(This is the sequel to The psychosis diaries – THE SOUP LIMIT (part 1).)

§6

Thyme. Rosemary. Tarragon. Parsley. Chives. Garlic. Every single herb, mushroom and vegetable hand-picked and grown on his own grounds. Drops of almost pure alcohol. Roasted pine needles, the Lapp way. Sugar. Hint of one of the many butters he produced. Essence of white wine, vinegar and tarragon. Powder of paprika. Concentration of parasol mushroom and morel. Some extra white wine, self-made by yet another secret recipe, from a kind of grape which took him almost seventeen years to create through a process of experimental cross-pollination in his private gardens. Butter of tomato seeds. Eggs of wild black grouse, found in the moorlands situated at one of the deepest parts of his territory.

Patience.

§7

Most of the more southern herbs he used were grown virtually exclusively on a vast 300 acre domain he owned in the Var department – called “Les Pins Parasols” – which was situated in a mountainous area in southeastern France. He had never tasted thyme as exquisite as the wild thyme which could be found in that area. Of course the weather circumstances were perfect, but the other secret was – as is often seen – to be found below: a magical sand mixture.

In the herbal greenhouses of the Den Gamla Kyrkan estate, only the precise sand mixture was used of “Les Pins Parasols”; years of experiments had led to the simple conclusion that the experiment couldn’t beat nature in this specific game. “Precise” had to be taken literally by the way: huge amounts of soil were shipped from “Les Pins Parasols” to Sweden in order to create the best possible environment for local and direct use of his precious herbs. Of the many herbs he had studied and needed over the years, thyme had always remained the most subtle and mysterious to grow, in his view, and this was one of the reasons it was his favorite.

And then there were the mushrooms. When acquiring “Les Pins,” one, and only one condition was required in order to let the sale go through: the concierges – an old couple, consisting of a local lady called “Madame Marie” and a gentleman of Italian origin who went by the name of “Monsieur Jozef” (and this was no joke of some bizarre religious nature) – came with the property. The first time he ever set foot in the concierge’s house, Madame Marie proposed to make an “omelette” as a token of her appreciation for the new owner of the estate.

He did. not. know. what. hit. him. He could see/taste that the main ingredients were eggs, morels, some herbs he could not pin down right away, and a tiny bit of sour cream. But how heavenly that taste was ! The combination of incredible talent together with a deep understanding of nature made her a world class chef without any doubt, and virtually nobody knew, except for some villagers. Another eye-opener was her carpaccio of wild pig, topped with thin slices of summer truffle and grind pepper, fresh leaves of young rucola, and home-made olive oil. The secret was definitely at least partially hidden in the quality of the “ingredients” – a term detested by Madame Marie, because it showed no respect for especially the poor animals that were killed on the way. (“Call a piegg a piegg.”) The olives and rucola came from the gardens, as did the truffles. And they were certainly the finest truffles by far he had ever tasted. And the wild pigs lived on the vast grounds of “Les Pins,” living from acorns, oak leaves, a mixture of the best herbs (especially thyme, sage and rosemary) and various kinds of truffles. Monsieur Jozef was a genius in finding truffles, but the wild pigs beat him easily in the quest. It was an ironic wink of nature, because it gave them the extra taste which even their black Iberian colleagues did not have. A second secret was the fact that the meat was only very modestly salted in order to stress its natural subtle flavor, but Monsieur Jozef didn’t want to tell how he achieved that feat.

The fact that somebody could impress him by virtue of two different dishes, impressed him even more. “Uncanny” was the only word he could think of to describe the feeling Madame Marie gave him.

§8

Sometimes he made mistakes. Sometimes he couldn’t stay awake for several days. Sometimes it went wrong. At one occasion, after watching a piece of lamb slowly get roasted on a complex mixture of herbs during several hours, he closed his eyes for about 15 seconds. When he woke up, his hair was on fire, and he was only barely able to put the fire out. He would have to live the rest of his life with severe burning scars on the right hand side of his face. And next to no hair. On the other hand, he almost lost two fingers because of the incident, and that would have been much worse.

§9

He was very close now. He was able to make any soup or sauce with plain mineral water, and one drop of one his – by now – more than one thousand “life essences,” as he called them. He did not trust any other human being besides himself on the matter of evaluating his creations (although he knew at some time he would have to let his babies go to show the world that he was the Michelangelo of ingredients) – he had friends for this purpose with a finer nose, and a more pleasant character.

He was almost certain that he was by far the single best in his speciality in the world. And in his mind “his speciality” was “cooking.” No more, no less.

But “almosts” seldom come for free.

§10

The story of the dervish made everything worse. Every night evolved into a nightmare, often abstract in nature, always essentially boiling down to the fact that there was this one man in the annals of history – be it in another country, be it in another century, be it on a whole different level of existence – who perhaps succeeded in what he – for the moment – did not. The devilish dancing dervish.

He read about the man – or rather, the legend ? – in an excerpt of an old Iranian notebook about the power of the “Tariqah,” a mystical religious ascetic path which aimed to lead to the “ultimate truth,” through the experience of living in extreme poverty, which would be one of the ingredients of reaching a deep form of meditation and understanding. He bought the notes in a bazaar when traveling through the orient in search for taste, from a man who warned him not to read them without humility, and tested that humility by asking a small fortune for the little manuscript.

Much like Zarathustra, the dancing dervish had descended a mountain, after many years of meditation and reflection. Nobody really could figure out how he had nourished himself during his stay, the only thing in his possession being a number of minuscule stone jars of unknown origin. It was suspected that he survived on the contents of the jars (apart from water from an ancient well), but nobody ever knew for certain what was in there. But he knew. Only too well. He knew why people got enchanted in his presence, women got aroused, and babies started singing. In all of the forty seven stories the little book contained, in all of them, one thing happened before the swooning. People ate. And the dancing dervish prepared the meals. And always the set of jars was in his presence. And nobody was allowed to disturb him in this ritual. People ate.

Of the forty seven stories, eleven mentioned (only slightly) more details on the usage of ingredients. Or, that is to say, on the non-usage. Because those stories conjectured that except from water, no ingredients were ever there. The dervish was claimed to – literally – produce the most heavenly tastes out of thin air. Out of nothing.

After the dervish had finally died – in the last of the forty seven stories, it was mentioned that he was older than the oldest tree of the country, the “Sarv-e Abar-kuh,” a graveyard pine which was then thought to be about three millennia old – the jars had disappeared, and so had his secrets with them. The fact that he died was also conjectural – he simply vanished one day.

§11

Irony was in a great mood when it created a man who would die for producing and tasting the divine, while starving himself in that very conquest. (He forgot that even the ghostly dervish probably used the insides of the jars to end up with enough calories to save the day. Hell, there was even an ancient well in the stories, remember ?) Sometimes days went by without drinking a drop of water. He often collapsed and woke up in various places, not knowing how he got there, angry because he believed to have lost precious time. And in some sense he did. Because time was running short. But it was running short because he exhausted every part of his being to dance with the dervish. And that was ironic again, since he might have more time if he would be more patient.

§12

His body was found in his kitchen, on the ground. Apparently he died from mere exhaustion – a modest heart condition, next to no sleep in about a fortnight, and too much strong coffee (and related substances) probably did the trick.

On the stove, there was a copper saucepot which seemed to be filled with plain water. Forensic analysis showed that it essentially was water, although some remains were found in there which couldn’t be pinned down. (And which wouldn’t be, since there was no single reason to motivate the effort.)

Unfortunately, nobody tasted it.