№ 26Rupjas maizes zupa

Rye bread soup with currants Serves 4 · 50 minutes · Adapted from the 1796 recipe; not yet tested.

The book gives no quantities; the amounts below are ours.

Ingredients

• 250 g dark rye bread crusts, or day-old dark rye bread, broken into pieces
• 1.25 l water (our addition: the book doesn't name it, but implies it)
• Peel of ½ lemon, in strips
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 30 g butter
• 50 g currants
• To serve: 1 tbsp sugar mixed with ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Put the bread, lemon peel and water in a pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20–25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the bread is completely soft. 2. Stir in the sugar and butter. 3. Rub everything through a colander or coarse sieve. (Or take out the lemon peel, blend with a stick blender and then sieve.) Add a little hot water if it is too thick; it should be like thick cream. 4. Meanwhile, simmer the currants in a little water for 5–10 minutes and drain them. 5. Stir the currants into the soup and serve warm, sprinkled with the cinnamon sugar.

Notes

• What the book says vs. what we added: the book simmers rye bread crusts with lemon peel until soft, adds a little sugar and butter, rubs it all through a colander, then adds currants cooked separately and sprinkles cinnamon sugar on top. It never mentions water; we take it as read. All amounts and times, and the blender option, are ours. The book doesn't say whether to serve the soup warm or cold; we serve it warm, like the soups around it.
• Bread: Latvian rupjmaize is a dense, dark, slightly sweet-and-sour rye bread. Any dark rye bread without lots of seeds will do. The recipe is a thrifty way of using up crusts.
• Context: today's Latvian maizes zupa descends from soups like this. It is usually served cold with whipped cream and dried fruit; the book's version is plainer.