Potato Soup & Civil War

by Amy

“Beauvoir took a hunk of warm baguette and smoothed whipped butter onto it, and watched it melt. Then he cut a slab of blue and Brie from the cheese board making the rounds. As Brother Raymond continued his liturgy of the faults in the monastery, Beauvoir took a spoonful of soup, with carrots, peas, parsnips and potatoes bumping together in the fragrant broth.”

The food in THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY is mouth-watering. Just reading that paragraph makes me wish I could spend a week in the monastery and partake of their meals, learn from their silence and slow down. Or pick blueberries. And eat them. With chocolate. Sigh. Any of you feel the same?

 “Are you one of the abbot’s men, or the prior’s men?”

The doctor’s gaze, friendly before, now sharpened, examining Beauvoir. Then he smiled again.

“I’m neutral, Inspector. Like the Red Cross. I just tend to the wounded.”

“Are there many? Wounded, I mean?”

The smile left Frère Charles’s face. “Enough. A rift like that in a previously happy monastery hurts everyone.”

“Including yourself?”

“Oui,” the doctor admitted. “But I really don’t take sides. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Was it appropriate for anyone?”

“It wasn’t anyone’s first choice,” said the doctor, an edge of impatience in his friendly voice. “We didn’t wake up one morning and pick teams. Like a game of Red Rover. This was excruciating and slow. Like being eviscerated. Gutted. A civil war is never civil.”

Then the monk’s gaze left Beauvoir and looked first at Francoeur, beside the abbot, then across the table to Gamache.

“As perhaps you know.”

A denial was on Beauvoir’s lips, but he stopped it. The monk knew. They all knew.”

I must confess that I oscillate between writing an entire flood of words and feeling like there is nothing to be added to this scene.

A civil war is never civil.

I’ve spent a few minutes staring at the screen watching the blinking courser. I keep wondering how much to share and how this is a potentially dangerous topic to explore.

I am reminded of Lincoln’s famous “a house divided cannot stand” quote. It is true of nations. It is true of homes.

This soup was, unwittingly, the cause of friction in my own home. My son has issues with food texture and soup is his least favorite of all foods. We have a deal that he has to at least taste things. 

This particular meal was one where the enforcing of the rule led to an unpleasant meal since we weren’t all in agreement as to the particulars of the “tasting rule”. The whole process led to the need for diplomacy in order to find a truce and strategies for future soup meals. He has since had to eat (taste, really… he never has to eat more than a spoonful or two) many, many soups and the most tolerable one, to him, is the apple parsnip one I’ve already posted about.

Civil war is never civil.

There doesn’t always have to be war in times of contention, though. A willingness to listen, to negotiate, and to try to understand another person (or nation or group or…) and their point of view may salvage a situation and avoid a war. We didn’t reach civil war in my own home. Thank goodness. Diplomacy and tolerance won out. I must confess, though, that navigating family negotiations and mediating interactions made that first soup meal savorless. I had the leftovers the next day with a lighter heart and a much better sensory experience.

Differences in opinion are positive. Arguments aren’t always easy to deal with, but I believe the end result can be positive when all parties at least attempt to be civil. It is the respect for civility and the recognition of the other’s humanity that avoids “war”.

Sometimes, however, war is unavoidable. Or, if it is avoidable, we are not in the position of power to avoid it. Gamache could only avoid “war” by conforming to corruption, for instance. And sometimes it is as the doctor explained to Beauvoir:

“It wasn’t anyone’s first choice,” said the doctor, an edge of impatience in his friendly voice. “We didn’t wake up one morning and pick teams. Like a game of Red Rover. This was excruciating and slow. Like being eviscerated. Gutted.”

A few weeks ago, when browsing through my shelves to find a book to show a friend, I started leafing through my copy of LETTERS OF NOTE (Shaun Usher). I was telling the friend about the book and was reminded of the letter Gandhi wrote to Hitler, a little before the Second World War broke out. For the sake of humanity. It is a powerful letter. Link: FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY

May we all choose our battles with careful consideration.

May diplomacy win, if possible.

May we be conscientious and fair in the battles we choose to engage in.

May we avoid unnecessary or hurtful fractions.

May we not forget the price of war – civil or otherwise – and seek other methods, when possible, in order to avoid the devastation.

And, whenever it is impossible to avoid a war, may be not forget that “the other side” (even when its leader is Francoeur) is human, too.

I think the sad thing about humanity is that we seem to frequently repeat our mistakes. So my last prayer is that we learn from our mistakes and from those of the ones that came before us. Not only in the big sweeping historical occurrences, but also in the small, seemingly insignificant experiences of daily life.

I did make soup. It was a vegetable soup. There were little pieces of vegetables bumping together… But I’m not a huge fan of thin broth, so I pureed about two thirds of the soup in order to make it a thicker broth.

I’m sure you’ll all forgive me if it doesn’t look quite like the soup I pictured when I read the scene. It was loosely based on this recipe: Perfect Potato Soup