Cicero was a very boring orator who droned on and on about awful legal things. He had a couple of natty tricks with language: making points in threes and inventing neologisms. It actually makes me feel slightly teenage and angry to think about it, because I loathed studying him at school. The most interesting thing I learned about him was that he was named Cicero, because his nose looked like a chickpea. (Cicer is Latin for chickpea).
I don’t believe anyone’s nose actually could look like a chickpea. Chickpeas are round with strange nodules. If I had to pick a body part to correspond with a chickpea, it would not be a nose. You might have a facial wart like a chickpea (it would be awfully unfortunate, but possible). A belly button could look like a chickpea, just, if the midwife had been a bit ham-fisted. But noses, even darling little button ones, never look like chickpeas. They could look like a pear, or a mushroom or a rather malformed sausage. I think Cicero was one of those truly dreadful people who desperately wanted a nickname so he could sound popular and came up with something really stupid, off the top of his head.
I have made chickpeas into a very delicious soup, not very subtly adapted from Jamie Oliver’s early book.I have added white wine and lemon to the original recipe, simply because the soup was too mealy and Welsh without it. Leeks and pulses on their own are good and warming and filling, but they do make me feel like a sheep with a big soggy fleece, wandering about in the fog on the Brecon Beacons. The addition of a bit of vino and lemon makes the whole thing feel more Mediterranean and sunny. Cicero himself would approve
Cicero Soup
5 leeks
1 can chick peas rinsed and drained. Or cook them yourself from dried little pellets if you are insane.
A couple of cloves of garlic
2 tbps butter and 1 tbsp olive oil (replace the butter with equal amount olive oil for non-dairy)
1 huge glass white wine
4 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
The juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
finely chopped parsley to sprinkle
Wash the leeks by slicing them lengthways and rinsing until all the sandy and gritty bits are gone. Slice into rounds. You are going to blitz this, so don’t worry too much about how the slices look. Cut them reasonably thinly though. Crush the garlic.
Melt butter with the oil in a large pan over a low heat. Add the leeks and garlic and fry gently until they smell lovely (about ten to fifteen minutes). Add the chickpeas and stir gently making sure they do not stick. Add the wine so it sizzles a bit, then add the stock, cover and turn down to a low simmer. If you like a really thick soup, don’t put all the stock in. You can always water it down later. Cook for another ten minutes, turn off the heat and puree the soup roughly in a blender.
Return to the pan, season and add the lemon and parsley. Reheat and serve
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