The story below has been all over the European and American press in the
past week or so. Here is one version. The (French) recipe for the soup
referred to in the story can be found at
<http://www.association-sdf.com/fichiers/fiche_pratique_soupe.pdf>. Here
it is, carelessly translated on the fly.

Pig soup
Cooking time 3 hours

2 kg smoked bacon
1 pig ear
2 pig trotters
2 pig tails
1 kg onions
2 kg carrots
2 kg turnips
2 kg potatoes
1 kg leeks
1 kg celery stalks
coarse salt

The vegetables are peeled, washed and cut into small pieces. The meat is
also cut in small cubes. The soup should be possible to eat without
having to use a knife. Put everything into water to cook, add coarse
salt. One shouldn't take too much water: it is called pig "soup", but
the final result is rather less liquid than a classical soup. One should
count on 3 hours of cooking, checking that the vegetables and the meat
are cooked through.

Victor


From:
<http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1907672,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1124-rdf>

Charity Slammed for Serving Discriminatory Soup

In Paris, a charity group linked to the far right is under fire for
serving pork soup to the homeless. Critics say the government should ban
the program as the choice of food discriminates against Muslims and
Jews.

Every Thursday night a handful of volunteers equipped with a trunk of
hot food meet up in a poor district of Paris to feed the needy. They
kick off with red wine served from a cask on the roof of a car, and an
appetizer of dried sausage. That is followed with bowls of steaming hot
soup, traditionally known as a "repas gaulois" or Gallic dinner, cheese
and dessert.

Anne Lucien-Brun, a retiree, has been volunteering with the group,
Solidarity for the French (SDF) for the past year. "I am here to serve
soup to the homeless, to the people who are let down by our society, and
to those who accept eating soup with pork in it," she said. Although SDF
has links to a fringe far-right political group, Lucien-Brun says that
rather than being politically motivated, the work she does is about
defending French traditions.

"We are in France, in Europe. We cook with pork, we have soup with pork
and we don't see why our country should be banned from doing something
that is our tradition," Lucien-Brun said.

The government doesn't actually prohibit pork dinners, but some city
officials would like to see that happen. Paris City Hall is managed by a
coalition of Socialists and Greens who say the meals are discriminatory
and xenophobic because they're designed to exclude observant Muslims who
don't eat pork.

Although the police say there's no law against distributing soup to the
homeless, they shut down weekly dinners twice in December on the grounds
that they were creating a public disturbance. The volunteers say such
action amounts to police harassment and prevents them from providing a
much-needed service to anyone who wants to take advantage of it.

Kalif Kamaté, a homeless Muslim from Mali says he prefers not to eat
pork, but that these days he can't afford to be choosy. Similar pork
dinners have been organized in Nice, Nantes and Strasbourg, where they
were also banned for a time last month.

Although they have since resumed, an anti-racism group is working to
outlaw the initiative nationwide. Mouloud Aounit is President of the
"Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People." He says the
pork soup kitchens go against the very concept of solidarity.

"These extremist groups are using the soup kitchen to spread their
message of hate and contempt towards Muslims. We just can't accept this
form of solidarity based on discrimination."

But the SDF volunteers insist that they do not discriminate, and that
anyone can eat their soup. Kamaté confirms that to be true. "At first I
was told it was a private party. Then I asked the woman in charge and
she allowed me to eat and drink with the others. It really helped me out
because I'm homeless too and I face the same problems as the others."

One such other person is Michel Bewulf, a 37-year-old who has been
living on the streets for two years, ever since he got divorced and lost
his job. He enjoys the Thursday night four-course spread. "I like to
come here because it's friendly. It's also very secure," he said.
"People offer me jackets, trousers, socks, sometimes money and food."

Bewulf says other soup kitchens, where there are hundreds of people and
not enough food, can be dangerous, and adds that some church groups
proselytize while they serve. By contrast, he says the volunteers at the
Gallic dinners don't bring up their political ideas and few of those who
show up for their weekly serving of pork soup seem to care about the
controversy it has stirred.

Ultimately they are just happy to be fed and to share a meal in a
pleasant atmosphere, where they don't have to fight for their food or be
on their guard.

Helen Seeney (tkw)