This article is taken from the August/September 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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“Some like it hot.” In the homonymous movie, Tony Curtis’s character was thinking of fans who favour mephitic rhythms and instruments that lose their cool. But in most people’s experience heat and cold occur in afflicted bloodstreams, or weather, or — especially where tastes conflict — at table. The imagery of Curtis’s metaphor obviously originated in food.

The phrase he immortalised occurred earliest, as far as I know, in reference to pease pudding. Some, according to the children’s rhyme, like it cold, or “nine days old”, whereas “some like it hot.”

Chilled soup, which mitigates the scorching and the sweating, is the antidote to climate change

Longing for cold pease pudding — even without nine days’ growth of mould — is a mischievous invention. No one really likes the dish. If you sieve split-peas strenuously, beat in thick cream, stir in green herbs and season lavishly, you can turn this boorish mush into a palatable dish. It works in winter weather, when fresh peas are unavailable, with hearty boil-ups and stews. But as soon as it cools it becomes stodge. English conditions may call for its indigestibly warming effects even in summer, when, as Flanders and Swann sang,

August, cold and dank and wet,

brings more rain than any yet,

and

Bleak September’s mist and mud

is enough to chill the blood.

In the season, however, when the wise and wealthy among the English flee to villas by the Mediterranean or Caribbean, demand grows for what some like cold. Chilled soup, which mitigates the scorching and the sweating, is the antidote to climate change.

Spanish gazpachos and salmorejos are ideal because the ingredients are raw: stoves can stay unlit and kitchens cool. Basic technique hardly changes between regions or recipes. Olive oil, dropped gently and mixed slowly, emulsifies ripe tomatoes, peeled, seived and blended with crumbled chunks of dense white bread that is soft from immersion in the purée. A smooth consistency results. Garlic, crushed with a pinch of salt and sugar to modify the harshness, provides the key flavour.

The charm of the dish lies in garnishes, which can vary in combination according to taste: chopped hard-boiled eggs and raw-cured ham for carnivores; shrimps, cockles and smoked trout for pescatarians; for everybody, including vegans: croutons and sliced white asparagus or tiny cubes of cucumber, sweet onion and peppers. Some enthusiasts incautiously favour grapes, melon or peach. Heretics add ice cubes or scoops of fruit sorbet, but they alter the consistency of the soup. It should be perfectly chilled before serving.

Ajo blanco is similar, but recalls an earlier era, before tomatoes arrived from Mexico, when almonds were still exotic ingredients, invoking Moorish sybaritism. It’s best, I think, if the bread is steeped in almond milk, before blending with almonds that have been crushed virtually to powder, and emulsifying with olive oil. Abrasive garlic can jar in so subtle a soup; so it’s best to fillet out the intensely acrid core of the bulb before crushing with salt and sugar and adding to the mixture.

The charm of the dish lies in garnishes, which can vary in combination according to taste

Halved green grapes and whole blanched or toasted almonds are the best and, I claim, the only acceptable garnish, adding squelch and crunch, though seeds — pumpkin, caraway, sesame — have advocates. Can hosts start with anything raw, other than tomatoes or almonds, and make an equally good dish? Experiments with cucumbers always seem unsatisfactory, dependent on desperately added flavours. Some fruits — especially melons — withstand transformation into savoury purées by the addition of herbs and strong pepper, but, to a purist, fruity soups seem contrived.

In some cuisines — especially in continental climes, where extreme temperatures encourage recipes adaptable for hot and cold weather alike — cold soups commonly require prior cooking. For vichysoisse, for instance, you must boil the leeks and potatoes before blending them into a purée and adding cream.

Chilled borscht made from beets is excellent, but was laborious until hypertension-sufferers’ demand made beetroot juice available in cartons. A blob of crême fraiche in a bowl of the stuff makes a delicious simulacrum of the traditional dish.

Historically, Ukrainians took their version with bites of garlic; so garlic shavings are admissible as a garnish. So are plums, which in some countries on the borders of Russia are common additions to the recipe. Prawns with dill wisps are unorthodox but recommendable.

Almost any cold vegetable vélouté can appeal to particular tastes: sorrel, carrot, sweetcorn and watercress attract passionate partisans. None surpasses young peas in a zuppa di piselli — simmered till soft in a soffrito of onion and laced with cream. Some like it hot, but as a dish it resembles chilling revenge: sweet if cold.