When I was in college, we had some folks who were from Czechoslovakia in our neighborhood. The matriarch of the one family came to the US at 60+ yrs old. My mother spoke no Czech and the old woman spoke no English and they yammered back and forth in the kitchen for hours exchanging cooking tips. One very cold winter day, I came home from college for a break, hungry as a bear, and my mother said she just finished a batch of soup, would I like some. Well sure I said and took my bags to my room. When I returned to the kitchen there was this huge bowl of steaming pinkish purple liquid in a bowl. I very politely consumed the soup and then explained that I wanted to check with a man about a summer job and excused my self to go up the road to McDonald's in the next town. My mother planned that soup for dinner that night. After dinner, Dad said he needed to pick up some tools at a buddy's place and asked if I wanted to go along for the ride. ............. We stopped at a sandwich shop, went and borrowed some tools and on the way home, Dad warned me about some of the other foods Mom had learned about. Frankly, some were really good, and I have no idea how to describe them. That pinkish purple soup was thick and creamy and had bits of red beets in it. It must be an acquired taste.
