Our mom’s lentil soup set the mark for me and led me on a quest for pure, uncomplicated, single dish meals that have been hopelessly doomed to pale in comparison because as a lad I had already held the Holy Grail and no future experience could perform on such a spotless palate and shine so bright. Could it be the smoked ham hock that makes this dish sublime? More likely the bacon, right? The prodigious amount of green and black peppercorns? Really, it is all of the above, all at once. Not a lentil soup touches my mom’s. Mom’s Lentil Soup Recipe