Bean Soup
I was hot on the trail of my grandmother's Mystery Soup. It was a food recollection that surfaced a few years ago. My mother remembered a special thick bean soup my grandmother used to bring to her, in the early years of her marriage. No one had a car, so Grandma had to take the bus to deliver it. The name sounded like "black-y" with an exaggerated Slovenian accent. I could picture it so clearly. My grandma on the bus, in a housedress. Week after week, carrying a big jar of her precious homemade soup to the young married couple. I figured it must be a thick dark porridge, something like black bean soup. I kept looking through my Slovenian cookbooks, but I couldn't find a soup that matched the name or the description. "You're sure that's what it was called?" I asked my mother. Yes. She kept repeating the name, with growing insistence. Now it sounded more like "blahk-eh." "It was made with black beans, right?...