Leonard Cohen's Monastery Soup
Middle Feast has been a little quiet over the past fortnight, but there’s a good reason. I have a new work coming out later this month.
Book of Cohen (Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2019) is my collection of late-night meditations on Leonard Cohen. It’s about how one pretty obscure Cohen (that would be me) gets to live a life to the backbeat of a rather better-known Cohen (that would be Lenny). Each of the chapters offers a highly personalized take on one or other of his songs, as experienced in many different places, such as Montreal, New York and Tel Aviv, and various situations running from childhood through middle age. On the cover, the Guardian writer Jonathan Freedland guarantees you will enjoy the ride, and who am I to disagree?
Finishing a book is a bit like completing a blog or newsletter (or a meal). You always think of things afterwards that might have also worked in the mix. Same here. The book utilizes a number of writing styles — here some travel and family memoir, there an element of biography and music criticism — but the closest it gets to food writing is descriptions of making shakshuka in the Middle East and discovering Turkish cuisine in the Big Apple under the guidance of my pal Yasemin Congar.
Was that an oversight? Probably not. Mind you, Cohen’s daughter, Lorca, appears to have been a dab hand in the kitchen, and a quick computer search does throw up some interesting food connections to her father. Here, for instance, is one fan’s take on what Leonard Cohen taught her about kitchen etiquette: “Do not judge. Just do your thing. Try and please the person on the receiving end, the consumer of your art, whoever he or she is without any expectations of appreciation.”
Hmm. I’m not quite sure how one gets that life lesson from Cohen’s music, but it seems like nice bit of Johnnie Walker wisdom nonetheless.
At the time of Cohen’s death, the publication Forward also noted the baffled king’s daily breakfast routine, which appears to have consisted largely of powerful espresso and then more espresso.
On the other hand, one of Cohen’s most famous non-musical gigs had to do with food.
For many years in California, he cooked for the 88-year-old Japanese Zen master, Roshi, rising every day at three AM to begin his preparation, while he lived in the rattlesnake-infested hills of Mt Baldy. Later he would admit that the spartan life was at first too much for him and he ran away at first, but later he returned to what he comically called the revenge of World War II — ie, a Japanese Zen Master being waited on by his Jewish novitiate.
Oh well. As Bob Dylan says, you gotta serve somebody.
Given that the Middle East attracts its share of pilgrims, here’s one of Cohen’s recipes from the Mt Baldy years for the Middle Feast files, a suitably sparse but nourishing brew of monastery soup, as recommended by the man himself. May it touch your perfect stomach with his mind.
16 large garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons olive oil (or more)
1 cup dry white wine
6 cups bouillon
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
6 slices whole wheat bread
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 egg whites, beaten stiff
Method Sauté the garlic in olive oil in a soup kettle for a few minutes. Add the wine. bouillon, salt and nutmeg, and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low to medium, add the egg yolks, and cook for 15 minutes. Simmer for another 15 minutes, covered. Place one slice of bread in each of six soup plates. Scatter the stiff egg whites over the bread. Ladle the hot soup over the bread and serve immediately.