Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, July 3, 2002


ALL REVEALED IN GREAT SOUP HUNT


"Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolyroly poured out from Harrison's...'' (James Joyce, Ulysses). NEVER having read Ulysses all the way through, I have done the next best thing and dined at Harrison's, in Dublin, and last weekend I made mockturtle soup. A new challenge, of sorts, after my son Paul boasted of his new-found expertise at soup making, the latest phase in his culinary development after mastering Pasta Surprise and a Cheezels Jaffle. We all go through it. When I visited him recently in Melbourne, he proudly showed me a plastic container of lumpy, grey, congealed gloop, which he said was vegetable soup. I said it most certainly wasn't, and we had one of those, oh yeah, you can do better, rounds of oneupmanship that fathers and sons have. Hence the mockturtle soup. First, a recipe. The last time I went looking for a soup recipe - mushy pea soup for a pie floater - was in pre-www days and it took me ages to track one down from the chap who owns the GPO pie cart. This time I went straight to the Internet. That's the problem with the Net. Once, you could spend an enjoyable lunchtime arguing the toss over, say, the cause of fairy rings. Now, everyone knows the answer is there waiting on the Net, all you have to do is look it up. Such a conversation killer. I quickly found that mockturtle soup required some oxtail, and went to the butcher's where I got caught up in one of those I say-I say-I say vaudeville routines: "Do you have an oxtail?'' ... "Not the last time I looked.'' Boom-boom. "Listen, I want to make mock turtle soup.'' ... "Don't mock turtles, they can't help it.'' Boom-bloody-boom. There should be a law against butchers. By chance, as often happens with the Net, I had also come across a Soup Personality Survey which asked me to pick a statement that best matched my normal soup eating style: Do I eat my soup with a large spoon/with a small spoon/from a mug/from a bowl? I clicked Bowl, to be told I was a Free-Spirited Enthusiast who "lives life to the fullest, never caring what others may think, marches to the beat of a different drummer but could not be happier''. Too close for comfort. Clicking Mug, I was a Care-Free Independent, "not as concerned with etiquette, is self-reliant and on-the-go. Knows how he likes it, doesn't want to be told how to do things.'' Another close call. I emailed Paul for his response to the survey, and he replied Large Spoon, which said he was a Purposeful Traditionalist: "Knows what they want, in soup and in life, uses the simplest way to get from one point to another.'' Yeah right. The Soup Personality Survey claimed it had received more than a million queries from people eager to have themselves revealed for what they really are. How sad. I told Paul the mockturtle soup was excellent and asked how was the vegie soup? Delicious, he said, and what a pity I had not tried it instead of scoffing. "No, my boy,'' I said, "that would have been gruel and unusual punishment.''