating a dead horse, especially on a day like today. new york had its first waft of spring—there were ice cream trucks in union square, and we propped all the doors open in the café this afternoon—but right now this is the only kind of food i can think to eat as i scrape this stubborn haze out of my sinuses. it’s far from humdrum, this soup: rich with earthy-sweet squash, spiked with a gentle heat from coins of fresh ginger and perfumed with star anise. what i really love is the trio of aromatics: onion, unsurprisingly, but also leeks and fennel, to play off of the anise flavor with a more toothsome herbaceousness.

bound up with nibby french green lentils, it makes for a reassuringly wholesome meal, one which develops nicely after a rest in the fridge.  a beautifully written recipe. it requires no small amount of chopping, but it’s well worth it, in my opinion—an hour of methodical kitchen work yields you six freezer-friendly meals. it’s still february, after all.

lentils, previously: coconut lentil soup with warm spices, cauliflower dal with panch phoran, indian lentils, lentil stew.

french lentil, kabocha & fennel soup
serves 4-6
adapted from rebecca stevens’s souplove via 101 cookbooks

• 1 small kabocha or other dark orange winter squash, 1½ lb*
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 cup / 7 oz french green lentils, rinsed
• 5 coins peeled fresh ginger, 1/8” thick
• 1 whole star anise
• 6 cups water
• 2 tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, medium dice
• 1 leek, sliced into 1/4 moons
• 1 fennel bulb, medium dice
• red pepper flakes

*butternut, acorn, pie pumpkin, rugosa, etc., will all work—i imagine yams or sweet potatoes would make for a delicious substitute as well.

preheat oven to 425°F with a rack in the top third of the oven. cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. oil and salt the squash and roast cut side down (in a rimmed baking pan) with the 1/2 cup / 120 ml of water poured into the pan. roast until tender, about 35 to 45 minutes. when cool enough, scoop out cooked squash and set aside. (i instead cubed my squash into ¾” pieces, tossed them with salt and olive oil and roasted them at 400°F, tossing occasionally, until soft, about 20 minutes.)

in the meantime, in a medium saucepan, combine the lentils, ginger, star anise and water. simmer until tender, about 30 minutes. add 2 tsp salt.

in a large stockpot combine the olive oil, onion, leeks, fennel and additional salt. cook covered over low heat until vegetables soften, about 7-10 minutes.

add the lentils, lentil broth and squash to the vegetables in the stock pot. stir well and cook for another 15 minutes or so, allowing the flavors to blend. remove star anise and ginger. taste and adjust the seasoning here with more salt (you’ll probably need lots) and crushed red pepper to taste.

serve as is, or topped with lots of garlicky homemade croutons: rip up a few slices of bread (i used the remainders of a three day old cracked wheat sourdough) into tiny shreds, douse them in olive oil, garlic and a bit of salt, and toast in a 375°F oven until golden and crunchy.