Pepper Soup and Art

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INGREDIENTS

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2¼ pounds chicken, beef, or goat

3 whole nutmegs or calabash nutmegs, or 2 tablespoons nutmeg

1 onion

1 Scotch bonnet, habanero, 2 serrano chiles, or bird’s eye chile

2 MaggiTM** bouillon cubes, flavor should match the meat

4 cups water

2 teaspoons ginger powder

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons shrimp or crayfish powder (or omit)

2 tablespoons scent leaves*: Thai basil, or tarragon

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* = Scent leaves can be hard to find.

** = Doesn’t have to be the Maggi brand, but Maggi is extremely popular in Nigeria and much of the rest of Africa.

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SPECIAL UTENSILS

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spice grinder

sonic obliterator

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Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

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PREPARATION

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Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Grind whole nutmegs into powder. Dice onion. Seed and mince Scotch bonnet. (BE SURE to wash your hands thoroughly after touching the Scotch bonnet or its seeds. If however you touch your face after handing the Scotch bonnet or habanero, you will remember the pain it caused for a long time.)

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Add chicken, bouillon cubes, onion, Scotch bonnet, and 4 cups water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

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Add ginger powder, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, salt, and shrimp powder. Simmer on low for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add scent leaves. And simmer for another 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Use sonic obliterator on any guests who gives your any guff over any ingredient substitutions. You don’t need that negativity in your kitchen.

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TIDBITS

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1) Culinary art historians will tell you, if you have the misfortune of being cornered by a feral gang of them, that the progression of European art can be summarized in the following eight stages.

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2) First stage: Pre-prehistoric art.. How do we know it existed? We don’t. That’s why most of us cross the street to avoid a culinary art historian. (CAH.)

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3) Second stage: .Prehistoric art, such as the wall paintings in the Lescaux Cave. Sadly, because this art comes from a prehistoric time, there are no written records of its history. Bummer. But it also gives rises to the age-old riddle, “Did prehistory inhibit written records or did the absence of written records spawn prehistory?” It is a contentious subject among the fractious CAHs.

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4) Third stage: Roman art. Mosaics and wall paintings of geometric patterns, scenes from mythology, and pastoral landscapes. The Romans really liked the color red. Although when they really let their hair down, they would add black and yellow, hence the many mosaics at Bromidium depicting enraged wasps stinging tomatoes.

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5) Moving onto the Fourth stage; (We really have to cover a lot of ground quickly as we only have one page.) Medieval art. Paintings depicted people of status in incredibly rigid poses. The current planking craze derives nearly all of its inspiration from Medieval nobility. Many Medieval artists made many Medieval medallions and incredibly expensive golden statues. Unfortunately, these stupendously valuable works got robbed by enterprising thieves. All gone. This explains why so few people study Medieval art. This six-sentence review is one of this period’s longest art studies

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6) Fifth stage: Renaissance art. Really, an overall flowering of artistic ideas and techniques. The whole Renaissance era burgeoned with beauty. People love to study Renaissance art, their numbers limited only by the difficulty of spelling the word, “Renaissance.”

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7) Sixth stage: Brown Gravy or Fifty Shades of Beige. Every freaking painting was painted in brown. It really does resemble brown gravy. Museum curators will tell you with admirably straight faces that post-Renaissance teemed with other colors. They say the painted walls, portraits, and tapestries of Hampton Court and the Louvre blazed with vibrant colors and only faded to brown over time.

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8) Rebuttal: pish.

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9) Brown’s supremacy derives from the massive importation of Nigerian Pepper Soup into Europe. Pepper-mad Europeans couldn’t get enough of this dish. Artists thought of Pepper Soup during every waking hour. Then dreamed of it every night.

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10) This dish in this recipe is light brown and dark brown. So, is it any wonder that all Brown-Gravy artists worked only with brown? Where did the European artists get the funds to afford so much Pepper Soup? From the gold stolen in tidbit 5).

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11) Seventh stage: Eventually artist went off feed and discovered other colors, such as can be found in fried eggs and split-pea soup. This naturally brought on the many-colored Impressionistic era.

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12) Eighth stage: Modern art. It’s chock full of modern art. There, you are now an art expert.

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