"Milk soup"-- have you heard of this? Tasted it? While flipping through my Hungarian cookbook (George Lang's classic, recommended by a Facebook friend), I was astonished to find a recipe for it; and still more astonished to find other versions online...
The personal significance: My Polish grandfather, may he rest in peace, ate a bowl of this every day for more than 50 years-- but I'd always assumed that the mixture was his own quirky invention, because who else would eat what was essentially a white sauce with noodles, and nothing more? My mother told me that this "milk soup" regimen began after his wartime imprisonment, when a doctor (either in the DP camp, or upon the family's arrival in the US) told him that he was malnourished and needed to "build himself up," so to speak. This soup was his solution. And he made the entire family eat it, every day...
My mom detested milk soup, or came to detest it. While I often saw my grandfather eating it, I don't remember trying it myself; and he never pressured me.
Here's a whole online conversation about it. And another. Again, I'd never realized that milk soup was not just my Dziadzio's quirk, but a well-known recipe with many variations!
How different is that to "rice pudding" as we call it in the UK? Here rice pudding is sweet and perhaps less liquidy than milk soup. It contains rice, sugar, milk and cream. Not made with noodles, but I can't see why it cannot be made with pasta.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Hi Victor! Thanks. I hadn't thought of the comparison-- although the two dishes are rather similar, aren't they? Yet, as you suggest, rice pudding is much sweeter and thicker than milk soup... Interestingly, my Hungarian cookbook also includes a whole series of dessert recipes made with pasta. These are probably very like rice pudding!
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