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French seafood soup


StanSherman

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I need to make a special reunion dinner for my honey. She is to meet her birth-mother for the first time next February. They are brought together by a genetic study being conducted at Mayo. They both possess a very rare disease. The odds on them both being alive are astronomical.

Mom has had a pretty tough life and her fondest food memory is a French seafood soup she had in Belgium in 1962. My first guess is Bouillabaisse. Can any of you think of any other possibilities?

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It is more likely to be something akin to Perard Soupe de Poissons this is the trademark name. Sold in large jars here in the UK and served with litle discs of dried/toasted baguette topped with roulle and grated ( in our house) Gruyere. You can of course make it yourself but we recently tried a large jar made by 'Fishworks' which was rather marvellous. It is always a lunchtime standby with us.I also feel a proper Boulabaise requires a lot of attention to the eating of bones etc and for this occasion ease of eating/talking/crying! might be the order of the day.

i hgope it goes well

LC

Edited by LornaC (log)
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First of all Stan, I'm really sorry to hear about your love's health issues. Without knowing you, from one person to another, a simple wish to her better health.

Some thoughts, beyond bouillabaisse. Bourride (Provence, Languedoc); a provencale style, pureed fish soup; cotriade (Bretagne); matelote (different regions - Normandy uses, classically, sole, with shellfish and cider, while inland river regions like the Loire use freshwater eels, wine, etc.). Lots of others, obviously - Basquaise styles with salt cod, chowders more northerly (facing England, say), but these 3 obvious thoughts come to mind.

-Paul

 

Remplis ton verre vuide; Vuide ton verre plein. Je ne puis suffrir dans ta main...un verre ni vuide ni plein. ~ Rabelais

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What a lovely thing for you to do.

With so many options, I wonder if you can't somehow elicit a bit more information so you can at least narrow down the style to either (1) chunky stew in broth or (2) thick puree. Once you decide which direction you're taking, I'm sure anything you make will be be delicious and very much appreciated.


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Thanks to everyone. As you can guess, this may be one of the meals I’d like to nail. They do have some similar habits so there is some material to work with.

An easy to eat idea is good. One of her favorite meals in the past ten years was at Aquavit in Minneapolis a few months prior to their closing. I don’t remember any fish soups by Marcus Samuelsson, but a Bourride may be a great idea.

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