A tender green pea velouté, melted with butter, served piping hot with a few golden croutons and a hint of chervil. Mild, filling, it is the soup of ordinary evenings.

Why this dish? In a Parisian bourgeois family like the Blums, dinner almost every evening began with a soup. Saint-Germain, a velvety green pea soup bound with butter, is the archetype of this daily, simple yet careful starter that set the rhythm for evenings on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and later for the studious dinners of the lawyer and journalist.

You see, at our house dinner never began without its soup: it was civility itself, a hand extended to the stomach before serious matters. We shelled the peas still warm from the market, let them melt in a little butter, and passed everything through a fine sieve — my mother insisted on it, for a soup that is not smooth betrays a careless household. I have kept all my life this taste for sober, clean things; a good soup, believe me, is worth many a speech.

How it was made : Before the electric blender, a smooth velouté required a long pass through a horsehair sieve with a wooden spatula. 'Saint-Germain' takes its name from the market gardens around Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which supplied Paris with peas in the 19th century.

The contemporary twist : Serve the velouté in a small cup, topped with a slice of crispy cured ham and chervil oil, as a nod to the Popular Front dinners where elegant simplicity was prized.

Léon Blum · Charactorium