Spanish Brown Lentil and Chorizo Soup

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, exclaims the front of a T shirt in the whole foods shop/emporium on Penny Street, Lancaster in the late '70's. Displayed beside a rack of 'The Anarchists Cookbook' (very good Molotov recipes, and advice on how to make bombs from ingredients sourced from your local co-op) and current and back copies of 'Spare Rib', hot and not hot from the press. Hairy, crew cut dungaree wearing women buy small brown paper bags of ounces of lentils and chickpeas, clad in khaki and they trudged (nobody walked in the seventies) back to their flats and made their soulmate soul food. She no doubt loved it. And good for them. I chose to go into that shop as they sold way out ingredients like turmeric, things I wanted. 

Radical poster expressions on display didn't bother me or I think anyone else.  We were young but grown up, things that weren't offensive weren't, those that were, were passed over. You weren't offensive, they weren't. We aren't.

You see then we had free speech. What was thought and said was up to you. It was your choice not mine.

And in the late 1970's everyone was angry - the youth had punk, poetry and the pistols, our parents had high interest rates, holidays in Benidorm, and heart attacks.  

Food was awful. Thatcher fucked the poor. The rich got richer, it rained on the rest of us.

I remember a cover of that magazine (not shown) of Spare Rib, which showed a cartoon of a young (man and woman) couple cuddling, it read:-

First it's sink into his arms,

Then it's arms into his sink.

No one  even lesbos would get away with that now.

I've not finished upsetting pc morals yet, and I don't care.

Never Trust a Hippy - The Young Ones. BBC TV

This is sage advice and I can recount various times when hippies have proved this to be correct. Thing is you want to believe in the hippy stood in font of you but in time they will always prove themselves flaky and untrustworthy. 

But

Lentils, vegetable only people and hippies have you are a superfood and those vegetableists are right. They are so good for you that we, humans that is, were designed to live on them. God tho didn't take into account that man would wander far and wide from were they grow, which was a bit of a design flaw for Cumbrians.. In fact if you can stomach a stew of lentils with chickpeas as in an Italian recipe I haven't yet made you'll outlive everyone as it is one of the best thing you can eat for your health and digestion.

Thing is and you know this is coming:-

For this recipe you need brown lentils, so go and buy some and say to the person in the supermarket:-

- Hi, I identify as him, or his. Tell me, do you have some lentils?
- Yes we do, what colour would you like?
-  about 18-0940 TPX on the Pantone register.

Sadly and this is coming, I don't think we'll be allowed to say 'brown' soon and indeed, anymore. 

- Word up! Carnivores, this is great, brown lentils, spuds, onions, garlic, carrot, harissa. Yes you can make lentil soup sans meat of course but with Chorizo it's much better.

I don't need to tell you how.