Pfälzer Grumbeersupp

Pfälzer Grumbeersupp belongs to the Palatinate, where Grumbeere means potatoes, and the soup sits in the part of the German table that knows how to feed people from a cellar basket. Potato, leek, carrot, celeriac, a little smoked bacon if the larder has it, and enough time for the roots to give themselves up. This is autumn and winter cooking, but it doesn't need a Sunday to justify itself.

The Palatinate argues about the partner more than the pot. Some houses serve it with Quetschekuche, plum cake, in late summer. Others put a salt-crusted Dampfnudel, a steamed yeast dumpling, right into the bowl so the crust goes savoury and the middle stays soft. Across the border in Saarland you meet close cousins with more sausage; further south the soup may be smoother and richer. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. German food has no one version, and this one is Pfälzer.

The step that decides it is the sweating at the beginning and the mashing at the end. Cook the leek, onion, carrot, and celeriac slowly in bacon fat or butter before the water goes in, because raw roots boiled in plain water taste thin no matter how long you stare at them. Then simmer, don't thrash it, until the floury potatoes fall apart and thicken the soup themselves. Not flour. Not a packet. Nicht aus dem Glas.

I leave some pieces whole and crush the rest against the side of the pot. That gives you body without making baby food. Taste at the end, because potatoes drink salt like a thirsty man drinks beer. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss.