It’s time we talked food again – it’s been a while but rest assured, we have continued to eat. Now, with winter coming on, our thoughts turn naturally to hearty, nutritious soups. There’s nothing quite like a big pot bubbling on the stove to add a note of cosy domesticity to the place – and once ingested, the robust dish is nutritious, warming and sustaining for the middle-aged DIY man fresh in from murdering weeds in the cold outdoors. 

Today we revisited a fantastic fave which Daniela, in her ceaseless quest for culinary perfection, has evolved through relentless experimentation: pea & ham soup. Having greedily consumed every iteration of this development process, I’m not the best person to pass judgement due to a conflict of interest – suffice to say, it’s really good, and just gets better and better.

Pea & ham soup first appeared on my culinary horizon many years ago at home in Zimbabwe. In 1956 my parents, rather adventurously, went off for their honeymoon to Canada. This isn’t quite the random decision it might appear: as a fanatical sportsman, Dad had previously gone off to see the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver with a couple of mates.

Their cunning plan was to work as lumberjacks to fund their stay, but on arrival they found that winter had frozen all the rivers that transported the logs, so no work was available – and dad reluctantly turned to his trade, which he hated, as a hot-metal typesetter. Later, they cycled from Vancouver to Boston on single-speed bicycles, but that’s another story.

Dad returned to the big skies of Bulawayo and my mother who had waited faithfully for him, brimming with stories of Canada’s wonders. And that’s why they went there on their honeymoon, sailing on an ocean liner to Southampton and then onward from Liverpool to New York. I’m not sure how they got to Vancouver – it wasn’t by bike – but that’s where they spent their first year of marriage. And that’s where my mother caught on to the virtues of pea & ham soup.

You might think of Zimbabwe as a hot country, and it is – but in Bulawayo, being high up, winter nights are frosty and a bowl of soup is just the ticket to warm the cockles. Mum’s Canadian-influenced pea & ham was really good and we bolted it with gusto. But, no disrespect to mother or the nation of Canada, what we’re having these days in Braidwood – where winter is shaping up to be rather Bulawayo-like – is of a different order.

Its deliciousness is beyond dispute, but the genius of this particular variety is that it’s adaptable to those of a vegetarian persuasion as well as catering to the needs of us omnivores. This is how it’s done. (Please note that this is not the kind of recipe where precise measurements are required or desirable – just have fun with it, as they say.)

Take a whole packet of red lentils and cover with warm water in a pot (having removed from the packet of course – do try to be sensible here). Add two tablespoons of garlic powder (when queried, Daniela tells me this is more convenient than fresh and the taste is more concentrated), four dried bay leaves, two carrots, two onions, and two sticks of celery cut to fit the pot. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are soft and/or the water is absorbed. Add water if you need to. This is the vegetarian bit.

Now, in a separate pot, put your ham hock (available from Fyshwick food markets for a mere $18) and cover with water; add six black peppercorns, and as before, three dried bay leaves, half a swede, two onions, two carrots, two sticks of celery cut to fit the pot. Bring to the boil slowly and cook for at least 2½ hours at a slow simmer with the lid on. When the ham hock has “burst out of its sleeve”, take it out and shred the meat finely.

Now – if you have vegans and/or vegetarians at table, you can serve them from the contents of the first pot. Take out the veggies, chop finely and add them back to the mix with 1½ cups of frozen baby peas, ¼ cup of fresh mint, finely chopped, and the juice of half a lemon.

Once the vegetarians are happy, the contents of the carnivorous pot, similarly treated in terms of chopping finely etc., can be added to the whole. Or in the words of my lovely spouse, “throw it all in the pot and cook the crap out of it.” Serve with buttery slices of sourdough from the local bakery and you have comfort food to die for.

A very important part of the process is to take the ham bone and give it to the dog – in this case Cruise, who has benefited in the past from soup experimentation in the Corner Cottage kitchen. He knows quality when he sniffs it – and a well-boiled ham bone is nothing to be sneezed at.

Thus, when confronted with a fragrant bowl of minty, lemony pea & ham, we consume not just the essential food groups, but the flavour of creativity, the scent of family history, and a tiny bit of 1950s colonial adventurousness. It’s a heady infusion, let me tell you – the kind of thing legends are built on.