Roasted Squash Soup with Croutons

Train travel where I come from means Metro North or Amtrak; it means tickets that sometimes cost more than flying and trains that are so delayed they occasionally depart at the hour you were expected to arrive. In contrast, European trains, with their low prices, regular service, and sprawling maps that look like spider veins across the countryside, were a marvel for me from the moment I first took one, at eighteen.

After our senior year of high school, my closest friends and I had somehow managed to convince our parents (through the use of a very in-depth Powerpoint presentation) to allow us to spend five weeks of our summer vacation in Europe. After reading dozens of guide books (because, at this point in time, guidebooks were a far better bet than the Internet), we purchased EurRail passes and planned to divide our five weeks amongst several locations, each of which we’d be reaching by train.

Following the recommendations in our books, we purchased padlocks to keep our luggage safe during our overnight ride from Spain to France. I would wake up startled every few hours and worry someone had stolen my Discman and my curated selection of CDs. (Spoiler alert: no one ever did.)

Our trip had some odd highs and lows, from the time that one of our friends went to the airport – without telling us where she was headed – to fly home to the time that the owner of one of our hostels, an odd woman dressed only in pink, locked our passports in an unplugged fridge, but one of the most enduring memories of it is the trains. They allowed me to move through Europe like an invisible shadow, soaking up the lush green of central France, winding through the Pyrenees and across the Spanish boarder, chugging along the craggy shore of the cliffs over the Mediterranean.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered, upon moving to France and encountering actual French people, that not everyone shared my love of trains. While I had marveled over the fact that the TGV is in most French people’s backyards, many of my friends had never even taken it before. When it came time to plan a weekend away, they immediately thought of driving, not going online to buy a train ticket. To the French, the train system was slow, unreliable, and too expensive. (To be fair, they had never encountered Amtrak before.)

I still love train travel, even when it takes all day. When I recently traveled to Megève, I ended up taking two trains and a bus to get there (and traveling for over ten hours), but I loved every minute of it. I love watching as the landscape changes; I love being forced to sit and read a book or write, because I don’t have any Internet connection. I even love meeting the local bus driver, asking to be sure I’m going in the right direction, tracking our progress on Google Maps to make sure that I don’t miss my stop (because in the country, as opposed to Paris, a missed stop doesn’t mean a two-minute walk, it means a twenty-minute one).

The Country Boy, meanwhile, much prefers renting a car with the flexibility it affords. For him, the trains, which require getting to and from the station and sitting amongst throngs of other people for hours on end just aren’t worth the trouble. But no matter how long I live here, or how integrated I might feel, I think I’ll always have an outsider’s perspective on trains, and that means that I’ll always see their charm first.

France has different opinions on more things than just train travel. For one, soup in France is always, always smooth: a velouté style concoction rather than the chunky chicken noodle and minestrone I grew up with. Every time I make a chunkier soup, TCB looks at it, flummoxed, not sure what to call it.

For another, croutons are not toppings for salad; they’re for soup – I guess to make up for the fact that otherwise, soup involves no chewing. While usually, I make soup the American way, last week I made this one and served it with all sorts of toppings on the side: not just croutons but bacon lardons and pan-roasted hazelnuts. It’s kind of the best of both worlds, and that works for me.

Roasted Squash Soup (serves 2)

1 red kuri squash
1 tablespoon bacon fat
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper, to taste

2 slices day-old bread
3 tablespoons butter or ghee
coconut milk or heavy cream (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the bacon fat on a baking sheet, and place in the oven just long enough to melt. Rotate the pan so that the grease coats it.

Halve the squash and remove the seeds. Place cut-side down on the baking sheet and roast for about 40 minutes, or until very tender. (I often do this the day before.)

Scoop the flesh out of the skin (or if the squash is young, leave it in) and place in a pot with the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and add the spices and water, as needed. Cook until just warmed, then use an immersion blender to blend. Season to taste as needed. Set aside.

Cut the bread into croutons. Heat the butter over medium heat in a pan, and cook the croutons on all sides. Top the soup with the croutons and enjoy hot. (TCB likes to stir heavy cream into his – I prefer coconut milk and a hefty grind of black pepper.)