Lentil soup tasty treat for 17 years
A 1992 lentil soup recipe from an Arkansas author has gained a new and larger audience.
All it took was a Seattle man with a pretty serious fondness for the recipe and a story in The Washington Post.
Reid Branson, a nurse manager at a Seattle hospital, found the recipe for “Greek Lentil and Spinach Soup with Lemon” in the 1992 book Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon.
The soup was so yummy that he has had it for lunch almost every workday for 17 years.
In 2018, he emailed Dragonwagon, the writer and former owner of Eureka Springs inn and restaurant Dairy Hollow House, to let her know how much he loved the recipe.
“I’m glad to have been eating lunch with you all these years, without even knowing it,” she wrote back.
Dragonwagon, 67, told her friend and fellow legume enthusiast, Washington Post food writer Joe Yonan, about Branson. On March 8, Yonan’s story about Branson and his lunch habit was published.
Headlined “This lentil soup is so good one nurse has eaten it for lunch virtually every workday for 17 years,” it told how the 63-year-old vegetarian Branson started making the recipe after becoming dissatisfied with the canned soup he normally ate.
Dragonwagon, who also writes children’s books and novels, said Yonan told her the day after the piece was published that it was “definitely our most viral story of 2020” and invited her to take part in the Post’s weekly live food chat, Free Range.
“It was such a sweet story,” Dragonwagon said Thursday from her home in Fayetteville. “It’s kind of reassuring at this moment in time when everyone is so panicky, which is why I think it’s gotten so popular … and beans and lentils are great foods to have in the house if you are doing social distancing.”
Describing the soup, Yonan wrote: “It’s hearty and thick, with lentils as the base, bulked up by potatoes and butternut squash, and a flavor enlightened by a heavy dose of aromatic spices — plus a pop of fresh lemon juice.”
In the story, Branson said, “I’m a vegetarian, and getting a reliable source of protein every day at lunch is important to me. Plus, it’s fun to make … at this point, I can do it without looking at the recipe.”
Well, we should hope so. Dragonwagon said it has been a while since she has made the soup, but is planning to fix a batch soon for her fiance, Mark Graff.
The Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread Cookbook is currently out of print.
“I’ve been working on a proposal to get it reissued,” she says.
If you don’t have an old copy of the book in your kitchen, you can find Dragonwagon’s recipe, the tweaks Branson made to it and other tidbits at dragonwagon.com/greeklentilsoup/.