Paul McCartney: Linda and I both feel strongly about animal rights. In fact, if you play “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards you’ll hear a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup.
– Lisa the Vegetarian

The Simpsons | Season 7 - Episode 5

Before I get into Paul McCartney’s Really Ripping Lentil Soup, I just want to take a moment to discuss how weird Paul and Linda McCartney look on The Simpsons. Why did the animators decide to give them those bizarre colored eyes, as opposed to every other character who gets the standard black dot? I can’t be alone in thinking that the look is unsettling.

I’m not sure what wizardry is involved in playing “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards, so thanks people even nerdier than I am for taking the time to figure out what Paul McCartney was saying on this song! It was easy to find the Really Ripping Lentil Soup recipe online. In fact, many sites list both the recipe and Paul’s additional “oh and by the way, I’m alive” sentence, which is a callback to the whole Paul is dead rumors from 1966.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• 1/2 cup lentils
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp. freshly chopped parsley
• Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
• 2 1/4 cup vegetable stock or water

Directions

Note: While Sir Paul lists the ingredients for his lentil soup, he didn’t include any instructions – so these are my own.

Heat a large sauce pan with vegetable oil. Add garlic and onions with a dash of water, heat until translucent. Next, add celery and carrots and heat for another 5 minutes until soft, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add vegetable stock until ingredients are mixed; next add lentils and bay leaf. Bring soup to a boil, then immediately reduce heat, cover pan and let simmer for approximately 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf and add additional salt and pepper. Finally add parsley before serving.

I was a little skeptical about this recipe since it includes a whole onion, which is more onion than I usually like…but this soup was actually ripping! Since I used vegetable stock, this recipe is technically vegan and not just vegetarian. As someone who enjoys a breakfast that involves a bacon man that lives in a bacon house, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Rock stars. Is there anything they don’t know?

Cromulence: 9 Independent Thought Alarms out of 10

Paul McCartney’s Really Ripping Lentil Soup Recipe From: Lisa the Vegetarian (The Simpsons Season 7 – Episode 5)