Eveline Weyl remembers growing up in France with a green-wheat soup, served every Friday evening. “We called it gruen kern or soupe au blé vert, and it was made, basically, by simmering onions and carrots and using green wheat to thicken the broth,” she told me. “My mother said it was very healthy for us children.” I asked all over for a recipe for this dish but couldn’t find one. Then, watching a Tunisian videographer from Paris taking photographs of his mother making soup, I realized that the soup Tunisians call shorbat freekeh, made with parched wheat, is nearly the same as the green-wheat soup for which I had been searching. Young green wheat is available at select health-food stores these days, and made into juice. Ferik or freekeh is the parched substitute. I like this soup so much that I often use barley, bulgur, wheat berries, or lentils if I can’t find the green wheat. In fourteenth-century Arles, Jews ate many different kinds of grains and legumes. Chickpeas, which came from the Middle East, and green wheat were probably two of them. The original recipe for this soup called for lamb bones, but I prefer a vegetarian version. The tomato paste is, of course, a late addition.
Recipe information
Yield
6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
The night before you make the soup, soak the chickpeas or other dry beans in water to cover by about 3 inches.
Step 2
The next day, pour the olive oil into a soup pot, and sauté the onion, celery, and carrot for about 5 minutes. Drain the chickpeas, and add them to the pan with 1/4 cup of the parsley, the bay leaf, the harissa, cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper. Stir in the tomato paste and a cup of water, and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.
Step 3
Add 6 more cups water, and bring to a boil. Add the wheat or other thickeners, stir, and reduce the heat to low. Cover, and simmer for 2 hours, adding water if needed while the wheat cooks. When the chickpeas are soft, and the wheat has thickened the soup or the lentils or grains have cooked, adjust the seasonings. Fish out the bay leaf and discard. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley, and serve with lemon wedges and additional harissa.
