"Oregonian Haruspex" > wrote in message
...
> Luckily the climate here is pretty mild, so even in the summer when the
> high is in the low sixties (with few exceptions) I can make soup.
>
> However, I'm with you. When the sun starts receding and you get that
> first night where it's actually really really cold, a soup sounds pretty
> good. A few days ago it got quite chilly here and I made a veggie soup
> like my grandma from the old country did. You make very saucy soup with a
> veggie broth base, mainly out of tomatoes, onions, and celery. The trick
> is that you need to simmer a half dozen or so whole potatoes fully
> submerged in the soup for an hour or so (until done) and then the soup is
> served over a whole potato that is mashed in the bottom of a dish.
> Apparently it was a common peasant dish in Bohemia in the late 1800s and
> early 1900s and it has been preserved in all the branches of that side of
> my family as I recently found out from a book that one of my relatives
> published.
>
> It reminds me of a midwestern dish called the commercial, which is a layer
> of bread or toast, under a layer of mashed potatoes, under a layer of meat
> with gravy - usually chicken or turkey, but it could be anything. I'm
> sure every culture has a similar one-bowl meal.

Hmmm... I'm from the Midwest but never heard of that!