So, Armin Meiwes, the German Cannibal likes his human meat sautéed with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg; on the side, Princess Croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce? However, as we all know, from Texas to the Bronx and places beyond that man tastes like pig roasted, toasted or fried...but, with nutmeg? What a freak! To think that they sentenced him to only 15 years: for such a gastronomic creation, they should have give him life. Nutmeg is too sweet of a spice and lacks the flavor of mace, no matter what country, no matter what race, but what can one expect from a sloth of a Goth? Meiwes, it is said, found the meat a little tough, what a boar! For three days, maybe four, he should have marinated it in French wine, and rendered a meal which even Michelin would have thought divine. Instead, like a Cretan, he left the rest uneaten; to be frozen…squirreled away for 15 years and a night where he can try again to get it right.
Anybody who has ever read the story of the making of John Huston’s “African Queen,” will remember that they were served “Long Pig” by the hunter they had contracted to bring them meat. Not until the authorities came to their camp and arrested their independent contractor for slaughtering their “Bearers,” did they have the slightest inkling that their sundry evening barbecues should have been sautéed with salt, pepper, garlic and mace; on the side, princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce, but never a stew.
Ah, what gauche cannibals we humans are!
Szia Budapestről,
Impefect Messenger
Igen. amerikai vagyok
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Traditional New York City Spaghetti and Meatballs: We gave it to the World
This is a Marinara Sauce that Vegetarians and other Pathagoreans can enjoy, simply by omitting anything to do with meat. You will have a perfect sauce you can eat in good conscience.
Some credit has to go to the Italian immigrants who, along with Hungarians, Slovenians, Czechs, Poles and other folk from Eastern and Southern Europe, began flooding into the cities of America in the late 1870's. Although the Italians did not introduce America to pasta, they did introduce America to eating the tomato.
There is a lot of irony, here. Most Americans believe that Marco Polo brought pasta from China to Europe, however, in G.B. Ramusio's edition of the "Navigationi e Viaggi," (c.1326), of M. Polo's sojourns, he quotes M. Polo, "Their wheat, indeed, does not render so much, but this they use only to make vermicelli and pastas...." The early introduction of pasta into the culinary culture of China is one reason credited for its early and sustained growth in population. That is, one could store wheat, indefinitely, for use during periods of famine. This was a lesson the Europeans would learn much later. The word "vermicelli" derives, of course, from the Latin "vermis," for worm. Vermicelli is thin spaghetti, and Polo's awareness of it is an acknowledgment by him of its existence in Italy. In fact, staples like vermicelli and spaghetti, made from wheat paste, entered Italy from Sicily during Roman times, and into Sicily from Carthage before the First Punic War (264-241 BC).
In America, we think of noodles and spaghetti coming from the Chinese, because the Chinese were in the U.S. in significant numbers before the Italian migration. The Chinese were imported to work on the Union Pacific, the western portion of the Transcontinental railroad (completed, in 1869) because they represented a cheap and easily replenishable source of labor. With them, came noodles and the first fastfood restaurants.
To the East, the counterparts to the Chinese were the Irish, who brought with them their staple food, the potato, Although, Germans, in small numbers ate the potato, the English thought of it as food for pigs. They would lose this attitude over the next 100 years, as the exigencies of feeding a large population during two wars in which they were cut off from their traditional continental food supply, made the nutritious and easily attainable potato very attractive.
The potato, coincidentally, is a cousin of the tomato and was also brought to Europe by the Spanish conquerors of pre-Columbian America. The tomato made its return trip to America with the Italians and other Club Med peoples in the late 19th Century. But, it was President Woodrow Wilson, who is credited with popularizing Spaghetti and tomato sauce by having it served as an entree at a State function during his presidency. Wilson may not have known much about European history, but, apparently, he knew which European foods tasted good.
All this gives old meaning to the expression: "What goes around comes around."
Cooked tomatoes produce an enzyme that protects men against prostatic inflammation and prostate cancer. It should be part of the general knowledge in the States, but if you have missed this piece of info, allow me to repeat it. By the way, the same does not apply to catsup. If you will allow me one morbid digression: The rule is, 50% of men over 50, have problems with their prostate gland. Of those, 50% get cancer. So, if their is a scientific evidence for consuming cooked tomato, every day, and, if you are a man approaching maturity, there is good reason to read the following recipe.
Spaghetti, with a Delicious Tomato-based Sauce, With, or Without Meatballs or Meat.:
These are the utensils and implements that you will need:
-One Italian Opera CD (Turandot and La Traviata are about the right length)
-A large 3-quart Iron Pot w/cover (failing that, Steel but never aluminum), for making the sauce.
-A large 9" in diameter Iron Frying Pan (failing that, Steel, but never aluminum) for browning the meatballs or the ground beef, if what you want is a meat sauce and not Meat Balls
-A large 3-quart pot (not aluminum) for boiling the water for the Spaghetti.
-A Long Wooden Spoon for stirring the sauce.
-A large metal spoon for placing the meatballs in the sauce.
It's going to be three hours from beginning to end (unless you want to stew your own tomatoes).
Ingredients:
-1 Small can of Tomato Paste
-1 Medium size can of Tomato Sauce
-1 Large can (1 and 1/2 lbs) of stewed Italian Tomatoes
-1 Cup of Beef Broth (Veggies omit this)
-1 pound or a pound and-a-half of Ground Sirloin or Round Steak (Veggies omit this)
-1 Cup of Dry Red Wine of your choice (If this is problematic, omit it). By the way, Hungarian Wines are always an excellent choice. If you are Italian, go Italian.
-1 Green Bell Pepper
-1 Large Onion for Sauce and One Small Onion for the Meat Balls (That's 2 Onions in all, Except for Veggies who will only need One). 'E Gads and Little Fishes, if you mess up with this, you will end up going Berserk, and Running Amok, later when it comes time to make the Meat Balls.
-4 or 5 Garlic Cloves. Smashed not diced for the Sauce (more is better), and 4 or 5 Cloves of Garlic for the Meat Balls, also, smashed not diced. Do you know how to smash Garlic? This is a heck of a time to be asking. Buy a wooden Mortar and Pestle. It used to be that the only places one could find them were in Puerto Rican Bodegas. Now, they sell them everywhere, even in Twin Pines, Montana, (pop. 176). That's called Cultural Diffusion.
- 8 to 10 pitted Olives (Slice them into two pieces)
-15 to 20 capers
-2 Tablespoons of vinegar
-1 Egg slightly beaten
-1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Spanish or Italian Olive Oil for sautéing Onions, Pepper and Garlic
-1/2 to 1 cup of Corn Oil for Browning the Meat Balls
-Freshly Ground Parmesan Cheese (for sprinkling)
Spices:
-1 1/2 Tablespoons of Oregano
-1 Tablespoon of Basil
- 1 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper (What? No Pepper Grinder? Buy one, but don't buy a new one. Here's a Secret. Beautiful old Antique Pepper Grinders sell in an Antique Shop for the same price as a new one. Probably that will change too, when the word gets out.)
-1 Bay Leaf
Okay, I think that we are ready. Start the Opera.
-Heat the large pot and add three or four Tablespoons of Olive Oil.
-Sauté, over a medium flame, the smashed Garlic, the sliced onions and the thinly sliced Green Pepper (slice them any way it pleases you to eat them).
-When the Onions are translucent, add the whole can of Tomato paste and stir for about five minutes. Then, add the tomato sauce and stir. Now, you can bring up the fire just a bit more.
-While you are heating the ingredients in the pot, open the canned (or ready your own precooked tomatoes). When the sauce is hot, again, pour in the tomatoes. Most canned tomatoes have a cooked Bay leaf inside the can with the tomatoes. Pick it out and throw it away. It has served its purpose, what ever that was..
-Add the vinegar.
-Bring up the heat. Add one cup of Beef Stock, or one cube of beef bouillon dissolved in one cup of heated water.
-Add the wine.
-Add two cups of water. The pot should be three quarters full with liquid and stuff.
-Add the Spices: Oregano, Basil, Salt and Pepper; don't forget the Bay Leaf.
-Stir and cook over a medium-high flame. Let it boil lightly, just remember to stir.
-With one eye on the stove, let's turn our attention to the Meat.
ALL YOU WANT IS A MEAT SAUCE?
Skip these three paragraphs if you are only interested in Meat Balls.
-Sauté the ground beef in a frying pan. Add a little chopped onion, salt and pepper to kill the smell of the beef. The burning beef smells. ( Well if Dr. Johnson were here, he would say that I used a Intransitive verb "smell" when I should have used a Transitive verb "Stink" as in, "I smell the meat, but the meat stinks."). There are some things we can never escape.
-When the beef is brown, separate the beef from the fat in the skillet. Add the beef to the tomato mixture and throw away the fat. Stir the boiling sauce (We can call it a sauce, now).
Lower the flame to medium, cover the pot, but leave a part of the lid off so as to allow the steam to escape. Check and stir every 20 to 30 minutes. When the sauce has been reduced to a thick mixture (2 1/2 hours), you are done.
-I hope that you have been tasting it. Don't worry how it tastes the first hour, that will change during the rest of the cooking time as the sauce thickens. If the sauce tastes too acidic at anytime, (usually the result of the Green Pepper), you can add One Teaspoon of Sugar. The Sugar doesn't make the sauce sweet, however, it neutralizes the acid. That is a well kept culinary secret. By now, you can tell that I am a really good person at heart.. N'est-ce pas?
-MEAT BALLS:
-Place your Ground Beef in a mixing bowl.
-Mince one small onion (Remember this Onion?) and toss into the bowl with the beef.
-Add one or two teaspoons of salt ( The amount depends on your taste and state of health)
-Add one teaspoon of Freshly Ground Black Pepper.
-Add the slightly Beaten Egg.
-Using both hands, thoroughly, blend the Egg, Onion and Spices into the Meat.
-When you are satisfied that you have made a harmonious mixture, wash your hands. Place the large frying pan on the stove. Set to a medium flame and add 1/2 cup of Corn Oil.
-ARE YOU STIRRING THE SAUCE? You know that I won't be there watching and telling you to do it. There should be a lot of liquid evaporating. If not, turn the flame up a little higher. No Extremes, Here!
-Press the meat between both hands making medium size balls, roll them around in your hands to make them as round as possible.
-Place the Meat Balls on a large floured serving plate or flat pan and roll the balls around until they are all covered lightly with flour. Do that to all the Meat. Finished?
-Place the Meat Balls into the Frying Pan, and brown, turning them around gently so as not to break them into pieces..
-ARE YOU CHECKING THE SAUCE?
-As each Meat Ball is browned all around, scoop it up with a large tablespoon and drop it (gently) into the sauce. When you are done with that and the sauce is bubbling, cover the pot, lower the flame, but not too low. Stir and adjust the flame according to how much sauce you have. Toward the end, if there is still too much liquid, i.e., the sauce is still too thin, uncover the pot and raise the flame and bring to a boil, stirring every few minutes.
When the Opera is over, the Sauce is done.
Boil water for the Pasta.
--Add to the boiling water a couple of Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Spanish or Italian Olive Oil. The Oil keeps the Pasta from sticking together. But remember, you have to stir the pasta constantly or some will stick and burn at the bottom of the pot. Use a long wooden spoon, if you haven't already figured that out, yet.
-It could be any Pasta. I recommend Spaghetti (in the U.S #9) or Vermicelli. Be careful, here, You cook Spaghetti #8 longer than Spaghetti #9, and Vermicelli you cook for only three or four minutes.
(When I show you how easy it is to be a Master Chinese Chef, I will teach you a trick you can do with Vermicelli. It is a closely guarded culinary secret. Don't you hate people who keep simple secrets. They, and not the Vermicelli are the worms.)
Serve:
-Light Green Salad, (Cucumber, Spinach, Kale and Romaine Lettuce with a Clove or Two of Smashed Garlic and a few Tablespoons (depending on the size of the salad), of Spanish or Italian Olive Oil).
-Ladle the Sauce onto your Pasta and sprinkle fresh ground Parmesan Cheese on top.
What? 'You want a Dessert? Hmmm, maybe the Peach Pie I made, yesterday, and is all gone, now, would be a perfect dessert. I'll send that along, this week.
When I was a kid, my mother who didn't like to cook, would invariably give me and my sister each $5 bucks to go to the Italian restaurant across the street. On other days, she would give us $3 bucks and tell us to go to the Chinese restaurant on the corner. After a while, I figured out that I could easily duplicate everything that I liked to order in the Italian restaurant. Sometimes the chef gave me a few hints, other times I just worked them out through trial and error: my sister being the reticent guinea pig.
Learning to cook Chinese was a lot more difficult. I didn't have the linguistic ability to communicate with the cooks. I was not culturally familiar with some of their spices and herbs and style of cooking. I knew that I could make rice better than any I have been served in any restaurant. But, to feel confident about my Chinese cooking required a long trip and circuitous journey and meeting some interesting people who made the process simple and interesting. The tale is the secret ingredient in my Chinese cooking.
Did you know that the word, "Oriental" comes from Latin. The "Orientis" was the first religious rite of the day. It was celebrated when the sun began to rise (in the East). If you wanted to orient someone who was lost in the woods, you would show them East and they should have been able to figure out the rest. For the Romans, exotic Greece was the Orient. The last rite of the day, when the sun set (that is cut in half):, was the "Occidens." So, it follows, then, for the Chinese, the United States is the Orient; for Americans, the Chinese are Occidental. You just can't make this stuff up-- not even, occidentally!
I consider anything that has been served in restaurants in America during my lifetime, Traditional American Food.
Amicalement,
From Paris
Some credit has to go to the Italian immigrants who, along with Hungarians, Slovenians, Czechs, Poles and other folk from Eastern and Southern Europe, began flooding into the cities of America in the late 1870's. Although the Italians did not introduce America to pasta, they did introduce America to eating the tomato.
There is a lot of irony, here. Most Americans believe that Marco Polo brought pasta from China to Europe, however, in G.B. Ramusio's edition of the "Navigationi e Viaggi," (c.1326), of M. Polo's sojourns, he quotes M. Polo, "Their wheat, indeed, does not render so much, but this they use only to make vermicelli and pastas...." The early introduction of pasta into the culinary culture of China is one reason credited for its early and sustained growth in population. That is, one could store wheat, indefinitely, for use during periods of famine. This was a lesson the Europeans would learn much later. The word "vermicelli" derives, of course, from the Latin "vermis," for worm. Vermicelli is thin spaghetti, and Polo's awareness of it is an acknowledgment by him of its existence in Italy. In fact, staples like vermicelli and spaghetti, made from wheat paste, entered Italy from Sicily during Roman times, and into Sicily from Carthage before the First Punic War (264-241 BC).
In America, we think of noodles and spaghetti coming from the Chinese, because the Chinese were in the U.S. in significant numbers before the Italian migration. The Chinese were imported to work on the Union Pacific, the western portion of the Transcontinental railroad (completed, in 1869) because they represented a cheap and easily replenishable source of labor. With them, came noodles and the first fastfood restaurants.
To the East, the counterparts to the Chinese were the Irish, who brought with them their staple food, the potato, Although, Germans, in small numbers ate the potato, the English thought of it as food for pigs. They would lose this attitude over the next 100 years, as the exigencies of feeding a large population during two wars in which they were cut off from their traditional continental food supply, made the nutritious and easily attainable potato very attractive.
The potato, coincidentally, is a cousin of the tomato and was also brought to Europe by the Spanish conquerors of pre-Columbian America. The tomato made its return trip to America with the Italians and other Club Med peoples in the late 19th Century. But, it was President Woodrow Wilson, who is credited with popularizing Spaghetti and tomato sauce by having it served as an entree at a State function during his presidency. Wilson may not have known much about European history, but, apparently, he knew which European foods tasted good.
All this gives old meaning to the expression: "What goes around comes around."
Cooked tomatoes produce an enzyme that protects men against prostatic inflammation and prostate cancer. It should be part of the general knowledge in the States, but if you have missed this piece of info, allow me to repeat it. By the way, the same does not apply to catsup. If you will allow me one morbid digression: The rule is, 50% of men over 50, have problems with their prostate gland. Of those, 50% get cancer. So, if their is a scientific evidence for consuming cooked tomato, every day, and, if you are a man approaching maturity, there is good reason to read the following recipe.
Spaghetti, with a Delicious Tomato-based Sauce, With, or Without Meatballs or Meat.:
These are the utensils and implements that you will need:
-One Italian Opera CD (Turandot and La Traviata are about the right length)
-A large 3-quart Iron Pot w/cover (failing that, Steel but never aluminum), for making the sauce.
-A large 9" in diameter Iron Frying Pan (failing that, Steel, but never aluminum) for browning the meatballs or the ground beef, if what you want is a meat sauce and not Meat Balls
-A large 3-quart pot (not aluminum) for boiling the water for the Spaghetti.
-A Long Wooden Spoon for stirring the sauce.
-A large metal spoon for placing the meatballs in the sauce.
It's going to be three hours from beginning to end (unless you want to stew your own tomatoes).
Ingredients:
-1 Small can of Tomato Paste
-1 Medium size can of Tomato Sauce
-1 Large can (1 and 1/2 lbs) of stewed Italian Tomatoes
-1 Cup of Beef Broth (Veggies omit this)
-1 pound or a pound and-a-half of Ground Sirloin or Round Steak (Veggies omit this)
-1 Cup of Dry Red Wine of your choice (If this is problematic, omit it). By the way, Hungarian Wines are always an excellent choice. If you are Italian, go Italian.
-1 Green Bell Pepper
-1 Large Onion for Sauce and One Small Onion for the Meat Balls (That's 2 Onions in all, Except for Veggies who will only need One). 'E Gads and Little Fishes, if you mess up with this, you will end up going Berserk, and Running Amok, later when it comes time to make the Meat Balls.
-4 or 5 Garlic Cloves. Smashed not diced for the Sauce (more is better), and 4 or 5 Cloves of Garlic for the Meat Balls, also, smashed not diced. Do you know how to smash Garlic? This is a heck of a time to be asking. Buy a wooden Mortar and Pestle. It used to be that the only places one could find them were in Puerto Rican Bodegas. Now, they sell them everywhere, even in Twin Pines, Montana, (pop. 176). That's called Cultural Diffusion.
- 8 to 10 pitted Olives (Slice them into two pieces)
-15 to 20 capers
-2 Tablespoons of vinegar
-1 Egg slightly beaten
-1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Spanish or Italian Olive Oil for sautéing Onions, Pepper and Garlic
-1/2 to 1 cup of Corn Oil for Browning the Meat Balls
-Freshly Ground Parmesan Cheese (for sprinkling)
Spices:
-1 1/2 Tablespoons of Oregano
-1 Tablespoon of Basil
- 1 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper (What? No Pepper Grinder? Buy one, but don't buy a new one. Here's a Secret. Beautiful old Antique Pepper Grinders sell in an Antique Shop for the same price as a new one. Probably that will change too, when the word gets out.)
-1 Bay Leaf
Okay, I think that we are ready. Start the Opera.
-Heat the large pot and add three or four Tablespoons of Olive Oil.
-Sauté, over a medium flame, the smashed Garlic, the sliced onions and the thinly sliced Green Pepper (slice them any way it pleases you to eat them).
-When the Onions are translucent, add the whole can of Tomato paste and stir for about five minutes. Then, add the tomato sauce and stir. Now, you can bring up the fire just a bit more.
-While you are heating the ingredients in the pot, open the canned (or ready your own precooked tomatoes). When the sauce is hot, again, pour in the tomatoes. Most canned tomatoes have a cooked Bay leaf inside the can with the tomatoes. Pick it out and throw it away. It has served its purpose, what ever that was..
-Add the vinegar.
-Bring up the heat. Add one cup of Beef Stock, or one cube of beef bouillon dissolved in one cup of heated water.
-Add the wine.
-Add two cups of water. The pot should be three quarters full with liquid and stuff.
-Add the Spices: Oregano, Basil, Salt and Pepper; don't forget the Bay Leaf.
-Stir and cook over a medium-high flame. Let it boil lightly, just remember to stir.
-With one eye on the stove, let's turn our attention to the Meat.
ALL YOU WANT IS A MEAT SAUCE?
Skip these three paragraphs if you are only interested in Meat Balls.
-Sauté the ground beef in a frying pan. Add a little chopped onion, salt and pepper to kill the smell of the beef. The burning beef smells. ( Well if Dr. Johnson were here, he would say that I used a Intransitive verb "smell" when I should have used a Transitive verb "Stink" as in, "I smell the meat, but the meat stinks."). There are some things we can never escape.
-When the beef is brown, separate the beef from the fat in the skillet. Add the beef to the tomato mixture and throw away the fat. Stir the boiling sauce (We can call it a sauce, now).
Lower the flame to medium, cover the pot, but leave a part of the lid off so as to allow the steam to escape. Check and stir every 20 to 30 minutes. When the sauce has been reduced to a thick mixture (2 1/2 hours), you are done.
-I hope that you have been tasting it. Don't worry how it tastes the first hour, that will change during the rest of the cooking time as the sauce thickens. If the sauce tastes too acidic at anytime, (usually the result of the Green Pepper), you can add One Teaspoon of Sugar. The Sugar doesn't make the sauce sweet, however, it neutralizes the acid. That is a well kept culinary secret. By now, you can tell that I am a really good person at heart.. N'est-ce pas?
-MEAT BALLS:
-Place your Ground Beef in a mixing bowl.
-Mince one small onion (Remember this Onion?) and toss into the bowl with the beef.
-Add one or two teaspoons of salt ( The amount depends on your taste and state of health)
-Add one teaspoon of Freshly Ground Black Pepper.
-Add the slightly Beaten Egg.
-Using both hands, thoroughly, blend the Egg, Onion and Spices into the Meat.
-When you are satisfied that you have made a harmonious mixture, wash your hands. Place the large frying pan on the stove. Set to a medium flame and add 1/2 cup of Corn Oil.
-ARE YOU STIRRING THE SAUCE? You know that I won't be there watching and telling you to do it. There should be a lot of liquid evaporating. If not, turn the flame up a little higher. No Extremes, Here!
-Press the meat between both hands making medium size balls, roll them around in your hands to make them as round as possible.
-Place the Meat Balls on a large floured serving plate or flat pan and roll the balls around until they are all covered lightly with flour. Do that to all the Meat. Finished?
-Place the Meat Balls into the Frying Pan, and brown, turning them around gently so as not to break them into pieces..
-ARE YOU CHECKING THE SAUCE?
-As each Meat Ball is browned all around, scoop it up with a large tablespoon and drop it (gently) into the sauce. When you are done with that and the sauce is bubbling, cover the pot, lower the flame, but not too low. Stir and adjust the flame according to how much sauce you have. Toward the end, if there is still too much liquid, i.e., the sauce is still too thin, uncover the pot and raise the flame and bring to a boil, stirring every few minutes.
When the Opera is over, the Sauce is done.
Boil water for the Pasta.
--Add to the boiling water a couple of Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Spanish or Italian Olive Oil. The Oil keeps the Pasta from sticking together. But remember, you have to stir the pasta constantly or some will stick and burn at the bottom of the pot. Use a long wooden spoon, if you haven't already figured that out, yet.
-It could be any Pasta. I recommend Spaghetti (in the U.S #9) or Vermicelli. Be careful, here, You cook Spaghetti #8 longer than Spaghetti #9, and Vermicelli you cook for only three or four minutes.
(When I show you how easy it is to be a Master Chinese Chef, I will teach you a trick you can do with Vermicelli. It is a closely guarded culinary secret. Don't you hate people who keep simple secrets. They, and not the Vermicelli are the worms.)
Serve:
-Light Green Salad, (Cucumber, Spinach, Kale and Romaine Lettuce with a Clove or Two of Smashed Garlic and a few Tablespoons (depending on the size of the salad), of Spanish or Italian Olive Oil).
-Ladle the Sauce onto your Pasta and sprinkle fresh ground Parmesan Cheese on top.
What? 'You want a Dessert? Hmmm, maybe the Peach Pie I made, yesterday, and is all gone, now, would be a perfect dessert. I'll send that along, this week.
When I was a kid, my mother who didn't like to cook, would invariably give me and my sister each $5 bucks to go to the Italian restaurant across the street. On other days, she would give us $3 bucks and tell us to go to the Chinese restaurant on the corner. After a while, I figured out that I could easily duplicate everything that I liked to order in the Italian restaurant. Sometimes the chef gave me a few hints, other times I just worked them out through trial and error: my sister being the reticent guinea pig.
Learning to cook Chinese was a lot more difficult. I didn't have the linguistic ability to communicate with the cooks. I was not culturally familiar with some of their spices and herbs and style of cooking. I knew that I could make rice better than any I have been served in any restaurant. But, to feel confident about my Chinese cooking required a long trip and circuitous journey and meeting some interesting people who made the process simple and interesting. The tale is the secret ingredient in my Chinese cooking.
Did you know that the word, "Oriental" comes from Latin. The "Orientis" was the first religious rite of the day. It was celebrated when the sun began to rise (in the East). If you wanted to orient someone who was lost in the woods, you would show them East and they should have been able to figure out the rest. For the Romans, exotic Greece was the Orient. The last rite of the day, when the sun set (that is cut in half):, was the "Occidens." So, it follows, then, for the Chinese, the United States is the Orient; for Americans, the Chinese are Occidental. You just can't make this stuff up-- not even, occidentally!
I consider anything that has been served in restaurants in America during my lifetime, Traditional American Food.
Amicalement,
From Paris
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Red Lentil Soup I Stole from Mario
I met Mario while he was working as a chef in a rustic Italian restaurant in upstate New York. He wasn't one of those chefs who had graduated from an elegant culinary school. Actually, I never asked him where he had learned to cook. He was Italian, so I assumed he had learned to cook in Italy.
The restaurant was in a dechristened church in a picture-postcard hamlet in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley region. What attracted me to it was that they made excellent pizza in a brick oven and they stocked several VSOP cognacs. I used to go there in the middle of the afternoon when business was slow. After a few visits, Mario and I began to enter into polite conversation. He would sit down and we'd talk about almost anything. Not unexpectedly, the conversations would always turn to food.
Mario was always trying to push his lentil soup on me. It was his specialty and he was proud of it. It was always on the menu, and people came there at lunch time just to have his soup. He would often offer it to me, too, but I would refuse. We almost made a game of it. I'm not an adventurer when it comes to eating Green Things. When I was a kid, I was forced to eat split pea soup. I hated it until one day out in California, somewhere outside of L.A., maybe it was San Bernardino or just a little bit north, I had split pea soup in a restaurant that had the name, fittingly enough, "Anderson's Split Pea Restaurant." I had the pot roast and the soup. It was great. I think that I may still have the recipe in my head, but I never had the incentive to try and make it.
Mario used to keep teasing me. Once, when I insisted that I didn't like green looking foods, he pointed out that it was made out of red lentils. I could tell, instantly, from his eyes that he hadn't wanted to tell me that. He knew, by now, that I was a recipe thief. Finally, I broke down and tried his soup. It was everything he had said it was, and then some. I began returning to the restaurant, more frequently, to have my regular Quatro Stagioni Margueritta pizza and his soup, all the time pestering him for the recipe.
"If I give you the recipe," he would say, "you'll never come back." I think that after the tenth or 15th attempt, at home, I had almost gotten it right, when one day, I walked into the usually empty restaurant and saw Mario sitting very quiet and contemplative at a corner table next to the kitchen. The restaurant was empty, which didn't seem unusual at the time, since I had become used to seeing it that way. I had convinced myself that the restaurant must do very well for dinner. He didn't even notice my coming in. "What's up Mario?" I asked, "I quit," he said.
Startled by the realization that one of my life's routines was abruptly coming to an end, I began to ask him all kinds of questions friends ask each other when there has been a sea change in one of their lives. "The owners, you know, are from the City; and they have decided to change the menu." Stil surprised, but curious to see how much the change would impact on my life, I asked, "How are they changing it?" Mario looked at me and spurted out the words I hate to the core. "Nouvelle Cuisine, and that eliminates me." He said unable to disguise his scorn. "It eliminates me, too," I said. "You know," continued Mario," that I don't cook that way."
Before I said my final farewell to my friend and the restaurant, we talked about the soup. Apparently, I had gotten real close. I had been a bit wrong about how to start it and the amount of cumin to use... but, I was getting there. One or two more tries, I would have gotten it.
"Do you know what nouvelle cuisine is?" He asked, rhetorically, adding."It's nothing more than expensive **** with a French name created by cynical entrepreneurs for the nouveaux riches." He paused for a minute to reflect, then, finished his thought, "That's just my personal opinion, of course."
Nouvelle for the Nouveaux:
Jeffrey goes to culinary school for four years. For the sake of argument it's in Poughkeepsie, One of the things he learns and remembers is that people prefer presentation to substance. Jeff, after four years, learns to be an interior decorator of porcelain plates. "Tres joli. N'est-pas?"
The last year in culinary school, Jeff begins going down to the City on Saturday's for French lessons. By the time he graduates, he not only knows how to make barely cooked pigeon breast in a butter and wine sauce, with a sprig of parsley and a slice of tomate (sic) for which he can charge $90, but he has metamorphosed himself into "Geoffrey." He had, originally, planned to go with "Roland." (He had heard, somewhere, that there had been a romantic character in French history with that name). However, he knew there were already too many "Rolands," working on Columbus Avenue, where, coincidentally, he got his first job, in a very small but trendy chic bistro, "Chez Book Y Worm," known to the trendees, as the "Worm."
Someone, early on, had suggested to the proprietor, that "Y" was the Spanish form of the conjunction for "and," and the proper form in French was "et." "Too late," said the proprietor, "anyway, the "Y' gives it a cute double 'entente' (However inscruitable), and who will ever know?' Good Point! I was about to ask him if he meant "entendre," but thought better of it.
The Worm has 8 small tables; a bar and walls lined with books-once-read purchased by the yard. Now, one step from the garbage bin, they are a chic substitute for wallpaper, lending the cave-sized eatery a much needed ambiance. What is missing in the patrons' skull can be conveniently borrowed from the decor. One can simply absorb knowledge through osmosis. Nice trick, n'est-e pas? .
The clientele are the variety that has more cash than class. Missing are born 'n bred Manhattanittes who would never be caught dead in one of these establishments that caters to 20-somethings from Deluth or its environs who make bushels of bucks in advertising or design.
She and He are sitting at a table with a lighted candle in a nook by the bar. They have already made the rounds of several Second Avenue bars before deciding to come over to Columbus to see what everybody else was doing. This week, they have decided to celebrate her raise from the women's garment company where she is employed as a blouse designer. The company has decided to go with her "BraBlouse" creation. It' a blouse. It's a Bra." Actually, it's a bra with a little material sewn around it, adding a little more cloth so as to make it "Barely legal," as she proudly states.
"It's Shocking," said the boss.
"It's Shocking," said her co-designers."
"But," said the boss, "It has that certain je ne sais quoi."
"But," said her co-designers, "It has that certain je ne sais quoi."
"It's the BraBlouse," said the boss, foregoing Her suggestion of "BraChem(ise)."
"It's the BraBlouse," said her co-designers foregoing her suggestion of ... Oh, well, you get the picture.
The BraBlouse brought her a raise in salary to nearly $100,000, almost the same as her beau who received a raise from his company, the American Generic Tobacco Company, where he is a copywriter. He was the one who came up with the new product idea, and AGT's new motto, for their Asian tobacco markets. "Tiny Cigs for Tiny Kids." Very catchy. She is from Cheyenne, but She tells everyone that She is from San Francisco where She went to design school. He is from Buffalo but tells everyone that he is actually from Rochester.
Their waiter is actually named Roland, but, because of the aforementioned reason, calls himself, Pierre. He wears tight black pants with a black silk shirt tucked in but open to the navel. Around his neck, he sports a thick gold chain on a hairless chest. When he makes broad arm movements, a tattoo of Eros about to shoot an arrow is exposed over his left nipple. Tonight, Pierre is recommending, of all things, "Breast of Dove, au Suisse," and, "from the wine cellar "(They have no wine cellar. They don't even have a cellar. The trendy cheese shop, next door has the cellar), intones Pierre, with the insouciance of someone who writes for wine magazines on the side, "we have a delicious '93 Chablis, imported to the States, just for the Worm." Did I mention that Pierre is from Brooklyn and has never drunk a Chablis. He wouldn't know what it tasted like. He prefers Rum and Coke with a twist of lemon.
She has the pigeon: He opts for the more manly, New York Sirloin, "Very rare, please."
Finally, "Would Madame like to try the house Mousse au Chocolat?" The only madams that Pierre had known before working on Columbus Ave. were madams, that he had met plying their trade in the same Eastside bars in which he had been employed. "Oh," says She, "Is that the same thing as the Moussy thing you have here, on the menu? "Oui, Madame," says Pierre. As tip time gets nearer, Pierre's French begins to blossom. "I'll pass on the pudding," says He. "May I recommend an aperitif?" inquires Pierre.
"What would you suggest, Pierre?" says She, uuulating her Rs. (Between Geoffrey's and Pierre's instruction, her French has gotten pretty good). "We have an excellent VSOP," says Pierre. "Oh," says She, "I was really thinking of having a cognac." Pierre can not stop his eyes from rolling. She settles, however, on Pierre's suggestion of a 25-year-old Extra Special Old Pale.
"None of that sweet girlie stuff for me," says He, "I'll have a double Remy on the rocks."
The bill, $525. Neither flinch, they fight to pay the bill. "Sweetie, I think that you paid last time," says She. "Okay, I guess you're right," says He, finally giving in.
So, what became of Mario? I don't know, but I have his recipe for Red Lentil Soup.
*********************************************************************
All the ingredients and utensils you'll need for Mario's Red Lentil Soup:
- 1 large cooking pot, with lid, capable of holding three quarts of water, (preferably iron, but absolutely not aluminum)
- 1 small frying pan, or skillet
- 1 wooden stirring spoon
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of Red Lentils
- 1 Red Bell Pepper
- 1 Carrot, thinly sliced, (My addition)
- 1 Onion
- Two or Three cloves of smashed Garlic (The more, the merrier)
- 1/2 Teaspoon of freshly ground Black Pepper
- 1 Teaspoon Cumin (It is the éminance grise behind the soup)
- 1 Teaspoon of salt (More or less according to taste and tasting)
- 1 Bay Leaf
- OPTIONAL, 1 minced Hot Pepper, only if you have a taste for things very spicy.
- 3 Teaspoons of Spanish Olive Oil (I Will find out if you use any other)
- Two-and-a-half Quarts of Water
La Préparation (Don't worry, it's spelled correctly in French) Yiiiiiii, this job is getting difficult.
Okay, let's make a deal. From now on, consider every word I spell as being correct even if you are sure that it's not. Continue (Spelt the same in English as in French, but here, please pronounce it with a French accent to humor me. Merci.).
-Wash the Red Lentils, thoroughly. Rinse them in cold water three or four times. Set aside.
-Slice and chop up the onions and Red Bell Pepper. Smash the Garlic
-Start boiling the water.
-In the skillet, sauté (faire sauter) the onions, Red Pepper, Sliced Carrots and Garlic in the (Spanish) Olive Oil.
-As the Onions begin to become translucent, add the Salt, Black Pepper and Cumin, and continue stirring on a low flame. When the Onions appear as if that they would start to burn, remove and set aside.
-When the water begins to boil, throw in the Red Lentils, and stir. Lower the flame and continue to stir. If you haven't washed off the excess starch, the water may start to froth. Too late, just lower the flame a little more and continue to stir. If the froth begins to become a nuisance, skim off some of it.
-Continue stirring the Red Lentils (approximately 20 to 30 minutes) until they pop (split) and they turn Green (actually a Yellowish Green; they will get Greener later).
-Then, throw in the stuff that you sautéed and put aside (Onions, Pepper , etc.) and STIR.
-Throw in the Bay Leaf and STIR-STIR, STIr, STir, Stir, stir, Lower the flame, Cover and Simmer over a low flame.
-Stir every 20 minutes, until the soup becomes thick and you've lost almost half of your water. (About Two-and-a-half hours). If the soup is still thin, uncover and bring to a low boil and stir as if you know that the bottom will burn if you don't.
On the side, you can have some fresh corn, (stripped off the cob) served in a small bowl.
Serve with sliced French or Italian bread (with a ripe Brie or Camembert, if that's your pleasure).
A fine Margaux would be perfect unless that's problematic, otherwise, a Coke with a slice of lemon would be my choice. Water is good, too.
Bon Appetit!
From Budapest
The restaurant was in a dechristened church in a picture-postcard hamlet in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley region. What attracted me to it was that they made excellent pizza in a brick oven and they stocked several VSOP cognacs. I used to go there in the middle of the afternoon when business was slow. After a few visits, Mario and I began to enter into polite conversation. He would sit down and we'd talk about almost anything. Not unexpectedly, the conversations would always turn to food.
Mario was always trying to push his lentil soup on me. It was his specialty and he was proud of it. It was always on the menu, and people came there at lunch time just to have his soup. He would often offer it to me, too, but I would refuse. We almost made a game of it. I'm not an adventurer when it comes to eating Green Things. When I was a kid, I was forced to eat split pea soup. I hated it until one day out in California, somewhere outside of L.A., maybe it was San Bernardino or just a little bit north, I had split pea soup in a restaurant that had the name, fittingly enough, "Anderson's Split Pea Restaurant." I had the pot roast and the soup. It was great. I think that I may still have the recipe in my head, but I never had the incentive to try and make it.
Mario used to keep teasing me. Once, when I insisted that I didn't like green looking foods, he pointed out that it was made out of red lentils. I could tell, instantly, from his eyes that he hadn't wanted to tell me that. He knew, by now, that I was a recipe thief. Finally, I broke down and tried his soup. It was everything he had said it was, and then some. I began returning to the restaurant, more frequently, to have my regular Quatro Stagioni Margueritta pizza and his soup, all the time pestering him for the recipe.
"If I give you the recipe," he would say, "you'll never come back." I think that after the tenth or 15th attempt, at home, I had almost gotten it right, when one day, I walked into the usually empty restaurant and saw Mario sitting very quiet and contemplative at a corner table next to the kitchen. The restaurant was empty, which didn't seem unusual at the time, since I had become used to seeing it that way. I had convinced myself that the restaurant must do very well for dinner. He didn't even notice my coming in. "What's up Mario?" I asked, "I quit," he said.
Startled by the realization that one of my life's routines was abruptly coming to an end, I began to ask him all kinds of questions friends ask each other when there has been a sea change in one of their lives. "The owners, you know, are from the City; and they have decided to change the menu." Stil surprised, but curious to see how much the change would impact on my life, I asked, "How are they changing it?" Mario looked at me and spurted out the words I hate to the core. "Nouvelle Cuisine, and that eliminates me." He said unable to disguise his scorn. "It eliminates me, too," I said. "You know," continued Mario," that I don't cook that way."
Before I said my final farewell to my friend and the restaurant, we talked about the soup. Apparently, I had gotten real close. I had been a bit wrong about how to start it and the amount of cumin to use... but, I was getting there. One or two more tries, I would have gotten it.
"Do you know what nouvelle cuisine is?" He asked, rhetorically, adding."It's nothing more than expensive **** with a French name created by cynical entrepreneurs for the nouveaux riches." He paused for a minute to reflect, then, finished his thought, "That's just my personal opinion, of course."
Nouvelle for the Nouveaux:
Jeffrey goes to culinary school for four years. For the sake of argument it's in Poughkeepsie, One of the things he learns and remembers is that people prefer presentation to substance. Jeff, after four years, learns to be an interior decorator of porcelain plates. "Tres joli. N'est-pas?"
The last year in culinary school, Jeff begins going down to the City on Saturday's for French lessons. By the time he graduates, he not only knows how to make barely cooked pigeon breast in a butter and wine sauce, with a sprig of parsley and a slice of tomate (sic) for which he can charge $90, but he has metamorphosed himself into "Geoffrey." He had, originally, planned to go with "Roland." (He had heard, somewhere, that there had been a romantic character in French history with that name). However, he knew there were already too many "Rolands," working on Columbus Avenue, where, coincidentally, he got his first job, in a very small but trendy chic bistro, "Chez Book Y Worm," known to the trendees, as the "Worm."
Someone, early on, had suggested to the proprietor, that "Y" was the Spanish form of the conjunction for "and," and the proper form in French was "et." "Too late," said the proprietor, "anyway, the "Y' gives it a cute double 'entente' (However inscruitable), and who will ever know?' Good Point! I was about to ask him if he meant "entendre," but thought better of it.
The Worm has 8 small tables; a bar and walls lined with books-once-read purchased by the yard. Now, one step from the garbage bin, they are a chic substitute for wallpaper, lending the cave-sized eatery a much needed ambiance. What is missing in the patrons' skull can be conveniently borrowed from the decor. One can simply absorb knowledge through osmosis. Nice trick, n'est-e pas? .
The clientele are the variety that has more cash than class. Missing are born 'n bred Manhattanittes who would never be caught dead in one of these establishments that caters to 20-somethings from Deluth or its environs who make bushels of bucks in advertising or design.
She and He are sitting at a table with a lighted candle in a nook by the bar. They have already made the rounds of several Second Avenue bars before deciding to come over to Columbus to see what everybody else was doing. This week, they have decided to celebrate her raise from the women's garment company where she is employed as a blouse designer. The company has decided to go with her "BraBlouse" creation. It' a blouse. It's a Bra." Actually, it's a bra with a little material sewn around it, adding a little more cloth so as to make it "Barely legal," as she proudly states.
"It's Shocking," said the boss.
"It's Shocking," said her co-designers."
"But," said the boss, "It has that certain je ne sais quoi."
"But," said her co-designers, "It has that certain je ne sais quoi."
"It's the BraBlouse," said the boss, foregoing Her suggestion of "BraChem(ise)."
"It's the BraBlouse," said her co-designers foregoing her suggestion of ... Oh, well, you get the picture.
The BraBlouse brought her a raise in salary to nearly $100,000, almost the same as her beau who received a raise from his company, the American Generic Tobacco Company, where he is a copywriter. He was the one who came up with the new product idea, and AGT's new motto, for their Asian tobacco markets. "Tiny Cigs for Tiny Kids." Very catchy. She is from Cheyenne, but She tells everyone that She is from San Francisco where She went to design school. He is from Buffalo but tells everyone that he is actually from Rochester.
Their waiter is actually named Roland, but, because of the aforementioned reason, calls himself, Pierre. He wears tight black pants with a black silk shirt tucked in but open to the navel. Around his neck, he sports a thick gold chain on a hairless chest. When he makes broad arm movements, a tattoo of Eros about to shoot an arrow is exposed over his left nipple. Tonight, Pierre is recommending, of all things, "Breast of Dove, au Suisse," and, "from the wine cellar "(They have no wine cellar. They don't even have a cellar. The trendy cheese shop, next door has the cellar), intones Pierre, with the insouciance of someone who writes for wine magazines on the side, "we have a delicious '93 Chablis, imported to the States, just for the Worm." Did I mention that Pierre is from Brooklyn and has never drunk a Chablis. He wouldn't know what it tasted like. He prefers Rum and Coke with a twist of lemon.
She has the pigeon: He opts for the more manly, New York Sirloin, "Very rare, please."
Finally, "Would Madame like to try the house Mousse au Chocolat?" The only madams that Pierre had known before working on Columbus Ave. were madams, that he had met plying their trade in the same Eastside bars in which he had been employed. "Oh," says She, "Is that the same thing as the Moussy thing you have here, on the menu? "Oui, Madame," says Pierre. As tip time gets nearer, Pierre's French begins to blossom. "I'll pass on the pudding," says He. "May I recommend an aperitif?" inquires Pierre.
"What would you suggest, Pierre?" says She, uuulating her Rs. (Between Geoffrey's and Pierre's instruction, her French has gotten pretty good). "We have an excellent VSOP," says Pierre. "Oh," says She, "I was really thinking of having a cognac." Pierre can not stop his eyes from rolling. She settles, however, on Pierre's suggestion of a 25-year-old Extra Special Old Pale.
"None of that sweet girlie stuff for me," says He, "I'll have a double Remy on the rocks."
The bill, $525. Neither flinch, they fight to pay the bill. "Sweetie, I think that you paid last time," says She. "Okay, I guess you're right," says He, finally giving in.
So, what became of Mario? I don't know, but I have his recipe for Red Lentil Soup.
*********************************************************************
All the ingredients and utensils you'll need for Mario's Red Lentil Soup:
- 1 large cooking pot, with lid, capable of holding three quarts of water, (preferably iron, but absolutely not aluminum)
- 1 small frying pan, or skillet
- 1 wooden stirring spoon
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of Red Lentils
- 1 Red Bell Pepper
- 1 Carrot, thinly sliced, (My addition)
- 1 Onion
- Two or Three cloves of smashed Garlic (The more, the merrier)
- 1/2 Teaspoon of freshly ground Black Pepper
- 1 Teaspoon Cumin (It is the éminance grise behind the soup)
- 1 Teaspoon of salt (More or less according to taste and tasting)
- 1 Bay Leaf
- OPTIONAL, 1 minced Hot Pepper, only if you have a taste for things very spicy.
- 3 Teaspoons of Spanish Olive Oil (I Will find out if you use any other)
- Two-and-a-half Quarts of Water
La Préparation (Don't worry, it's spelled correctly in French) Yiiiiiii, this job is getting difficult.
Okay, let's make a deal. From now on, consider every word I spell as being correct even if you are sure that it's not. Continue (Spelt the same in English as in French, but here, please pronounce it with a French accent to humor me. Merci.).
-Wash the Red Lentils, thoroughly. Rinse them in cold water three or four times. Set aside.
-Slice and chop up the onions and Red Bell Pepper. Smash the Garlic
-Start boiling the water.
-In the skillet, sauté (faire sauter) the onions, Red Pepper, Sliced Carrots and Garlic in the (Spanish) Olive Oil.
-As the Onions begin to become translucent, add the Salt, Black Pepper and Cumin, and continue stirring on a low flame. When the Onions appear as if that they would start to burn, remove and set aside.
-When the water begins to boil, throw in the Red Lentils, and stir. Lower the flame and continue to stir. If you haven't washed off the excess starch, the water may start to froth. Too late, just lower the flame a little more and continue to stir. If the froth begins to become a nuisance, skim off some of it.
-Continue stirring the Red Lentils (approximately 20 to 30 minutes) until they pop (split) and they turn Green (actually a Yellowish Green; they will get Greener later).
-Then, throw in the stuff that you sautéed and put aside (Onions, Pepper , etc.) and STIR.
-Throw in the Bay Leaf and STIR-STIR, STIr, STir, Stir, stir, Lower the flame, Cover and Simmer over a low flame.
-Stir every 20 minutes, until the soup becomes thick and you've lost almost half of your water. (About Two-and-a-half hours). If the soup is still thin, uncover and bring to a low boil and stir as if you know that the bottom will burn if you don't.
On the side, you can have some fresh corn, (stripped off the cob) served in a small bowl.
Serve with sliced French or Italian bread (with a ripe Brie or Camembert, if that's your pleasure).
A fine Margaux would be perfect unless that's problematic, otherwise, a Coke with a slice of lemon would be my choice. Water is good, too.
Bon Appetit!
From Budapest
The Perfect Marriage: Eggplant Parmigiana
An Excellent Vegetarian Entree for the Pythagorean and Like-Minded People
The Nightshade Family (Solanaceae) announces the Wedding of two of its members, distant cousins. The Bride, S. Lycopersicon Esculentum, who hails from South America, wears a Beautiful Red Wedding gown which was the reason why she was cultivated in European gardens-- not to be eaten-- but, for the color of her fruit. The fear was that, like her beautiful cousin, Belladonna (Atropa belladonna) whose roots and leaves yield Atropine, is a deadly poison. (However, very good for counteracting the effects of nerve gas poisoning). The effects of Belladonna were well known to Europeans during the middle ages. Cunning Folk, i.e. Witches, (The Early Internists) prescribed Atropine for gastric distress (spasms). On the other hand, Lucrezia Borgia, the Duchess of Ferrara and daughter of Rodrigo Lanzol y Borja (very proper Spanish Visigothic name) who became Pope Alexander VI, used it for its dilative action on the pupils of her eyes.
Lucrezia used to put drops of atropine onto her eyes to dilate the pupils in the belief that men thought that dilated pupils on a woman made them more beautiful, hence, the name Belladonna. You know, she was right. Recent studies have proven that hypothesis. When men were shown two seemingly identical photographs of the same woman, although, unbeknownst to them, the pupils of the woman in one of the photos had been clinically dilated, the men all chose the photo of the woman with her pupils dilated. The men in the study were not given enough time to examine the photos minutely. They all thought they were looking at the same photo. (If you need to prove this point, somewhere buried beneath tons of paper and books, I still have that study.)
The English call the Bride, Tomato; I prefer Tomate, from the Spanish/S.A. Indian, Nahuatl Tomatl. The French, also, call her Tomate.
The Groom, S. Solanum Melongena, hails from Southern Asia. The rotund and pompous groom, resplendent in his dark purple tux wears a green tie around his neck. The French call him Aubergine; the English, Guinea Squash. In America, he is called Eggplant.
One of the groom's closest cousins, S. Solanum Tuberosum, comes from the Americas. The Spanish call him Papa from the Taino (Puerto Rican Indian) Batata. The French call him Pomme de Terre (Ground Apple): the English, Potato (sorry, no "E" except in the plural). Although on very good terms with the rest of the family, S. Tuberosum was not invited to this wedding, neither were other cousins: Bell Pepper, Tobacco Sweet Potato, Petunia and especially not S. Datura Stramonium, known in America as Jimson Weed (She is too psychedelic).
The Wedding will be held in Parma, Italy, the home of the Bride's best friend and maid of honor, Parmi A. Giana. The Groom's best man will be the plump, ever saltless, Mozza Rella.
THE WEDDING
(Don't be afraid to go to the extreme. It will be a long ceremony)
"It is an Ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three,
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am the next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st thou hear the merry din?'"
The Bride and Groom: (Already invited)
-6 to 8 plump stewed or canned Italian tomatoes (a pound to a pound and a half)
-2 plump and firm Eggplants
The Guests:
-1 Green Italian Bell Pepper (Here (in Budapest), they are called Kalifornia Paprika, Go figure?)
-1 large onion
-2 tablespoons of Capers (at least)
-10 or more (lots) of Spanish pitted olives (Slice them up)
-I pound of Mozzarella (diced)
-5 to 6 ounces of grated parmesan (a lot)
-1 ˝ cups of a fine bodied Bordeaux (Stay away from Italian wine: too young too fruity. Anyway, while you are cooking, you should be tasting the French wine, while listening to Italian music: Puccini or Verdi are suggested as essential ingredients. I prefer a Margaux to a Médoc, but I eschew St. Emilion: for the same reason as the Italian...too sharp too fruity.
-1 to 2 cups of tomato sauce
-1 cup of water (you may very well have to add more, later)
-2 tablespoons Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil for cooking (Biased? You bet!)
-ALSO, 1 to 2 cups of olive oil for sautéing the eggplant (Very Important)
-2 tablespoons of Tarragon vinegar, or better, 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed Lemon Juice.
-3 or 4 cups of Bread Crumbs. (I make my own from stale bread with my blender)
-2 to 3 eggs
The Ring Bearers:
-A Minimum of at least 6 cloves of fresh Garlic (Absolutely no powdered garlic. It's all from China and it has more MSG in it than Garlic.)
-1 tablespoon of salt (Start with less, if you prefer, but keep tasting as you go. Add or subtract, depending on taste and blood pressure. If salt brings up the blood pressure, garlic will bring it down.)
The Flower Girls:
-2 tablespoons of oregano (Tastes great and breaks down gas)
-2 tablespoons of Basil or a lot more. Basil is purported to be an aphrodisiac. (I think it's true).
-1/2 teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper. (Take it easy with this one)
-1 Bay leaf
-Lots of dried Parsley. (We won't need it until we begin to bake)
The Vehicles For The Wedding Party:
-1 Cast Iron 4-quart Pot with cover (I think they are called Dutch Ovens. Don't ask me why).
-1 10" x 13" Baking Pan. I prefer Heavy Metal, but Pyrex, heat resistant enamel are all good.
-1 or two large skillets or cast iron frying pans
We are ready!
THE CEREMONY
Heat the pot for a few minutes over a moderate fire, add a few tablespoons of olive oil (Spanish). When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the Green Pepper which you have sliced longitudinally (like new moons) then cut those slices in half and throw into the pot. (Time to put on the opera). Slice and dice the Onion. Add to the pot. (Don't dice into too little pieces, you will want to recognize them as onion when you are finished. ) Smash, don't dice the Garlic. Add to the pot. Stir the Green Pepper, Onions and Garlic occasionally. Don't let the Onions burn. You have to keep and eye on the pot: stir, look, etc. until the Onions become almost translucent.
Meanwhile open the wine. Go ahead, take a Sip.
Open the can(s) of tomato sauce and the stewed tomatoes. Take another Sip.
Onions ready? Pour in the tomato sauce. Stir and wait until it gets hot. Stir, stir, stir...
Now it's time to add the tomatoes, Stir, and with a kitchen knife, cut up the tomatoes (not too small). Stir. Turn up the heat until it begins to bubble. Add the Wine, and take a Sip. Stir, stir, until it looks like it is getting hot. Then, add the Salt, Black Pepper, Oregano, Basil, Bay Leaf, Capers and Olives. Stir. Add the Tarragon Vinegar or Fresh Lemon Juice and a tablespoon or two of Spanish Olive Oil. Stir. Take a Sip. When it starts to boil, add the Water. The pot should be almost full. Stir. Wait until it starts to boil again, then lower the flame and bring to a slow boil for about 30 minutes stirring and Sipping. (Aren't you glad that you didn't pour all that fine wine into the pot?) At the end of 30 minutes, lower the flame (low but not the lowest) and cover.
Cook for three hour, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes. Have a Sip and prepare the Eggplant. Peel and slice the Eggplant longitudinally (about a quarter inch in thickness). Place all the slices in a large pot with a lot of salted water to take out the acid. The water will turn black. You can change the water two or three times. Let them soak that way for two hours.
Pour out a glass of the wine, check the bottle: congratulate yourself for having purchased two bottles, sit back and relax. Read your email.
When the opera is almost finished, you should be feeling pretty darn good... about your effort, of course. If it is a young wine, you can open the second bottle to breath. Re-cork it and place it in the bottom of the frig. (It breathed enough Oxygen.) Every once in a while uncork it and re-cork it. Room temperature in a castle is found somewhere on the bottom shelf of the door to your frig.
Prepare your bread crumbs. Okay, I know that in the States you can buy "unseasoned" bread crumbs in the Super Market. It's quite easy to manufacture your own. Your call. Lay off the wine for a while.
-Beat the eggs well.
-Sprinkle a lot of bread crumbs on a large platter.
-Drain the Eggplants.
-Heat up the Frying Pans. Pour in a half a cup of Spanish Olive Oil in each and bring the fire to a medium flame.
-One by one, dip the eggplant slices into the egg mixture and then place them on the bread crumbs. Cover both sides, then place in the Frying Pan(s). Watch them and the oil level carefully. The oil tends to disappear pretty quickly, and you will have to add more. Don't be afraid to turn them over as much as you like. The result should be golden brown slices of breaded Eggplant slices. Remove and place on paper towel to soak, before placing them on another plate. The whole process should take an hour. A cup of tea would be nice right about now. I prefer Coke with a slice of lemon.
-Turn the oven on and preheat to 345 degrees.
Aren't you happy it's Saturday or Sunday and you have nothing better to do?
-The sauce should be thick but not too thick Thin is no good.
-Pour three or four ladles full of sauce into the bottom of the Baking Pan. Lay the Eggplant slices over the sauce. Fill the bottom of the pan, then, pour more sauce over the top of the slices. Make a second layer and cover with sauce. You should have enough sauce and slices for three layers.
-When everything is in the pan and looks real pretty, start dotting the top with pieces of Mozzarella. I like to see a lot on top. Your call, once again.
-Then, sprinkle copious amounts of Parmesan cheese all over the top. Fill up the spaces between the Mozzarella pieces. It should look almost white.
-Almost ready... Sprinkle dry Parsley over the top. Make it look Christmasy (Sic). You can add some more Basil on the top, too. But, remember what I told you about Basil.
Kiss it, and place it in the oven for 45 minutes. Check it regularly. The cheese can be allowed to brown slightly, but it must never burn.
-Boil the water. Smash two or three cloves of Garlic. Cook the Spaghetti to the texture which you prefer, I like a little al dente. Drain, smother it in Pure Extra Virgin Italian or Spanish Olive Oil. Add the smashed Garlic, a little Fresh Ground Black Pepper and salt. Place in the serving dish. Take the second bottle of wine out of the frig and place it on the table (I'm assuming that there is none of the first bottle remaining).
-Times up (not the NYT), take the Beautiful looking, Mouth watering and Wonderful smelling Eggplant Parmigiana out of the Oven and serve.
--I didn't mention it before, because I often don't have a salad with this meal, because it's almost all vegetable, anyway. But a mixed green salad goes well with this meal: Romaine lettuce, Spinach and kale (Absolutely no tomato and no cucumber. There already is enough tomato in the entree and the combination of Eggplant and cucumber can produce a powerful effect on the GI tract which one would be wise to avoid.)
Szia,
From Budapest
The Nightshade Family (Solanaceae) announces the Wedding of two of its members, distant cousins. The Bride, S. Lycopersicon Esculentum, who hails from South America, wears a Beautiful Red Wedding gown which was the reason why she was cultivated in European gardens-- not to be eaten-- but, for the color of her fruit. The fear was that, like her beautiful cousin, Belladonna (Atropa belladonna) whose roots and leaves yield Atropine, is a deadly poison. (However, very good for counteracting the effects of nerve gas poisoning). The effects of Belladonna were well known to Europeans during the middle ages. Cunning Folk, i.e. Witches, (The Early Internists) prescribed Atropine for gastric distress (spasms). On the other hand, Lucrezia Borgia, the Duchess of Ferrara and daughter of Rodrigo Lanzol y Borja (very proper Spanish Visigothic name) who became Pope Alexander VI, used it for its dilative action on the pupils of her eyes.
Lucrezia used to put drops of atropine onto her eyes to dilate the pupils in the belief that men thought that dilated pupils on a woman made them more beautiful, hence, the name Belladonna. You know, she was right. Recent studies have proven that hypothesis. When men were shown two seemingly identical photographs of the same woman, although, unbeknownst to them, the pupils of the woman in one of the photos had been clinically dilated, the men all chose the photo of the woman with her pupils dilated. The men in the study were not given enough time to examine the photos minutely. They all thought they were looking at the same photo. (If you need to prove this point, somewhere buried beneath tons of paper and books, I still have that study.)
The English call the Bride, Tomato; I prefer Tomate, from the Spanish/S.A. Indian, Nahuatl Tomatl. The French, also, call her Tomate.
The Groom, S. Solanum Melongena, hails from Southern Asia. The rotund and pompous groom, resplendent in his dark purple tux wears a green tie around his neck. The French call him Aubergine; the English, Guinea Squash. In America, he is called Eggplant.
One of the groom's closest cousins, S. Solanum Tuberosum, comes from the Americas. The Spanish call him Papa from the Taino (Puerto Rican Indian) Batata. The French call him Pomme de Terre (Ground Apple): the English, Potato (sorry, no "E" except in the plural). Although on very good terms with the rest of the family, S. Tuberosum was not invited to this wedding, neither were other cousins: Bell Pepper, Tobacco Sweet Potato, Petunia and especially not S. Datura Stramonium, known in America as Jimson Weed (She is too psychedelic).
The Wedding will be held in Parma, Italy, the home of the Bride's best friend and maid of honor, Parmi A. Giana. The Groom's best man will be the plump, ever saltless, Mozza Rella.
THE WEDDING
(Don't be afraid to go to the extreme. It will be a long ceremony)
"It is an Ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three,
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am the next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st thou hear the merry din?'"
The Bride and Groom: (Already invited)
-6 to 8 plump stewed or canned Italian tomatoes (a pound to a pound and a half)
-2 plump and firm Eggplants
The Guests:
-1 Green Italian Bell Pepper (Here (in Budapest), they are called Kalifornia Paprika, Go figure?)
-1 large onion
-2 tablespoons of Capers (at least)
-10 or more (lots) of Spanish pitted olives (Slice them up)
-I pound of Mozzarella (diced)
-5 to 6 ounces of grated parmesan (a lot)
-1 ˝ cups of a fine bodied Bordeaux (Stay away from Italian wine: too young too fruity. Anyway, while you are cooking, you should be tasting the French wine, while listening to Italian music: Puccini or Verdi are suggested as essential ingredients. I prefer a Margaux to a Médoc, but I eschew St. Emilion: for the same reason as the Italian...too sharp too fruity.
-1 to 2 cups of tomato sauce
-1 cup of water (you may very well have to add more, later)
-2 tablespoons Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil for cooking (Biased? You bet!)
-ALSO, 1 to 2 cups of olive oil for sautéing the eggplant (Very Important)
-2 tablespoons of Tarragon vinegar, or better, 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed Lemon Juice.
-3 or 4 cups of Bread Crumbs. (I make my own from stale bread with my blender)
-2 to 3 eggs
The Ring Bearers:
-A Minimum of at least 6 cloves of fresh Garlic (Absolutely no powdered garlic. It's all from China and it has more MSG in it than Garlic.)
-1 tablespoon of salt (Start with less, if you prefer, but keep tasting as you go. Add or subtract, depending on taste and blood pressure. If salt brings up the blood pressure, garlic will bring it down.)
The Flower Girls:
-2 tablespoons of oregano (Tastes great and breaks down gas)
-2 tablespoons of Basil or a lot more. Basil is purported to be an aphrodisiac. (I think it's true).
-1/2 teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper. (Take it easy with this one)
-1 Bay leaf
-Lots of dried Parsley. (We won't need it until we begin to bake)
The Vehicles For The Wedding Party:
-1 Cast Iron 4-quart Pot with cover (I think they are called Dutch Ovens. Don't ask me why).
-1 10" x 13" Baking Pan. I prefer Heavy Metal, but Pyrex, heat resistant enamel are all good.
-1 or two large skillets or cast iron frying pans
We are ready!
THE CEREMONY
Heat the pot for a few minutes over a moderate fire, add a few tablespoons of olive oil (Spanish). When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the Green Pepper which you have sliced longitudinally (like new moons) then cut those slices in half and throw into the pot. (Time to put on the opera). Slice and dice the Onion. Add to the pot. (Don't dice into too little pieces, you will want to recognize them as onion when you are finished. ) Smash, don't dice the Garlic. Add to the pot. Stir the Green Pepper, Onions and Garlic occasionally. Don't let the Onions burn. You have to keep and eye on the pot: stir, look, etc. until the Onions become almost translucent.
Meanwhile open the wine. Go ahead, take a Sip.
Open the can(s) of tomato sauce and the stewed tomatoes. Take another Sip.
Onions ready? Pour in the tomato sauce. Stir and wait until it gets hot. Stir, stir, stir...
Now it's time to add the tomatoes, Stir, and with a kitchen knife, cut up the tomatoes (not too small). Stir. Turn up the heat until it begins to bubble. Add the Wine, and take a Sip. Stir, stir, until it looks like it is getting hot. Then, add the Salt, Black Pepper, Oregano, Basil, Bay Leaf, Capers and Olives. Stir. Add the Tarragon Vinegar or Fresh Lemon Juice and a tablespoon or two of Spanish Olive Oil. Stir. Take a Sip. When it starts to boil, add the Water. The pot should be almost full. Stir. Wait until it starts to boil again, then lower the flame and bring to a slow boil for about 30 minutes stirring and Sipping. (Aren't you glad that you didn't pour all that fine wine into the pot?) At the end of 30 minutes, lower the flame (low but not the lowest) and cover.
Cook for three hour, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes. Have a Sip and prepare the Eggplant. Peel and slice the Eggplant longitudinally (about a quarter inch in thickness). Place all the slices in a large pot with a lot of salted water to take out the acid. The water will turn black. You can change the water two or three times. Let them soak that way for two hours.
Pour out a glass of the wine, check the bottle: congratulate yourself for having purchased two bottles, sit back and relax. Read your email.
When the opera is almost finished, you should be feeling pretty darn good... about your effort, of course. If it is a young wine, you can open the second bottle to breath. Re-cork it and place it in the bottom of the frig. (It breathed enough Oxygen.) Every once in a while uncork it and re-cork it. Room temperature in a castle is found somewhere on the bottom shelf of the door to your frig.
Prepare your bread crumbs. Okay, I know that in the States you can buy "unseasoned" bread crumbs in the Super Market. It's quite easy to manufacture your own. Your call. Lay off the wine for a while.
-Beat the eggs well.
-Sprinkle a lot of bread crumbs on a large platter.
-Drain the Eggplants.
-Heat up the Frying Pans. Pour in a half a cup of Spanish Olive Oil in each and bring the fire to a medium flame.
-One by one, dip the eggplant slices into the egg mixture and then place them on the bread crumbs. Cover both sides, then place in the Frying Pan(s). Watch them and the oil level carefully. The oil tends to disappear pretty quickly, and you will have to add more. Don't be afraid to turn them over as much as you like. The result should be golden brown slices of breaded Eggplant slices. Remove and place on paper towel to soak, before placing them on another plate. The whole process should take an hour. A cup of tea would be nice right about now. I prefer Coke with a slice of lemon.
-Turn the oven on and preheat to 345 degrees.
Aren't you happy it's Saturday or Sunday and you have nothing better to do?
-The sauce should be thick but not too thick Thin is no good.
-Pour three or four ladles full of sauce into the bottom of the Baking Pan. Lay the Eggplant slices over the sauce. Fill the bottom of the pan, then, pour more sauce over the top of the slices. Make a second layer and cover with sauce. You should have enough sauce and slices for three layers.
-When everything is in the pan and looks real pretty, start dotting the top with pieces of Mozzarella. I like to see a lot on top. Your call, once again.
-Then, sprinkle copious amounts of Parmesan cheese all over the top. Fill up the spaces between the Mozzarella pieces. It should look almost white.
-Almost ready... Sprinkle dry Parsley over the top. Make it look Christmasy (Sic). You can add some more Basil on the top, too. But, remember what I told you about Basil.
Kiss it, and place it in the oven for 45 minutes. Check it regularly. The cheese can be allowed to brown slightly, but it must never burn.
-Boil the water. Smash two or three cloves of Garlic. Cook the Spaghetti to the texture which you prefer, I like a little al dente. Drain, smother it in Pure Extra Virgin Italian or Spanish Olive Oil. Add the smashed Garlic, a little Fresh Ground Black Pepper and salt. Place in the serving dish. Take the second bottle of wine out of the frig and place it on the table (I'm assuming that there is none of the first bottle remaining).
-Times up (not the NYT), take the Beautiful looking, Mouth watering and Wonderful smelling Eggplant Parmigiana out of the Oven and serve.
--I didn't mention it before, because I often don't have a salad with this meal, because it's almost all vegetable, anyway. But a mixed green salad goes well with this meal: Romaine lettuce, Spinach and kale (Absolutely no tomato and no cucumber. There already is enough tomato in the entree and the combination of Eggplant and cucumber can produce a powerful effect on the GI tract which one would be wise to avoid.)
Szia,
From Budapest
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