Recently, I discussed my ambivalence toward the noble egg. Allow me to happily inform you that the ambivalence has chosen a direction: a deep and abiding passion.
It began with brinner, or breakfast for dinner. I promised it to my husband for a recent date night. I made hashbrown casserole (which was imperfect but decent), and bacon (which normally wins the breakfast food crown as far as I'm concerned), and on a whim, a Julia Child egg dish, recommended as a cure for hangovers by Julie Powell. While we certainly weren't hungover, we were planning on drinking a bit(it was date night, after all). I had the makings of bloody marys for him, and some prosecco for me. We knew it was going to be a good night, but we did not know what would happen with the eggs.
Oh, the eggs. These eggs must be called by their French name, as egg sounds far too harsh. They must be called Oeufs en Cocotte (or Oeufs for short), a short, breathy, soft word. You think I'm being ridiculous? Maybe so, but I've discovered that the egg is in fact incredible and edible, and I'll take my joy in that however I please.
The eggs are very simple. Simpler even than scrambled eggs, especially scrambled eggs a la Rainy Kate, which require copious amounts of vegetables and a little cheese. You bring some water to a simmer in a big, oven-safe sauce pan. You put two ramekins in the saucepan, and pour some cream in the ramekins. Crack two eggs in each ramekins, then cover with a little more cream and dot with butter. Bake the whole thing in the oven until just set, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Entire time you are required to function: 10 minutes. But the pleasure...
The whites mix with the cream, and get a little gelatinous, or very firm, depending on how much you want them cooked. Most of the time, egg whites don't have a great deal of taste, but egg whites that are mostly cream and a little butter taste like, well, like cream and butter. And the yolks melt in your mouth, with that eggy flavor blended with the cream. Oeufs en Cocotte are like a tiny little bowl of heaven: decadent to eat, and worth the work. Only this slice of heaven is pretty easy to get, and doesn't require any real sacrifice on your part.
Eat oeufs, drink prosecco, and be happy.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
On Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol 1. Part 2
Sorry for the delayed update - what a week it has been, full of termites, graduations, more termites, exams and grades.
Last Friday (a week ago), John and I decided to have another French Meal, only we were going to use Julie Powell's suggestion of cooking liver, which is apparently a very sexy meal, and what relationship can't use a very sexy meal every now and again.
Powell describes liver as "the silky soul of steak" (220), but I should point out that Powell had her liver on her birthday, after seeing a great show, and not after coming home after a long day of grading and grocery shopping to a house covered in dead bugs.
When termites swarm, they go everywhere. When termites swarm, they seek water especially. When termites swarm, they die. They die everywhere. On your furniture, on your books, on your windows, on your carpet, on your clean dishes, on your dirty dishes, and especially in your sink. Fortunately, cleaning up the termites distracted us from the fact that we were only able to find very thinly sliced frozen calves liver at our local grocery store (we opted out of going to the Fresh Market because we weren't sure they'd have anything better meat wise, and the butcher was closed), which then had to thaw, which results in a pool of red juices appearing on the plate.
After the termites were clean and the liver thawed, and the spinach cleaned, blanched, chopped, cooked, and finally in the process of being braised (Make spinach the Julia Child way once - it is so damn good, but it is so much effort), we were lucky that the liver recipe was very simple. You brown it, coat it in a mustard sauce, cover it in bread crumbs and broil it very quickly.
Handling the thawed, overly juicy, very thin and very fragile liver was tricky until it was browned, and it was a little disgusting and disturbing. I thought about the chicken livers my mother and I love to fry up and eat, and realized that this liver was a whole different animal. I only let my thoughts linger on the function of the liver, and the potential diet of the calf it came from for a moment before deciding to focus instead on the wine I was drinking.
The liver was good. Very good. Not "silky soul of steak" good, although it might have been if we had the requested 1/2 inch thick slices rather than the thin pieces we did have. It might have been better if I wasn't so tired. If I had known what state my house would be in when I arrived home that night, I would have planned on something else. Lesson learned: always have a back-up plan.
The context in which food is eaten affects the food's taste so much. I've eaten offal before: I loved Haggis when I ate it in Scotland in high school. I've already mentioned my inherited love for chicken liver. I wasn't too put off by it, but the fanciness and richness of the preparation of this meal did not fit the mood. Sometimes food can set the mood, and sometimes the mood can ruin the food. Tonight, I'm making a MtAoFC recipe for eggs, but mostly as an addition to our brinner (breakfast for dinner) menu. It's not complicated, which is good, because I'm tired. Too often, I try to do to much, to be all things to too many people. The liver recipe should have been put off to a night when it would have been more thoroughly enjoyed, and last Friday should have been spent as this Monday was when the termites swarmed again: eating out rather than in. When I'm tired, food doesn't need to be work; it needs to be comfort. It doesn't need to be rich and complex; it needs to be simple and flexible. Food is the last thing that should cause us stress.
Last Friday (a week ago), John and I decided to have another French Meal, only we were going to use Julie Powell's suggestion of cooking liver, which is apparently a very sexy meal, and what relationship can't use a very sexy meal every now and again.
Powell describes liver as "the silky soul of steak" (220), but I should point out that Powell had her liver on her birthday, after seeing a great show, and not after coming home after a long day of grading and grocery shopping to a house covered in dead bugs.
When termites swarm, they go everywhere. When termites swarm, they seek water especially. When termites swarm, they die. They die everywhere. On your furniture, on your books, on your windows, on your carpet, on your clean dishes, on your dirty dishes, and especially in your sink. Fortunately, cleaning up the termites distracted us from the fact that we were only able to find very thinly sliced frozen calves liver at our local grocery store (we opted out of going to the Fresh Market because we weren't sure they'd have anything better meat wise, and the butcher was closed), which then had to thaw, which results in a pool of red juices appearing on the plate.
After the termites were clean and the liver thawed, and the spinach cleaned, blanched, chopped, cooked, and finally in the process of being braised (Make spinach the Julia Child way once - it is so damn good, but it is so much effort), we were lucky that the liver recipe was very simple. You brown it, coat it in a mustard sauce, cover it in bread crumbs and broil it very quickly.
Handling the thawed, overly juicy, very thin and very fragile liver was tricky until it was browned, and it was a little disgusting and disturbing. I thought about the chicken livers my mother and I love to fry up and eat, and realized that this liver was a whole different animal. I only let my thoughts linger on the function of the liver, and the potential diet of the calf it came from for a moment before deciding to focus instead on the wine I was drinking.
The liver was good. Very good. Not "silky soul of steak" good, although it might have been if we had the requested 1/2 inch thick slices rather than the thin pieces we did have. It might have been better if I wasn't so tired. If I had known what state my house would be in when I arrived home that night, I would have planned on something else. Lesson learned: always have a back-up plan.
The context in which food is eaten affects the food's taste so much. I've eaten offal before: I loved Haggis when I ate it in Scotland in high school. I've already mentioned my inherited love for chicken liver. I wasn't too put off by it, but the fanciness and richness of the preparation of this meal did not fit the mood. Sometimes food can set the mood, and sometimes the mood can ruin the food. Tonight, I'm making a MtAoFC recipe for eggs, but mostly as an addition to our brinner (breakfast for dinner) menu. It's not complicated, which is good, because I'm tired. Too often, I try to do to much, to be all things to too many people. The liver recipe should have been put off to a night when it would have been more thoroughly enjoyed, and last Friday should have been spent as this Monday was when the termites swarmed again: eating out rather than in. When I'm tired, food doesn't need to be work; it needs to be comfort. It doesn't need to be rich and complex; it needs to be simple and flexible. Food is the last thing that should cause us stress.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
On Illustrations
Visual aids for On Crawfish
Crawfish in the bucket, preparing to be cooked
Up close and personal
Ready for munching
Visual Aids for On Eggs:
Guess which is which.
My flowers. Chivalry is not dead; it just comes in a beer can.
Crawfish in the bucket, preparing to be cooked
Up close and personal
Ready for munching
Visual Aids for On Eggs:
Guess which is which.
My flowers. Chivalry is not dead; it just comes in a beer can.
On Eggs
Eggs have always seemed a bit gross to me. I never choose them at breakfast buffets, and I stopped eating them altogether the summer I worked for my dad and my mom made tough fried eggs every morning (the way my dad likes them). I remember in college watching John eat eggs over easy, dipping his toast in the runny yolk. It seemed so disgusting, like he was violating the egg. (He loves eggs).
I recently decided that I needed to start liking eggs, or at least tolerating them. There are a few reasons for this. First, eggs are, as one of my charming brothers put it, "cheap protein." In my memory, he grunted and flexed as he said this, but I'm certain that in reality he just gave me one of those looks my brothers give me frequently, the kind that seems to doubt that it could be possible that we're related. Second, learning to enjoy eggs is a kind of belated attempt to have more things in common with my husband. This is odd, because we have quite a bit in common. In fact, if he were taller and had longer hair, and if I were shy, we'd be pretty close to the same person. One of the few things that separates us is eggs.
One of the first snags I hit was that this search for egg enjoyment came up around the same time that I decided to improve the ethics of my eating. So what, I wandered, might be the best egg choice for me? The USDA website is not only fairly difficult to navigate, the guidelines for their labels are hard to find and are fairly vague. GreenerChoices.org, sponsored by Consumer reports, gives a decent explanation of what all the egg labels mean, and The Human Society, however biased a source it may be, has a good list as well. If you click through you'll notice one thing: Some of these labels are regulated, some aren't, and some are just plain unclear. And this is frustrating, because if everything we eat contains a moral and ethical choice on which might lie our nutrition, our health, and our souls, shouldn't we at least have clear, concise information about how to make that choice?
The answer is no. We must acknowledge the simple fact that most food is an industrial product, and like any other industry, money is a bottom line. This is why there are limits about how much non-meat product can be in our meat, and how "organic" something can really be. The decisions about how certain types of food can be labeled are made just as any other political decision is made: with lobbyists on one side, voters on one side, and economics on the hypotenuse. And that's okay, because most of us won't get sick because of the food supply, and most of us don't need a food pyramid to tell us how to eat, and most of us can puzzle through the million dietary requirements and know that our sandwich, or our omelet, is fine for us.
Of course, being a part of the group described above is a privilege. As is being part of a group that can actually afford to give a shit about how the food we eat was grown, and where it was grown. Part of our discussion about organics has to include the fact that the discussion necessarily excludes some people. The unlucky, the poor, the uninformed, those dwelling so deep in a city that the idea of green grass is positively foreign. We are not only what we eat; we are how we eat as well.
As a result of puzzling through this, I thought to all of the articles I'd read about being a locavore. First, of course, to eat within a 100 mile radius of your home, you have to give up some things: coffee, flour, sugar, olives, possibly even cheese and milk. There are, though, things to be gained.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes a place that I have been mildly obsessed with ever since reading the book, Polyface Farms. If you bothered to click through and read a little bit, you'll notice that the Salatins are wonderfully obsessive about the health, nature, and sustainability of their farm. They try to mimic nature as closely as possible:
"In nature, you'll always find birds following herbivores," Joel explained, when I asked him for the theory behind the Eggmobile. "The egret perched on the rhino's nose, the pheasants and turkeys trailing after the bison - that's a symbiotic relationship we're trying to imitate." In each case the birds dine on the insects that would otherwise bother the herbivore; they also pick insect larvae and parasites out of the animal's droppings, breaking the cycle of infestation and disease. (Pollan 211)
This may not be "organic" by USDA standards, but it is certainly more natural and more sustainable than a bunch of chickens shoved into tiny crates, or even the organic version of that, which Pollan also describes as he recounts his visit to Petaluma Poultry (the website makes no mention of eggs or laying hens):
Running the entire length of each shed was a grassy yard maybe fifteen feet wide, not nearly big enough [to] accommodate all twenty thousand birds inside should the group ever decide to take the air en masse. Which, truth be told, is the last thing the farm managers want to see happen, since these defenseless, crowded and genetically identical birds are exquisitely vulnerable to infection. This is one of the larger ironies of growing organic food in an industrial system: It is even more precarious than a conventional organic system. But the federal rules say an organic chicken should have "access to the outdoors,"... so Petaluma Poultry provides the doors and the yard and everyone keeps their fingers crossed. (Pollan 172)
Maybe it is a bit disgusting to think of our chickens running around, digging in poop, eating bugs, and squatting down on big, fat, brown eggs. Maybe we prefer the sanitary (although vulnerable) organic industrial system. (I can't imagine preferring the other system, where beaks are clipped, and molting is forced, and so forth). But, when you make a decision to care about your food, you have to face what the food industry is doing.
Now, this is not to say that our wallets can sustain this type of eating. We have to give ourselves permission to not be perfect eaters. Odds are good that I will purchase, prepare, and eat with gusto an industrial (even conventional) chicken again in my life. But that doesn't mean I can't care, or that I should ignore what I know.
Fortunately, there's an upside to what I know: things that are raised locally, things that are raised sustainably, are very, very tasty. This is not a lesson I had to learn in a book. All I had to do was think of fish from my parents' pond, or going further into my childhood, vegetables from my grandparents' garden, or vegetables that were shared from local farms, or shrimp bought off the boat on the coast. These things, simply prepared, were small feasts, with flavors unique to their place. This is not an original thought, but if we can acknowledge that a coffee bean from Indonesia tastes different than a coffee bean from Mexico, or that a wine from California has different flavors than one from Australia, why can't we acknowledge that a bell pepper from my backyard is going to taste differently than one grown, I don't know, Iowa? It does. It will. Necessarily.
So, in my egg adventure, I headed out to the Jackson Farmer's Market to see what there was to be had. And I found eggs from Journey End Farm. Excited, I shelled out $3.75 for a dozen eggs. The man I bought them from was older, and judging by his shirt and the bumper stickers on his truck, very, very conservative. But, upon hearing that this was my first time at the farmer's market, he gave me a huge bouquet of sweet peas, with a 32 ounce Miller Lite can, decapitated, of course, as a vase. I was thrilled. And hooked. Even if the eggs were crap, I'd fallen under the charms of this crusty old farmer.
The eggs were in a Styrofoam container, which I plan to take back and see if I can reuse, and labeled with the name and address of the farm. Check out your eggs at home. Can you even find the state where they were produced? If you clicked through above, you'll notice that it is only an article in an alumni newspaper, but that the farm invites customers to come and see for themselves the means of production. Call up Eggland's Best and see if they give you an open invitation. For that matter, see how quickly you can find a phone number for a major egg producer, even for a secretary. All I had to do was look at my eggs. This is comforting. If I wanted to, and I may want to, I could drop by, and watch the hens eat. This is accountability. As Pollan puts it, "just because food is local doesn't necessarily mean it will be organic or even sustainable. There's nothing to stop a local farmer from using chemicals or abusing animals - except the gaze or good word of his customers.... That said, there are good reasons to think a genuinely local agriculture will tend to be a more sustainable agriculture" (257-258).
I had read about farm-raised eggs in Pollan's book, too (what else is new?), but I was unsure that the testimonials could be entirely accurate. The eggs were allegedly rich and bright orange. The Journey End eggs lived up to the standard. John and I did a color test (the farm eggs against our organic, cage-free grocery store eggs), and the farm eggs were shockingly orange. Next to the other, the grocery store egg barely looked even yellow. It almost looked beige. In terms of taste, after scrambling, they were pretty similar, but the farm egg was richer, and smoother, and the yolk was thicker, and harder to beat. (I have pictures of all this, but there are some computer issues....) I can only imagine how the competition would have gone against conventional eggs.
As I was conducting this little experiment, I thought of the March/April issue of Cook's Illustrated which contains a recipe for yellow cake. Regarding yellow cake mix, the article states, "[b]eyond these additives [mono- and diglycerides], cake mix contains hydrogenated fats and artificial food coloring - the latter imparting a deep golden hue that hasn't been common in all-natural yellow cake since mass-produced eggs with uniformly pale yolks began dominating supermarket shelves decades ago" (22). Just let that sink in: Yeah, your cake mix may be delicious, but at what cost to you, and to the chicken. Break a real egg in there. Leave out the crap.
This has gotten rather long, so I'll close with three simple thoughts. One is from Giorgio Deluca (the website is... well, yeah), of Dean and Deluca fame, as quoted by David Kamp in The United States of Arugula:
"I wanted to show that somethings are better than others. Americans are taught just the opposite: 'Whatever makes you happy. You like Coca-Cola and this guy likes fine Burgundies? You can't say one is better than the other!' Can you imagine the absurdity of that? But that's the underlying philosophy that Americans are brainwashed into" (201).
Quality is important. Location is important. An egg is not just an egg. An egg is color, taste, richness, and the life of the hen all wrapped up into one. This is important. We must acknowledge that it is important. We've got to start placing quality in the value system by which we make food choices.
The second thought is from Pollan, of course, and is about his relationship with Joel Salatin, and Salatin's relationship with his customers:
If there was a dark side to Joel's vision... it was the deep antipathy to cities that has so often shadowed rural populism in this country.... For my own part, this taut little exchange made me appreciate what a deep gulf of culture and experience separates me from Joel - and yet at the same time, what a sturdy bridge caring about food can sometimes provide. (245)
The farmer who gave me the sweet peas would, judging by his "Democrats are stupid" bumper sticker, shit a brick if he knew where I stood on things like gay marriage, abortion, education, and war. But we both know that food is more than politics; it is nourishment, for our bodies, for our minds, for our souls, and honestly, for the earth. We would never see eye to eye, and we may hate each other but for a dozen eggs. The fact that I cared enough about eggs, which I could buy more conveniently and probably more cheaply at a fluorescently lit grocery store, to come to the farmer's market in downtown and get excited about pictures of happy chickens was enough to warrant a bouquet of flowers. Food creates connection. Connection creates a world that works.
Finally, let me leave you with my gustatory thoughts on eggs. Some images: New Year's Eve 2006, in a tiny Cambridge kitchen, a small, blond intellectual took 6 eggs into her hands and separated each yolk tenderly from the white, and helped my husband make rich, heavily alcoholic egg nog. A Mississippi kitchen, cluttered and messed, with a dirty pan on the stove. John's excitement when he realized I had made myself eggs for lunch. Two bright orange yolks, beaten, and poured over garlic, asparagus, spinach and mushrooms. These are the bright spots in my egg adventure. I'm still not up to eggs by themselves, but I suppose I will get there. In the mean time, I can think about the eggs as I cook them to distract myself.
I recently decided that I needed to start liking eggs, or at least tolerating them. There are a few reasons for this. First, eggs are, as one of my charming brothers put it, "cheap protein." In my memory, he grunted and flexed as he said this, but I'm certain that in reality he just gave me one of those looks my brothers give me frequently, the kind that seems to doubt that it could be possible that we're related. Second, learning to enjoy eggs is a kind of belated attempt to have more things in common with my husband. This is odd, because we have quite a bit in common. In fact, if he were taller and had longer hair, and if I were shy, we'd be pretty close to the same person. One of the few things that separates us is eggs.
One of the first snags I hit was that this search for egg enjoyment came up around the same time that I decided to improve the ethics of my eating. So what, I wandered, might be the best egg choice for me? The USDA website is not only fairly difficult to navigate, the guidelines for their labels are hard to find and are fairly vague. GreenerChoices.org, sponsored by Consumer reports, gives a decent explanation of what all the egg labels mean, and The Human Society, however biased a source it may be, has a good list as well. If you click through you'll notice one thing: Some of these labels are regulated, some aren't, and some are just plain unclear. And this is frustrating, because if everything we eat contains a moral and ethical choice on which might lie our nutrition, our health, and our souls, shouldn't we at least have clear, concise information about how to make that choice?
The answer is no. We must acknowledge the simple fact that most food is an industrial product, and like any other industry, money is a bottom line. This is why there are limits about how much non-meat product can be in our meat, and how "organic" something can really be. The decisions about how certain types of food can be labeled are made just as any other political decision is made: with lobbyists on one side, voters on one side, and economics on the hypotenuse. And that's okay, because most of us won't get sick because of the food supply, and most of us don't need a food pyramid to tell us how to eat, and most of us can puzzle through the million dietary requirements and know that our sandwich, or our omelet, is fine for us.
Of course, being a part of the group described above is a privilege. As is being part of a group that can actually afford to give a shit about how the food we eat was grown, and where it was grown. Part of our discussion about organics has to include the fact that the discussion necessarily excludes some people. The unlucky, the poor, the uninformed, those dwelling so deep in a city that the idea of green grass is positively foreign. We are not only what we eat; we are how we eat as well.
As a result of puzzling through this, I thought to all of the articles I'd read about being a locavore. First, of course, to eat within a 100 mile radius of your home, you have to give up some things: coffee, flour, sugar, olives, possibly even cheese and milk. There are, though, things to be gained.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes a place that I have been mildly obsessed with ever since reading the book, Polyface Farms. If you bothered to click through and read a little bit, you'll notice that the Salatins are wonderfully obsessive about the health, nature, and sustainability of their farm. They try to mimic nature as closely as possible:
"In nature, you'll always find birds following herbivores," Joel explained, when I asked him for the theory behind the Eggmobile. "The egret perched on the rhino's nose, the pheasants and turkeys trailing after the bison - that's a symbiotic relationship we're trying to imitate." In each case the birds dine on the insects that would otherwise bother the herbivore; they also pick insect larvae and parasites out of the animal's droppings, breaking the cycle of infestation and disease. (Pollan 211)
This may not be "organic" by USDA standards, but it is certainly more natural and more sustainable than a bunch of chickens shoved into tiny crates, or even the organic version of that, which Pollan also describes as he recounts his visit to Petaluma Poultry (the website makes no mention of eggs or laying hens):
Running the entire length of each shed was a grassy yard maybe fifteen feet wide, not nearly big enough [to] accommodate all twenty thousand birds inside should the group ever decide to take the air en masse. Which, truth be told, is the last thing the farm managers want to see happen, since these defenseless, crowded and genetically identical birds are exquisitely vulnerable to infection. This is one of the larger ironies of growing organic food in an industrial system: It is even more precarious than a conventional organic system. But the federal rules say an organic chicken should have "access to the outdoors,"... so Petaluma Poultry provides the doors and the yard and everyone keeps their fingers crossed. (Pollan 172)
Maybe it is a bit disgusting to think of our chickens running around, digging in poop, eating bugs, and squatting down on big, fat, brown eggs. Maybe we prefer the sanitary (although vulnerable) organic industrial system. (I can't imagine preferring the other system, where beaks are clipped, and molting is forced, and so forth). But, when you make a decision to care about your food, you have to face what the food industry is doing.
Now, this is not to say that our wallets can sustain this type of eating. We have to give ourselves permission to not be perfect eaters. Odds are good that I will purchase, prepare, and eat with gusto an industrial (even conventional) chicken again in my life. But that doesn't mean I can't care, or that I should ignore what I know.
Fortunately, there's an upside to what I know: things that are raised locally, things that are raised sustainably, are very, very tasty. This is not a lesson I had to learn in a book. All I had to do was think of fish from my parents' pond, or going further into my childhood, vegetables from my grandparents' garden, or vegetables that were shared from local farms, or shrimp bought off the boat on the coast. These things, simply prepared, were small feasts, with flavors unique to their place. This is not an original thought, but if we can acknowledge that a coffee bean from Indonesia tastes different than a coffee bean from Mexico, or that a wine from California has different flavors than one from Australia, why can't we acknowledge that a bell pepper from my backyard is going to taste differently than one grown, I don't know, Iowa? It does. It will. Necessarily.
So, in my egg adventure, I headed out to the Jackson Farmer's Market to see what there was to be had. And I found eggs from Journey End Farm. Excited, I shelled out $3.75 for a dozen eggs. The man I bought them from was older, and judging by his shirt and the bumper stickers on his truck, very, very conservative. But, upon hearing that this was my first time at the farmer's market, he gave me a huge bouquet of sweet peas, with a 32 ounce Miller Lite can, decapitated, of course, as a vase. I was thrilled. And hooked. Even if the eggs were crap, I'd fallen under the charms of this crusty old farmer.
The eggs were in a Styrofoam container, which I plan to take back and see if I can reuse, and labeled with the name and address of the farm. Check out your eggs at home. Can you even find the state where they were produced? If you clicked through above, you'll notice that it is only an article in an alumni newspaper, but that the farm invites customers to come and see for themselves the means of production. Call up Eggland's Best and see if they give you an open invitation. For that matter, see how quickly you can find a phone number for a major egg producer, even for a secretary. All I had to do was look at my eggs. This is comforting. If I wanted to, and I may want to, I could drop by, and watch the hens eat. This is accountability. As Pollan puts it, "just because food is local doesn't necessarily mean it will be organic or even sustainable. There's nothing to stop a local farmer from using chemicals or abusing animals - except the gaze or good word of his customers.... That said, there are good reasons to think a genuinely local agriculture will tend to be a more sustainable agriculture" (257-258).
I had read about farm-raised eggs in Pollan's book, too (what else is new?), but I was unsure that the testimonials could be entirely accurate. The eggs were allegedly rich and bright orange. The Journey End eggs lived up to the standard. John and I did a color test (the farm eggs against our organic, cage-free grocery store eggs), and the farm eggs were shockingly orange. Next to the other, the grocery store egg barely looked even yellow. It almost looked beige. In terms of taste, after scrambling, they were pretty similar, but the farm egg was richer, and smoother, and the yolk was thicker, and harder to beat. (I have pictures of all this, but there are some computer issues....) I can only imagine how the competition would have gone against conventional eggs.
As I was conducting this little experiment, I thought of the March/April issue of Cook's Illustrated which contains a recipe for yellow cake. Regarding yellow cake mix, the article states, "[b]eyond these additives [mono- and diglycerides], cake mix contains hydrogenated fats and artificial food coloring - the latter imparting a deep golden hue that hasn't been common in all-natural yellow cake since mass-produced eggs with uniformly pale yolks began dominating supermarket shelves decades ago" (22). Just let that sink in: Yeah, your cake mix may be delicious, but at what cost to you, and to the chicken. Break a real egg in there. Leave out the crap.
This has gotten rather long, so I'll close with three simple thoughts. One is from Giorgio Deluca (the website is... well, yeah), of Dean and Deluca fame, as quoted by David Kamp in The United States of Arugula:
"I wanted to show that somethings are better than others. Americans are taught just the opposite: 'Whatever makes you happy. You like Coca-Cola and this guy likes fine Burgundies? You can't say one is better than the other!' Can you imagine the absurdity of that? But that's the underlying philosophy that Americans are brainwashed into" (201).
Quality is important. Location is important. An egg is not just an egg. An egg is color, taste, richness, and the life of the hen all wrapped up into one. This is important. We must acknowledge that it is important. We've got to start placing quality in the value system by which we make food choices.
The second thought is from Pollan, of course, and is about his relationship with Joel Salatin, and Salatin's relationship with his customers:
If there was a dark side to Joel's vision... it was the deep antipathy to cities that has so often shadowed rural populism in this country.... For my own part, this taut little exchange made me appreciate what a deep gulf of culture and experience separates me from Joel - and yet at the same time, what a sturdy bridge caring about food can sometimes provide. (245)
The farmer who gave me the sweet peas would, judging by his "Democrats are stupid" bumper sticker, shit a brick if he knew where I stood on things like gay marriage, abortion, education, and war. But we both know that food is more than politics; it is nourishment, for our bodies, for our minds, for our souls, and honestly, for the earth. We would never see eye to eye, and we may hate each other but for a dozen eggs. The fact that I cared enough about eggs, which I could buy more conveniently and probably more cheaply at a fluorescently lit grocery store, to come to the farmer's market in downtown and get excited about pictures of happy chickens was enough to warrant a bouquet of flowers. Food creates connection. Connection creates a world that works.
Finally, let me leave you with my gustatory thoughts on eggs. Some images: New Year's Eve 2006, in a tiny Cambridge kitchen, a small, blond intellectual took 6 eggs into her hands and separated each yolk tenderly from the white, and helped my husband make rich, heavily alcoholic egg nog. A Mississippi kitchen, cluttered and messed, with a dirty pan on the stove. John's excitement when he realized I had made myself eggs for lunch. Two bright orange yolks, beaten, and poured over garlic, asparagus, spinach and mushrooms. These are the bright spots in my egg adventure. I'm still not up to eggs by themselves, but I suppose I will get there. In the mean time, I can think about the eggs as I cook them to distract myself.
On Potatoes (Follow-Up)
On her blog, A Mighty Appetite Kim O'Donnel discusses potatoes as a possible solution to global food problems. Very interesting.
On Potatoes
On Potatoes
Sunday, May 4, 2008
On Beans on Toast
As I have mentioned before, I spent some time in college "studying" in Britain. The cuisine, as many who have traveled to the UK can attest, is not always the greatest, but I think we overlook some of the simpler bits.
I was introduced to beans on toast when a girl on my dorm floor made it using the toaster she had hidden away in her room. I was intrigued, had a try, and was subsequently hooked.
The dish is really quite simple. This recipe unnecessarily complicates the whole thing. Toast, of course, is essential. My mother-in-law (bless her heart) lent me the CD set of Mark Kurlansky's compliation of food writing across the world/time, Choice Cuts. If I had the text copy, I would quote for you from the recent section on toast that I listened to while driving down the Natchez Trace. Suffice it to say that the point was that toast is actually quite hard to make well. In my opinion, humble though it may be, you simply have to learn the way that your toaster works. Also, while white bread may be the usual bread for toast, I prefer a nice soft whole wheat oatmeal.
One of the reasons I have such a bread preference has to do with my fear and loathing for high fructose corn syrup. While it is impossible to completely avoid if you want the occasional soda or hot dog bun, I figure I can do without the extra calories (some sources claim that HFCS provides the average American with most of his or her daily calories), and that I'd like to be able to taste subtle sweetness again. Also, the shit is in everything. Seriously. Check out the labels in your kitchen. I once picked up a can of kidney beans. Plain old kidney beans: no sauce, nothing. The first ingredient was water. The second ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. As you may know, the order in which ingredients are listed on food items depends on how much of one particular ingredient is present in the food. So, most foods will have water as the first ingredient, but one would expect kidney beans to have more beans than highly processed corn by-product sweetner. While I wish I was dedicated and patient enough to bake my own bread (I can do it, as anyone who has enjoyed my winter sourdough baking frenzy can attest), I find that, in a pinch, Pepperidge Farm and Sara Lee produce whole grain (yummy and healthy) breads that do not have HFCS in the ingredient list.
The toast should be lightly buttered, of course, and a small sprinkling of shredded mozzerella cheese on the toast to gently melt under the heat of the beans adds a small depth of flavor. I mean, let's face it, any comfort food is improved with a bit of cheese.
You can't choose just any can of beans, though. I suppose that you could purchase some dried navy beans and make your own beans, but that's a lot of work for something that's meant to be a home version of fast food. Pork and beans won't do either: you want the taste of the beans and the tomato sauce, not of hot dogs, and you want the firm texture of the beans, not the odd mushiness of the white globs of "pork" floating around in those cans. I prefer the Heinz beans in tomato sauce sold in Britain (and to my great surprise and pleasure, my local Fresh Market). A 1/2 cup serving of these beans only has 90 calories, and the ingredient list reads like this: Navy Beans, Tomatoes, Water, Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Salt, Modified Corn Starch, Distilled Vinegar, Spices.
Check that out. Beans as the first ingredient in a can of beans. Yes, the product still has sugar and glucose syrup, which is corn syrup or Karo syrup. This is less sweet that HFCS, which, as the name suggests, is not glucose but is fructose. But because the beans taste so good (what, you expect me to be a perfect healthy eater?), I will make an exception. You can also order these beans off of Amazon, should you not have a fantastic grocery store nearby.
Prep is simple: dump the beans into a small saucepan. Heat them carefully - boiling makes them icky. Spoon them over your buttered toast, and eat with a fork. Depending upon the size of the can, you can eat the whole can for a big meal like dinner, and not feel like a piggy.
What you do feel is happiness. This meal is simplicity. And ease. Last week, when John was away on business, I ate beans on toast for a few nights in a row, partially to ease the tummy back into real food after crawfish, but partially because when I eat them, I think of that brown, dank little dorm, and the teeny little room I made into a home, and the incredible changes in personality, goals, and body type I went through that spring. I think about the 5 apartments that have followed that dorm room, and how the only really consistent thing in my life since that time has been that I can always return to the foods that comfort me, whether I encountered them in childhood, overseas, or in an adventure with my husband. One day, my life will have more stabilty, and I bet that even then, when I'm stressed, tired or lonely, I return to foods like beans on toast to improve my outlook, and remind me that I've had a good life, and a brave life, and that I'm going to be okay.
I was introduced to beans on toast when a girl on my dorm floor made it using the toaster she had hidden away in her room. I was intrigued, had a try, and was subsequently hooked.
The dish is really quite simple. This recipe unnecessarily complicates the whole thing. Toast, of course, is essential. My mother-in-law (bless her heart) lent me the CD set of Mark Kurlansky's compliation of food writing across the world/time, Choice Cuts. If I had the text copy, I would quote for you from the recent section on toast that I listened to while driving down the Natchez Trace. Suffice it to say that the point was that toast is actually quite hard to make well. In my opinion, humble though it may be, you simply have to learn the way that your toaster works. Also, while white bread may be the usual bread for toast, I prefer a nice soft whole wheat oatmeal.
One of the reasons I have such a bread preference has to do with my fear and loathing for high fructose corn syrup. While it is impossible to completely avoid if you want the occasional soda or hot dog bun, I figure I can do without the extra calories (some sources claim that HFCS provides the average American with most of his or her daily calories), and that I'd like to be able to taste subtle sweetness again. Also, the shit is in everything. Seriously. Check out the labels in your kitchen. I once picked up a can of kidney beans. Plain old kidney beans: no sauce, nothing. The first ingredient was water. The second ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. As you may know, the order in which ingredients are listed on food items depends on how much of one particular ingredient is present in the food. So, most foods will have water as the first ingredient, but one would expect kidney beans to have more beans than highly processed corn by-product sweetner. While I wish I was dedicated and patient enough to bake my own bread (I can do it, as anyone who has enjoyed my winter sourdough baking frenzy can attest), I find that, in a pinch, Pepperidge Farm and Sara Lee produce whole grain (yummy and healthy) breads that do not have HFCS in the ingredient list.
The toast should be lightly buttered, of course, and a small sprinkling of shredded mozzerella cheese on the toast to gently melt under the heat of the beans adds a small depth of flavor. I mean, let's face it, any comfort food is improved with a bit of cheese.
You can't choose just any can of beans, though. I suppose that you could purchase some dried navy beans and make your own beans, but that's a lot of work for something that's meant to be a home version of fast food. Pork and beans won't do either: you want the taste of the beans and the tomato sauce, not of hot dogs, and you want the firm texture of the beans, not the odd mushiness of the white globs of "pork" floating around in those cans. I prefer the Heinz beans in tomato sauce sold in Britain (and to my great surprise and pleasure, my local Fresh Market). A 1/2 cup serving of these beans only has 90 calories, and the ingredient list reads like this: Navy Beans, Tomatoes, Water, Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Salt, Modified Corn Starch, Distilled Vinegar, Spices.
Check that out. Beans as the first ingredient in a can of beans. Yes, the product still has sugar and glucose syrup, which is corn syrup or Karo syrup. This is less sweet that HFCS, which, as the name suggests, is not glucose but is fructose. But because the beans taste so good (what, you expect me to be a perfect healthy eater?), I will make an exception. You can also order these beans off of Amazon, should you not have a fantastic grocery store nearby.
Prep is simple: dump the beans into a small saucepan. Heat them carefully - boiling makes them icky. Spoon them over your buttered toast, and eat with a fork. Depending upon the size of the can, you can eat the whole can for a big meal like dinner, and not feel like a piggy.
What you do feel is happiness. This meal is simplicity. And ease. Last week, when John was away on business, I ate beans on toast for a few nights in a row, partially to ease the tummy back into real food after crawfish, but partially because when I eat them, I think of that brown, dank little dorm, and the teeny little room I made into a home, and the incredible changes in personality, goals, and body type I went through that spring. I think about the 5 apartments that have followed that dorm room, and how the only really consistent thing in my life since that time has been that I can always return to the foods that comfort me, whether I encountered them in childhood, overseas, or in an adventure with my husband. One day, my life will have more stabilty, and I bet that even then, when I'm stressed, tired or lonely, I return to foods like beans on toast to improve my outlook, and remind me that I've had a good life, and a brave life, and that I'm going to be okay.
On Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 Part 1
One day, some months ago, I suggested to my husband that, as a project, I could cook my way through MtAoFC and blog about it. A few weeks later, I read an article about Julie Powell, who had already done so, to great acclaim and success. I was, of course, pissed at her, until I contribute to the fame and success in my own small way by buying her book. And reading it obsessively. Twice. In a week. It is very good. (I've linked to the Amazon page for it before, but just in case: Julie and Julia.
I was struck by how similar I am to Powell, or Powell is to me (aside from the rhyming last names): she is prone to hysteria and anxiety, is a massive potty mouth, and, at the time of the project, was struggling to find her way. I am, in an attempt at self-praise recommended by my therapist, more practical, patient, and sanitary than she (at least in comparison to the version of herself she puts forth in J&J). However, I am deeply grateful to Powell for two things: doing the project years before I had the idea or owned the book, therefore eliminating what would have assuredly been a great amount of stress and expense from my life; and for turning me back on to MtAoFC.
Powell says of the book that it "has the power of shock" (13). While she qualifies that by reminding us that "[s]elf-proclaimed foodies spare a smile of fond condescension [for MtAoFC] before returning to their Chez Panisse cookbooks" (14, at the time of its publication, Craig Claiborn raved about it in the Times, and, according to David Kamp's fantastic book, The United States of Arugula, it sold 100,000 copies and went through five editions in a year (88-90). It was the status book among foodies then, and to have mastered the skills therein was truly a mark of prestige (Kamp 91-92). In fact, the founder of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters (her info can be found at the Chez Panisse site), loved the book, and let it lead her to Elizabeth David and her book French Country Cooking (Kamp 136). (Under Jeremiah Tower, Chez Panisse went through its own decadent French period (Kamp 150-154)). Powell, upon rediscovering MtAoFC in her mother's kitchen, says of the now unfashionable and far too buttery book:
But reading MtAoFC - childishly simple and dauntingly complex, incantatory and comforting - I thought this was what prayer must feel like. Sustenance bound up with anticipation and want. Reading MtAoFC was like reading pornographic Bible verses. (15)
Needless to say, I was a little turned on.
I first bought MtAoFC for John during one of our summers apart while he worked at a law firm. He has made one recipe from the book, Boeuf a la mode, which is not beef with ice cream, but beef braised in read wine. For those of us lucky enough to be at the table the night he served it, the dish was succulent, and yes, a little sexy. However, after reading J&J, I started reading MtAoFC like one might read a novel, and decided that for our Friday date night, I would make some French food.
I started with aigo bouido (garlic soup) because, frankly, we love garlic. I followed the recipe strictly, although I did use one of the variations, the soupe a l'ail aux pommes de terre (saffron-flavored garlic soup with potatoes). I left out the saffron because we are on a budget. This soup is delicate and gentle, without the spice and spark of roasted, or sauteed garlic. It was also the only dish on the menu without butter in it.
For the next course (or the side dish) I made Concombres au beurre, using the variation, Concombres aux champignons et a la creme (creamed cucumbers with mushrooms). We never cook cucumbers in our house, but that will change. This dish takes a while, and involves many more steps than you ever thought you'd use with cucumbers, but oh. The taste is wonderful: sharp from vinegar, but with the warm roasted flavor of anything baked in the oven, and of course, the cream. You should make this dish.
For the last dish, I made Supremes de volaille a brun (chicken breasts sauteed in butter and with a brown butter sauce). The dish is so simple. The hardest parts are clarifying the butter and controlling the temperature of the butter for the sauce (I used a non-stick skillet and guessed at the color of the butter. When I tossed in the parsley, it foamed up something crazy). Despite simply being browned chicken breasts with parsley, this dish was beautiful: the gold crust of the chicken topped with the deep green of the parsley, and surrounded by the brown butter. And the taste was phenomenal. Lemony, and parsley-y and buttery, of course.
Despite the fact that we could barely move after eating, it was a great date. There's something about cooking elaborately for yourself and your lover. Food may be historical (as the barrage of links above indicate), but really, food is always about the moment in which it is eaten. I wasn't thinking of Julie Powell, or Julia Child, or Escoffier when I was eating: I was thinking of the subtly and variety of the flavors in my mouth, of the happiness on my husband's face, and of the quietness of the house. It is important to know where our food comes from, why we eat it, and how to prepare it well, but we can't let this knowledge stop us from cooking, eating, and enjoying. Occasionally, there will be a MtAoFC entry, and hopefully, they won't be all as dredged in history as this one is. I want to share what I know, but the most important thing is that many people have been moved by all the knowledge and people listed above to do one vital thing: cook and eat. Really, it's about pleasure. Pleasure that is brought by knowledge, by seeking more knowledge, by skill, and learning more skills, and ultimately, by a piece of chicken covered in butter and a cucumber covered in cream.
I was struck by how similar I am to Powell, or Powell is to me (aside from the rhyming last names): she is prone to hysteria and anxiety, is a massive potty mouth, and, at the time of the project, was struggling to find her way. I am, in an attempt at self-praise recommended by my therapist, more practical, patient, and sanitary than she (at least in comparison to the version of herself she puts forth in J&J). However, I am deeply grateful to Powell for two things: doing the project years before I had the idea or owned the book, therefore eliminating what would have assuredly been a great amount of stress and expense from my life; and for turning me back on to MtAoFC.
Powell says of the book that it "has the power of shock" (13). While she qualifies that by reminding us that "[s]elf-proclaimed foodies spare a smile of fond condescension [for MtAoFC] before returning to their Chez Panisse cookbooks" (14, at the time of its publication, Craig Claiborn raved about it in the Times, and, according to David Kamp's fantastic book, The United States of Arugula, it sold 100,000 copies and went through five editions in a year (88-90). It was the status book among foodies then, and to have mastered the skills therein was truly a mark of prestige (Kamp 91-92). In fact, the founder of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters (her info can be found at the Chez Panisse site), loved the book, and let it lead her to Elizabeth David and her book French Country Cooking (Kamp 136). (Under Jeremiah Tower, Chez Panisse went through its own decadent French period (Kamp 150-154)). Powell, upon rediscovering MtAoFC in her mother's kitchen, says of the now unfashionable and far too buttery book:
But reading MtAoFC - childishly simple and dauntingly complex, incantatory and comforting - I thought this was what prayer must feel like. Sustenance bound up with anticipation and want. Reading MtAoFC was like reading pornographic Bible verses. (15)
Needless to say, I was a little turned on.
I first bought MtAoFC for John during one of our summers apart while he worked at a law firm. He has made one recipe from the book, Boeuf a la mode, which is not beef with ice cream, but beef braised in read wine. For those of us lucky enough to be at the table the night he served it, the dish was succulent, and yes, a little sexy. However, after reading J&J, I started reading MtAoFC like one might read a novel, and decided that for our Friday date night, I would make some French food.
I started with aigo bouido (garlic soup) because, frankly, we love garlic. I followed the recipe strictly, although I did use one of the variations, the soupe a l'ail aux pommes de terre (saffron-flavored garlic soup with potatoes). I left out the saffron because we are on a budget. This soup is delicate and gentle, without the spice and spark of roasted, or sauteed garlic. It was also the only dish on the menu without butter in it.
For the next course (or the side dish) I made Concombres au beurre, using the variation, Concombres aux champignons et a la creme (creamed cucumbers with mushrooms). We never cook cucumbers in our house, but that will change. This dish takes a while, and involves many more steps than you ever thought you'd use with cucumbers, but oh. The taste is wonderful: sharp from vinegar, but with the warm roasted flavor of anything baked in the oven, and of course, the cream. You should make this dish.
For the last dish, I made Supremes de volaille a brun (chicken breasts sauteed in butter and with a brown butter sauce). The dish is so simple. The hardest parts are clarifying the butter and controlling the temperature of the butter for the sauce (I used a non-stick skillet and guessed at the color of the butter. When I tossed in the parsley, it foamed up something crazy). Despite simply being browned chicken breasts with parsley, this dish was beautiful: the gold crust of the chicken topped with the deep green of the parsley, and surrounded by the brown butter. And the taste was phenomenal. Lemony, and parsley-y and buttery, of course.
Despite the fact that we could barely move after eating, it was a great date. There's something about cooking elaborately for yourself and your lover. Food may be historical (as the barrage of links above indicate), but really, food is always about the moment in which it is eaten. I wasn't thinking of Julie Powell, or Julia Child, or Escoffier when I was eating: I was thinking of the subtly and variety of the flavors in my mouth, of the happiness on my husband's face, and of the quietness of the house. It is important to know where our food comes from, why we eat it, and how to prepare it well, but we can't let this knowledge stop us from cooking, eating, and enjoying. Occasionally, there will be a MtAoFC entry, and hopefully, they won't be all as dredged in history as this one is. I want to share what I know, but the most important thing is that many people have been moved by all the knowledge and people listed above to do one vital thing: cook and eat. Really, it's about pleasure. Pleasure that is brought by knowledge, by seeking more knowledge, by skill, and learning more skills, and ultimately, by a piece of chicken covered in butter and a cucumber covered in cream.
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