Simple Cooking

Issue No. 93 Five Dollars Memories of My Mother The Seductions of My mother died in the summer of 2008, after a Good cooking does not depend on whether the dish is debilitating series of strokes. As anyone who has gone large or small, expensive or economical. If one has the art, through this sort of thing will know, it’s hard to shake then a piece of celery or salted cabbage can be made into a marvelous delicacy; whereas if one has not the art, not all away the images of those final days. For me, the most the greatest delicacies and rarities of land, sea or sky are of haunting of these was a moment at the nursing home any avail. — Yuan Mei (18th-century poet and epicure) when, looking over a sea of aged people, I realized that my eye had passed right by my mother and not hen I started work on my first cookbook back in the recognized her at all. She had a month or so yet to live, early eighties, I had already been cooking, after my but the animating qualities that made her a distinctive Wfashion, for over a decade, and I thought I knew a person had already fled. So, for her memorial service, thing or two. I don’t exactly dismiss this — youthful en- I produced a pamphlet of my memories, letting these thusiasm has its own virtues, and I feel a familial sense of come as they wished, without worrying about their fondness for the person who typed up the now yellowing significance — their purpose was to recapture and manuscript. On the other hand, I wouldn’t fool anybody hold fast to a sense of presence. Not a few of these by inserting some of its reams of unused material into related to food — if only tangentially — and since my this publication (the book was never finished, never pub- mother has not appeared much in these pages, I want lished). The voice in those pages no longer sounds like me. to share them, and her, with you now. For one thing, there is the persistently annoy- ing presence of a fellow who, having learned something, feels that you desperately need to know it, too. One such

d Salad d counsel — the reason why I’m writing about this at all fter we children grew up and went our separate — was to take note of the foodstuffs that you persist in ways, my father and mother began to organize buying, only to find later on, again and again, that they’ve Abreakfast and lunch to suit themselves. Lunch, spoiled or gone past their sell date. We should accept the especially, acquired a pretty invariable formula, featur- fact that we really don’t like these things, I opined, and ing a sandwich made from a Pepperidge Farm or Arnold deal firmly with whatever misguided sense of duty makes country-style loaf, meat (often turkey breast but also us buy them.* Virginia ham or roast beef) and low-calorie Swiss cheese, In the manuscript, the example I used was taken accompanied by a salad. * This may be true, but I didn’t then understand that my real prob- This last was not at all the usual handful of lem sprang from my on-again, off-again interest in eating things, shredded iceberg topped with a few slivers of tomato. The a problem with which I still contend. I decide I love something and salad was Mother’s chef-d’œuvre, and it easily took her buy a carload of the stuff. Then the light switches off, and it’s as half an hour to assemble it. Consequently, despite the if it were in someone else’s pantry. When the light comes on again (if ever it does), I find that the sell-by date expired three years ago. many times I watched her make it, I still find it hard to (Still tastes pretty good, though.) remember all its necessary parts. I can confidently start the list with romaine let- tuce, which served as the base. Onto this were cut slices of tomato, slivers of green pepper, little florets of broccoli and cauliflower, bits of red salad onion, and cucumber. There was a choice of commercial salad dressings—one a jazzed-up oil and vinegar concoction, the other something lusciously creamy with, say, poppy seeds or blue cheese. We’re still not through. If the dressing was the frosting on the cake, there remained the final touch— croutons and bacon-suggestive salad toppings to serve as the equivalent of sugar flowers and candy sprinkles. You might imagine all this covering an entire dinner plate, even a platter, but that wasn’t true. It was a labor of love, continued on page 6 from my own cooking life: the ritual purchase of celery. over fifty-odd years, my eyes refuse to pause when they There was always a withered half-used head of this in come to it in a menu). Still, one cannot love Chinese food the vegetable drawer, the stalks limp-wristed, the stem without noticing how they cook vegetables, and I was an unappetizing pinkish brown. Since I wasn’t then (nor surprised and delighted at how delicious celery became am I now) a compulsive nibbler of the crisp raw stalks, I when stir-fried in the Chinese manner. used it mostly as a flavoring addition to soups and stews As you will see when you turn the page, the — when I remembered I had some at hand. Chinese have their own variety of celery, which is much In fact, I considered celery a dubious legacy from closer to the wild kind than our own. However, according my parent’s generation, the vegetable equivalent of, say, to Martha Dahlen and Karen Phillipps in A Market Guide Perry Como or Doris Day. For them, celery salt was a gen- to Chinese Vegetables, the Cantonese choose what they teel replacement for garlic salt (or, God forbid, real garlic), call “foreign celery” far more often than the native variety, condensed cream of celery soup the stand-in when cream “presumably because of the former’s milder taste and of mushroom was a bit too … adventurous. more tender texture.” Even as a child, I’d found celery and sticks Furthermore, while we Occidentals think that on the appetizer tray to be a cheat on a par with getting Chinese food should somehow always manage to taste underpants for Christmas, and by the time I was twenty “Chinese,” indigenous cooks don’t worry about that. When I had had my lifetime fill of raw celery stuffed with “bleu” I started stir-frying celery myself, I was surprised that the cheese. And one of the worst culinary memories of my best recipe I found, Ken Hom’s, as given in The Taste of youth was the “chow mein” dinners my mother made from China, is strictly about celery taste. Here’s how I do it. cans of La Choy, which seemed to consist mostly of bean sprouts and limp, stringy lengths of celery. Those weird, Please take note crispy “chow mein” noodles weren’t consolation enough.* The 2010 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, issued by the In truth, the fortunes of celery — and here I’m Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org), rated talking strictly of the cooked vegetable — in anyone’s conventionally grown celery first in its list of the most kitchen rise and fall with the centrality of stewing. When pesticide-sprayed vegetables and fruits. Because of this, we try to buy only organic celery. (1) cheap meat was tough as leather, (2) frugality was a kitchen watchword, and (3) the household cook tended the stove all day, much of what the family ate was stewed, poached, braised. Nowadays, none of the above is true Stir-Fried Celery and pot vegetables have fallen out of fashion. The potato, [serves 4 as a side dish] of course, is infinitely adaptable; make a decent 1 large head celery, root end and any discolored tips vegetable side dish and a lovely soup; but when is the trimmed away, stalks separated and carefully washed last time you ate mashed or stewed chunks of 2 tablespoons peanut oil (see note) purple-top turnip? 1 heaping teaspoon kosher salt Well, okay, probably yesterday. But that wasn’t true of my younger self. He, I, wanted the luxuries of 2 or 3 garlic cloves, finely minced roasted or grilled meat, of fried, roasted, or grilled chicken. 1/2 cup chicken stock I wanted crispy-skin duck. I wanted barbecued pork. • Taking the stalks one at a time, snap them into 3-inch Mostly, I didn’t cook anything wetly unless it was some- pieces, pulling away and discarding the tough strings from thing flagrantly unique (think beef stew made with Scotch each. (Usually this task is only necessary when dealing whisky). I looked at celery and my mind went blank. And with tough outer stalks. The tender, paler, inner ones can things stayed that way for a long time. just be cut into pieces with a knife.) Now cut each of these lengthwise into 1/4-inch strips. • Put the oil into a wok or large skillet and heat over a me- dium flame. When the oil is hot, add the salt and minced garlic and cook, stirring, until the garlic is translucent. Add the celery pieces, turning them over in the pan so that they are coated with the oil. Fry them, again stirring at short intervals, until the celery is softened. If celery is to be had in stalk, chop up fine and throw in. No • Pour in the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and continue more delicate or healthy flavor can be added to any stew, cooking until the stock has evaporated into a light sauce soup, or broth than this exquisite vegetable. and the celery is tender. Serve at once. — Mary Perrin Goff, The Household of the Detroit Free Press (1881) * Cook’s Note. We prefer peanut oil when preparing Asian-style dishes. Of course, other oils may be used. hat changed my mind about celery was the discovery that it has another virtue besides the familiar two My pleasure in this dish awakened my interest W(its vibrant herbal taste and inimitable crunch). It in cooked celery, and I began looking at recipes for that can be transformed into a true delicacy when softened in vegetable with a fresh and curious eye. I slowly realized cooking oil or fat, so that the fibers in the stalk become that whenever eaters thought celery worthy of serious tender but not pulpy. At that point, you can stir in a tasty appreciation, the first step in preparing it was almost meat broth or other seasoned liquid, knowing it will coat always to soften it in butter or fat. This is spelled out by the vegetable with flavor rather than reducing it to mush. Mme. Saint-Ange in her marvelous manual on French While La Choy gave me a lifelong horror of chow cooking, La Bonne Cuisine (1927).* mein (while I’ve been eating in Chinese restaurants for * Meticulously translated into English by Paul Aratow and pub- * La Choy chow mein noodles! I haven’t thought of these for years lished by Ten Speed Press in 2005. If you have a sustained interest and years. I suppose they were based on actual deep-fried chow mein in French cooking, you owe it to yourself to get hold of a copy. You noodles, but they had evolved into something like nothing else on can find more of my thoughts on the book by reading my blurb on earth. Even when I was young I realized they fell into that unusual the first page. culinary category “simultaneously addictive and nasty.” You can’t stop nibbling them and you can’t stop thinking how awful they are. Their closest contender is French’s fried onions eaten from the can. page two No matter which recipe is used, celery must always be initially haven’t forgotten Mme. Saint-Ange’s observation that braised, using generous amounts of fat, because celery is “celery is greedy for fat just as spinach is greedy for but- greedy for fat just as spinach is greedy for butter. Iter” (although I should note that celery’s lust for butter In other words, it wasn’t that Western cooks hadn’t might well make spinach blush). However, it is true that discovered this technique; it was that I hadn’t, mostly I have yet to meet the poultry or animal fat — chicken, because I had always skipped past celery recipes. Other- duck, pork, beef, lamb — that celery fails to greet with wise, I might have noticed this recipe in Elizabeth David’s an equally fond embrace. In proof, I offer the following French Provincial Cooking, one of my first cookbooks. two recipes. Céleris Étuvés Au Beurre Torquato’s Penne with Leeks & Celery David notes that “this dish makes a splendid accompani- Adapted from Faith Willinger’s Red, White & Greens ment for pheasant and other game dishes, as well as for Willinger’s local source for this recipe uses rigatoni, which lamb, pork and fried or baked sausages.” in this instance is pork fatback rubbed with seasoning and [serves 4 as a side dish] cured. The result looks not unlike lardo (see SC•84), but with a larger proportion of meat to fat. Good luck finding either 1 large head celery, root end and any discolored tips in the USA. Pancetta is a more than acceptable substitute. I trimmed away, stalks separated and carefully washed also can’t help mentioning that Willinger commends the dish 4 tablespoons unsalted butter to “porco-vegetarians,” a phrase and a concept I’ve never 1 teaspoon olive oil • salt encountered before ... must be a rather controversial sect. 1/4 cup rich chicken or meat stock (optional) [serves 6] • Snap the larger stalks at the base and pull so that the 2 or 3 ounces pancetta, diced, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup, strings come away. Then cut them all into 1-inch pieces. or 2 tablespoons olive oil • Melt the butter in a large skillet, stir in the olive oil, and 1 large leek, root end trimmed, carefully washed and chopped add the celery pieces. Season with just a sprinkling of 6 celery stalks, washed and chopped salt, cover, and let the celery stew gently. Start testing for tenderness after 15 minutes. When the celery is tender 2 cups water plus plenty for cooking the pasta and succulent, stir in the stock if you have any at hand salt and black pepper (there’s really no point if it isn’t quite thick and rich), turn up the heat, and let the sauce reduce until it turns syrupy. 1 teaspoon fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme Here is another classic French recipe, this time 2 tablespoons chopped Italian from Southwest France, adapted from Paula Wolfert’s 16 ounces penne or other short pasta Mediterranean Grains and Greens. 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan • Sauté the pancetta in a 3-quart pot over moderate heat Celery and Scallions with Garlic, until it yields some fat. Add the leeks and celery and cook until the leeks barely begin to color. Add the 2 cups of water Butter, and Parmesan and simmer until the celery is tender, about 15 minutes. • Transfer a third of this to a food processor, purée, and [serves 4] mix it back in. Chop or crumble the thyme, adding it along 2 celery hearts, root end and any discolored tips trimmed with the parsley to the pot. Season with salt and pepper. away, stalks separated and carefully washed • Bring the pasta water to a rolling boil, salt generously, 12 to 16 scallions, trimmed of ragged tops pour in the penne, and boil rapidly for about three-quar- and carefully washed ters of the recommended cooking time. It will be softened but not at all cooked. Drain, reserving 2 cups of the pasta 4 tablespoons unsalted butter water. Add the pasta to the sauce, along with 1/2 cup of 1 garlic clove, finely minced • 1/2 cup chicken stock the reserved pasta water. 1/2 cup (about 11/2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan • Raise the heat under the sauce until it comes to a boil, salt and black pepper then cook for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring to keep the pasta from sticking. By the time the pasta is al dente, the sauce • Prepare the celery stalks as described in Elizabeth David’s should be thickened enough to cling to it. If the sauce recipe above. Cut the scallions in half from top to bottom. (It gets too thick, add more pasta water, a splash at a time, isn’t necessary to slice through every green end.) Then cut remembering that it must absorb the cheese and still each scallion into slivers approximately the same length remain moist. as the prepared celery. • Add the Parmesan and cook, stirring, for another minute, • Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Scatter until the cheese melds into the sauce. Serve at once. in the minced garlic and cook, stirring, until translucent. Add the celery and scallion pieces, stirring them gently to coat them with the butter and garlic. Lower the heat to A Simple Sauté of Chicken and Celery the smallest possible flame, cover the skillet, and, stirring now and then, cook until the celery is al dente — tender Adapted from Nigel Slater’s Tender: A Cook and but still with noticeable texture — about 15 to 20 minutes. his Vegetable Patch • Remove the lid, pour in the chicken stock, turn up the I was drawn to this recipe because it calls for white vermouth, flame, and heat until the stock is simmering. Sprinkle over the herbal notes of which struck me as a perfect foil for both the Parmesan, stirring well. Taste for seasoning, adding celery and chicken. So it proved to be. salt as necessary and plenty of black pepper. [serves 4] • Re-cover and turn the heat all the way down again. Leave 4 to 6 meaty chicken thighs the contents alone for 5 minutes, letting the cheese and stock combine into a sauce. Then stir well and serve (for salt and black pepper example) with roast chicken or beneath poached fish. 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided page three 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 garlic cloves, minced gardeners in the suburbs west of Boston.” 8 celery stalks, washed and trimmed George Lewis, Matt’s father, who grew up in that several parsley sprigs, minced area, he remembers those farms and the special regard that that celery engendered. They are now mostly memories, 1 /2 cup white vermouth • 1 teaspoon lemon juice but I did find a website put up by Dennis Busa, whose • Season the chicken thighs generously with salt and family farmed in Lexington for three generations. black pepper. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large skillet. When it has melted, pour in the olive oil, then add Celery grew particularly well due to the deep rich topsoil the chicken pieces, skin side down. Sauté until the skin in the low areas of the farm.... Known as “Boston Celery” it is lightly browned, about 5 minutes. was quite a bit different than today’s varieties. The Summer Pascal strain was taller, thinner, and sweeter than today’s • Push the chicken pieces to the sides of the pot and add California dark green giants. About two to three weeks before the minced garlic. Spread this around in the hot butter/oil/ harvest it was blanched either with long boards pressed close rendered chicken fat mixture, then put the chicken pieces to the sides of each row or tar paper held in place by wire over it, this time with the skin facing up. Cover the skillet, turn the heat down, and cook for 15 minutes. hoops. It was cut by hand and bunched in twos or threes, packed in ice, and sent off to the Fanueil Hall produce center • Meanwhile, prepare the celery. Snap off a small piece [by horse cart] or picked up by local stores and restaurants. from the root end of each stalk and pull down to remove as many of the strings as possible. Then cut the stalks into My youthful sneering at celery came not from a 1-inch lengths. At the 15-minute mark, add the celery to more sophisticated palate but a more ignorant one. I had the skillet, fitting it between the chicken pieces. Put the never tasted the celery my parents and grandparents ate cover back on and cook until the celery is tender and the before I came along. As supermarkets replaced local stores chicken, when pierced with a toothpick or such, releases and California produce could be had at far cheaper prices, clear juices, about 15 to 20 minutes. shoppers were increasingly reluctant to pay a premium • Meanwhile, put a large plate in a warm oven. When the for labor-intensive market-garden vegetables. If tomatoes chicken and celery are done, transfer them to the warm plate and return it to the oven. Now pour the vermouth couldn’t make the cut, there was certainly no hope for into the casserole and turn up the heat. When it starts to celery. Today it’s just another monocrop, identical every- bubble, use a heatproof spatula to scrape away and stir where, and we don’t even know what we’ve lost. ♦ in any sticky bits on the bottom of the pan. Let the ver- mouth reduce by about half, then whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and the chopped parsley, stirring in the lemon juice if you think the sauce needs sharpening. Then return the chicken and celery to the pan and gently toss in the sauce. Serve over rice. hile reading up on celery, I discovered that some people flat-out hate that vegetable, and in no Wuncertain terms. At a cooking website, one par- ticipant exclaimed, “Celery is vile and disgusting! It tastes like antifreeze smells. Even the thought of it absolutely turns my stomach.” At first I thought this was the result of an encounter A Note on with one of those impossibly bitter celery heads that annoy America eats its head celery religiously, and likes it. But us all. On reflection, though, I realized that these celery leaf celery, as seasoning, is almost unknown. Some books haters have a point. Karen Page and Andrew Dorneburg’s give directions for drying celery tops for use in soup. But no one tells the secret of reveling in the spiced pungency that The Flavor Bible quotes chef Daniel Humm as saying, fresh celery leaves give salads and cooked dishes. In the “Of all vegetables, celery has one of the strongest flavors.” Italian quarter of any American city that secret is open for To me, “strong” describes broccoli rabe, not celery, but all to read. In the tiny kitchen gardens, green plots literally this is merely a matter of degree. If I find cooked celery snatched from encroaching pavements, one finds beds of pleasantly assertive, I have always found raw celery a tad unbanked, leafing celery , ready for the knife of the too sharp: a few bites are great, but that pleasure fades cook. — Irma Goodrich Mazza, Herbs for the Kitchen too quickly for me to make it through an entire stalk. In elery comes from a wild that grows on the fact, if my main encounter with celery was having to eat Eurasian landmass in moist areas near the sea. it raw, I wouldn’t be writing about it at all. CThe plant, with its long, slender stalks and mass of However, now that I was writing about it — and, fragrant, bitter leaves, was first gathered as a medicinal more importantly, reading about it — I learned that the herb and then cultivated for the same purpose. Its trans- celery we get these days is far inferior in flavor and variety formation into the vegetable that we know, with its thick, to what was available from the 1800s right up to the time juicy stalks and modest head of leaves, is a much more I was born. Here is Thomas de Voe, writing on the subject recent development. in The Market Assistant in 1867: The herbs that we use for seasoning often evolved Celery. — There are several varieties of this excellent plant, of from traditional materia medica; the Greeks, for instance, which the white solid, red solid, and the white dwarf are now are much more likely to drink a tisane made of sage leaves generally preferred. The latter, I think, is the sweetest and to soothe an upset stomach than to rub it onto a pork tenderest in February and March. The season commences roast. But even when an herb has an explicit culinary about the middle of August, and as soon as the frost is found, purpose, that doesn’t mean its therapeutic reputation has celery becomes sweeter and better. It is found constantly in our markets afterwards, until about the 1st of April. been set aside. Wild celery still has a long list of reputed benefits and is a popular part of the traditional medicines Similarly, in Field and Garden Vegetables of of many cultures, all across Eurasia.* America (1865), Fearing Burr lists eighteen different variet- * This plant is also the source of celery seeds, which are equally ies, most of them white or red. And the first he mentions is important in traditional herbal treatments­. a white variety called Boston-Market Celery (“hardy, crisp, succulent, and mild-flavored”), “much grown by market- page four Domesticated wild celery — be it Chinese kun 2 anchovy fillets • 1 cup fresh bread crumbs choi, Greek sedano, or British smallage — springs from 1 cup meat stock or lightly salted milk the same source, and they are all very similar: leggy, 3 egg yolks, lightly beaten leafy, and fragrant. Tom Stobart, in his Herbs, Spices 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional) and Flavorings, writes that the wild herb is exceedingly bitter if eaten raw, a trait that has been lessened in the • Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and parboil the cultivated herbal varieties. (The ones I’ve sampled didn’t celery for 5 minutes. Drain. Trim off the leaves and discard the stems. Chop the leaves small. Rinse the anchovy fillets seem much sharper than parsley.) in cold water, pat dry, and chop them fine. Melt the butter American gardeners generally know it as leaf or in a saucepan, add the chopped leaves, season lightly with cutting celery, and those who grow it welcome its “cut- salt and black pepper, and stir in the prepared anchovies. and-come-again” abundance, always ready to add a spritz Cover and simmer for 10 minutes over low heat. of flavor to a soup or stew or (most notably) to a bouquet • Meanwhile, add the bread crumbs to the stock or milk garni, where it provides a celery flavor presence with a and bring to a boil. Drain the crumbs, reserving the liquid. more complex herbal edge. But leaf celery, with its potent Stir the crumbs into the celery mixture and add enough of flavor and aroma, can also be treated as a vegetable, to add the cooking liquid to make a creamy sauce. Simmer a few minutes more to blend and thicken. Stir a few spoonfuls a unique savor to, say, a pork or fish stew which would of the sauce into the beaten egg yolks and — off the heat otherwise teeter on the edge of bland. Look for leaf celery — stir the egg yolk mixture into the contents of the pan. at your local farmer’s market or at an Asian grocery — where it is sometimes helpfully labeled “Chinese celery” • Return the pan to the heat just until the contents are hot. Serve at once. Or you can turn this into a buttered or else some orthographic variant of kun choi. gratin dish, sprinkle with the optional grated cheese, and put into a preheated 400°F oven or under a broiler until * Leaf Celery Cooking Note. Use your common sense the cheese is lightly browned. when preparing leaf celery. I’ve found the sort sold in Asian markets to be tender enough to use directly in a stir-fry, but the locally grown variety so tough that I could barely bite through a raw stem. If yours is like that, parboil it in Fish and Leaf Celery with Egg lots of salted boiling water until the thickest stems have softened, about 4 or 5 minutes. Drain well and proceed. and Lemon Sauce [serves 4 to 6] Udon Noodles with Pork & Leaf Celery 1 bunch leaf celery, trimmed, stalks separated, and washed Adapted from Anita Loh-Yien Lau’s Asian Greens 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium onion, cut into bite-size pieces [serves 4] 1 bay leaf, broken into a few pieces 1 bunch leaf celery, trimmed, stalks separated, and washed 1/4 cup dry white wine or white vermouth 1 pound ground pork • 3 tablespoons soy sauce kosher salt and black pepper 1 heaping tablespoon grated ginger 2 pounds white fish fillets, such as haddock or cod 1 tablespoon peanut (or other vegetable) oil 1 large egg • juice of 1 lemon 1 tablespoon oyster sauce • Taste a stalk of the raw leaf celery for toughness, par- 1 teaspoon cornstarch • 1 tablespoon cold water boiling it if necessary (see note above). Cut the stalks into Japanese udon noodles, prepared as their package directs 2-inch lengths and coarsely chop the leaves. • Taste a stalk of the raw leaf celery for toughness, par- • Heat the olive oil in a skillet with a cover. When it is boiling it if necessary (see note above). Cut the stalks into hot, stir in the celery stalks and cook these until they are 2-inch lengths and coarsely chop the leaves. slightly tender. Then scatter in the chopped celery leaves, onion, and pieces of bay. Stirring occasionally, continue • Combine the pork, soy sauce, and grated ginger. Mix well cooking until the onion is translucent and the celery leaves and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes. thoroughly wilted. • Heat the oil over a high heat in a wok or skillet. Add • Pour in the white wine and 2 cups of water, then stir in the pork mixture and stir-fry until browned, about 2 or 3 a scant teaspoon of salt. Bring the liquid to a boil, cover, minutes. Scoop the pork into a bowl with a slotted spoon. and simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly salt and • Put the chopped leaf celery into the hot oil and stir-fry pepper the fish fillets. until it has softened slightly, about 1 or 2 minutes. Then • Uncover the skillet and remove and discard the pieces return the pork to the wok. Add the oyster sauce and stir of bay leaf. Gently slip in the fish, laying it on top of the quickly until combined thoroughly. stewing vegetables. Re-cover the skillet, return the liquid • Dissolve the cornstarch in the water, then stir it into the to a simmer, and poach the fish until it flakes, about 8 to wok. Simmer the contents until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. 1 or 2 minutes. Serve immediately over the noodles. • Meanwhile, break the egg into a mixing bowl and whisk it until the yolk and white are completely blended. Then beat in the lemon juice. Preheat a platter by heating it in the microwave for 1 minute or by putting it under running Leaf Celery à la Ménagère hot water (drying it afterwards). The original of this recipe appears in Charles Durand’s Le Cuisiner Durand (1830). This version was adapted from the • When the fish is cooked, carefully transfer it to the platter, translation in The Good Cook: Vegetables turning off the heat under the skillet at the same time. Beat a little of the cooking broth into the egg-lemon mixture, a [serves 4] tablespoon at a time. Once 3 or 4 tablespoons have been 1 bunch leaf celery, trimmed, stalks separated, and washed mixed in, slowly pour this mixture into the skillet, stirring the while. When it has all been incorporated, gently reheat 4 tablespoons butter • salt and black pepper to taste the sauce for a moment while tasting it for seasoning. Add salt if necessary and some black pepper. Pour everything page five over the fish and serve at once. continued from page 1 rance was not an option. She was happy to explain the a miniaturist’s salad bar. rules as often as I needed to hear them, which was every All this said, I start to falter. Surely, sometimes, time I got my hands in the sink. there was more than one kind of green — oak leaf, say, First of all, I had to master the towel configura- or Boston lettuce. Did Mother really add salad onion, or tion. There was (1) a hand towel, (2) a towel for drying did I just wish she did? Was there ever red bell pepper? eyeglasses only, (3) a towel for drying drinking glasses, Grated carrot? Celery? I can close my eyes and visualize cups, plates, and silverware, and (4) a towel for drying the salad fixings spread out on the kitchen counter … how cooking tools, pots, and pans. clear they all are until I really try to see. All memories, These towels were not easy for the novice to tell especially those we hold to most tightly, are hauntingly apart. You weren’t supposed to use them for drying any- illusive, which is why even the happy ones are edged with thing that wasn’t totally clean — and that made it hard a poignant aura of sadness and regret. to tell the towel for drying eyeglasses (theoretically, the cleanest) from the one for pots (which I kept thinking ought to be a bit… smudgy). So, right away, I was making d Aluminum Foil d stabs in the dark. owever, I am certain that every vegetable that Next, you weren’t supposed to get the dishwater went into these salads was kept in the refrigerator dirty. That meant cleaning the plates and silverware before H wrapped in aluminum foil — or, as Mother called these went into the dishpan. This was tricky because there it, “tin foil.” She never really warmed to plastic wrap, al- were only two sinks—one for washing and one for rinsing. though by then it had been around for quite a while. And You had to scrape the plates into the garbage, and then it wasn’t because she didn’t have any, because I gave her try to give them a prewash in the narrow space between some once. She put it away in a drawer and left it there. the dishpan and the side of the first sink. Not easy. I gave it to her because I couldn’t grasp — and, Also, there was a proper order for washing things. to tell the truth, I still can’t grasp — why she insisted on First, I suppose, were eyeglasses, but those never came using aluminum foil to wrap all the fruit and vegetables my way. Next were glasses and cups, which were least in the refrigerator, and all the meat in the freezer. likely to have any actual food on them, and then silver- She would call out from the living room where she ware, which might. These things went first because they was watching television to ask me if I minded getting a actually touched your mouth. Obviously, licking your pear for her. I would open the refrigerator door and stand plate was not something Mother could imagine. there paralyzed. Before me were two shelves stuffed with Plates and bowls were next, and last of all the anonymous foil-wrapped bundles. pots and pans — although if the dishwater was tepid, The solution to this was to bend down and grope. you were supposed to dump it out and refill the dishpan. Some bundles could be eliminated by sight alone, like This meant that the pots and pans were washed in cleaner celery or lettuce. But others actually had to be felt. This, water than the plates were. of course, was an invitation for rude surprise. Without I’m sure there were other rules, too; I’ve just fail, unless the pears turned up right away, you would forgotten them. For example, there was a particular way get hold of a squishy package. that dishes and glasses were supposed to be put into the Squishy was never a good sign — whatever it dish drainer. I think she used two kinds of dish soap, one was, it was most certainly rotten. The squishy package yellow and one bluish green. And there was the special might well be pears, but they wouldn’t be the ones Mother soaking solution made with Blue Cheer, which I never meant. They were pears she forgot she had. For the foil really understood at all. lover, forgotten vegetables, fruit are a way of life. My own dish-washing method was this: I waited Finally, there were the packages you had to open until Mother got up from the television to go to bed. It to find out whether they were pears or not. Usually, these took her a while to do her ablutions in the bathroom, and were apples, but they might be unripe tomatoes, small while she did, I whipped through the dish washing like eggplants, even lemons. At one time or another, you would you wouldn’t believe. Then she would come out in her find them all. nightgown, admire my excellent job, and kiss me good Thinking back on it, I realize that she might have night — and that would be that. ◆ had a system that I had no knowledge of—all root veg- etables second shelf to the left, all fruit third shelf to the right, and so on. But I don’t really believe that. She was d The Treat d used to getting things out and putting them away, and fter my father died, I used to go to Maine twice a year a residue of awareness remained, telling her where they for a week-long visit with Mother, first at the family were. You could say the same thing about my desk. ◆ Ahome in Searsmont and then at a retirement com- munity in Belfast. There, she was required to eat supper at the community dining hall a certain number of days a d Washing up d month, but she didn’t really enjoy that, and not because other was never one to welcome help when of the quality of the food (although she complained about it came to cooking meals, and while she was that, too). She liked to move through the day at her own Mproud of my accomplishments as a food writer, rhythm, which meant lunch was often eaten around three I never cooked for her until the very end of her life—and in the afternoon, and she wasn’t in the mood to walk down then not all that often. It wasn’t that she didn’t like what to the dining hall two hours later. She’d much rather eat I made. It just unnerved her to have someone else mess- supper at her own place … around eight in the evening. ing around in her personal space. This was the case even though by then various Consequently, the best chance I had at helping frailties had reduced her cooking to preparing some veg- out was to insist on washing the dishes, and even that etables to accompany the night’s frozen dinner. This was wasn’t something to be undertaken lightly. She had her continued on page 8 dish-washing rules; anyone heading for the sink was expected to follow them. And, I quickly discovered, igno- page six able alk Lifetime Learning Project: Beans (one of a series). T T Hardly had the last issue gone into the mail when I sat like a dog. A dog knows that a bowl of broth is all very down in the reading chair to work my way through a well but it isn’t remotely a meal — and so does your ap- year’s worth of unread Saveurs. There, in their special petite. The moment you set the mug aside, your appetite Texas issue, a sidebar on cooking beans woke me from starts prodding you with its nose, putting its head on my comfortable browsing doze. “For one version [of a your lap, and finally whining piteously. And a little tub of slow-simmered recipe for pinto beans] we tried, we re- lemon-flavored Italian ice isn’t going to cut the mustard, moved the tomatoes and noticed that the beans cooked either. The result is that you not only feel hungry, but a lot faster. Acidic ingredients, it turns out, slow down inexplicably guilty. the cooking process dramatically. Who knew?” Not me. I The second thing — and the point here — is that the regularly add something acidic to my slow-cooking beans: chicken broth I drank was from those aseptic containers red wine, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar … which may that now compete for space with canned broth. I bought explain why my chickpeas take an eternity (plus) to cook. five of these, each a different brand and chosen after a careful reading of the labels.* (I hedged my bets because Cooking in the Salento. Silvestro Silvestori is (a) a som- the ingredient list tells you everything except whether the melier, cook, teacher, photographer, and director of the broth actually tastes good.) And there I found a certain internationally acclaimed Awaiting Table Cookery School ingredient that puzzled me: “natural chicken flavor.” and (b) one of the best food writers around. His blog I was bemused because, by its very nature, chicken about his cooking, drinking, and culinary adventuring — broth ought to be pretty much nothing else but water in Silvestro’s Salento (http://www.foodwriting-awaitingtable. which a real chicken has been simmered. (Well, as real com/) — provides both a lovingly articulated glimpse of as that fowl manages to be these days.) What could be la bella vita in his part of Southern Italy and meditative more “chicken” than chicken? Following that idea, what asides that deserve serious pondering. More often than sense can be made of the first three ingredients listed on not they nestle together in the same essay. For example, the carton of Pacific brand chicken broth? his account of making la mia taieddhra, a layered dish of mussels, potatoes, zucchini, breadcrumbs, and grated Organic chicken broth (filtered water, organic chicken), smoked sheep’s milk cheese, not only lets us accompany organic chicken flavor (organic chicken flavor, sea salt), Natural chicken flavor (chicken stock, salt). him as he makes it (with photographs) but leads us through an example of what might be called the fuzzy Not to be sarcastic or anything, but isn’t it a bit of subter- logic of traditional Southern Italian cooking. fuge to define “organic chicken flavor” as “organic chicken Here, rather than allowing a common (if unwrit- flavor, sea salt”? And if “natural chicken flavor” is truly ten) recipe to define a dish, he finds its meaning in the “chicken stock” and salt, you can only mutter, “Damn! generational experience of making and eating it, and es- I’m lost in the chicken-stock fun-house room of mirrors.” pecially in competition with the way others (even family Google “natural chicken flavor” and you’ll discover members) make it (“It’s not like my mother’s”; “I never that your fellow questioners are concerned about not what add tomatoes”). Consequently, he remarks, they’re eating but what their pets are eating. And if you think a pet food company is going to come clean about that, well, I’ve served my version to friends who subtly suggested that I forget it. As to human food (I want to write “human” food), switch fields, perhaps, until I finally find something that I’m the best explanation I could find online was this: good at. But I’ve also served mine out in the countryside to a grandmother who cried as she ate it, her arthritic fingers Another common chicken-based ingredient is natural moving the fork to her quivering lips. “I eat this dish all the chicken flavor, also called chicken digest. … It is high-quality time, but I haven’t really tasted it in forty years,” she said, protein and fat material that has been reduced to amino and her dialect as thick as winter soup. I’ve served it to old men fatty acids to improve taste through an enzymatic process. who saw my version as unremarkable and nothing special, Say what? And note that weasel word “material.” If it refers which is the highest praise you could ever hope for, their wives’ versions a mirror of my own. to chicken, I’ll bet it’s to parts of the bird we would never voluntarily eat. More likely, the stuff is chicken fat and I should warn you that there is no recipe provided yeast pulverized with other “natural flavors” into a taste- — if you want those, you’ll have to attend Silvestori’s seductive decoction that tricks your mouth into taking cooking school. But recipes are a dime a trillion on the chicken water for “broth,” Makes you kinda miss MSG. Internet; a glimpse into a rich culinary mind in full flow is extraordinarily rare. And I made this dish success- This Issue Online. Print subscribers (i.e., you) can go to fully, using his prose and photos as a companion and http://tinyurl.com/2u225sk and download a PDF contain- guide, letting my own instincts (and a few guesses) fill in ing additional material that we couldn’t fit into the print the gaps. It was one of the best mussel dishes I’ve eaten edition and a bibliography of books we consulted. Or in years — and from what I learned from making it, the send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope with “SC•93 u second version is going to be even better. supplement” written on it, and we’ll mail you a copy. Natural Chicken Flavor. I recently underwent a medical * My tasting notes, for what they’re worth, appear in this issue’s procedure that required a clear liquid diet for two full days. supplement. I never thought I’d be grateful for the existence of Jell-O, Simple Cooking 93 © 2010 John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne. All rights but I clung to it like a lifeline — the only pseudo-solid ❍ ❍ I was allowed. Mostly, though, I subsisted on chicken reserved. The subscription price is $25 for five issues or $45 for ten. broth — quarts of it. From this “special diet,” I learned Unless you state otherwise, we assume letters to us are meant for publication ❍ ❍ two things. The first is that human hunger is very much and can be edited accordingly. P.O. Box 778, Northampton MA 01061 [email protected]. Visit our now actively updated Internet site at: http://www.outlawcook.com. page seven ISSN 0749-176X continued from page 6 tion, naturally, of the entry my own eye had fixed on — the last time I tried to get her to let me cook for her, and Wednesday’s BBQ pork chop with French potato salad. this time she gave in. But her lack of enthusiasm for my Moreover, I knew from the first that she would inevitably doing so eventually disheartened me, and I gave up. She include the most boring item on the list, the pan-seared and I would settle down in front of the television, each haddock — “What can they do to that?” with our own frozen dinner (or, in my case, two frozen Anticipation, for Mother, was built up from calcu- dinners — and I usually hedged my bet by having two lating the particular leverage of that weekly menu’s every different kinds). phrase. I would hardly notice that Thursday’s dinner To be honest, at the time I was hurt by mother’s ended with “assorted desserts & pastry”; she, however, lack of interest, but looking back I have come to a bet- could visualize every offering on the cart. That was one ter understanding of what was going on. For both of us, reason she liked the frozen dinners: the side vegetable, cooking a meal served to whet anticipation, and when her the chosen starch, each played its part in the reckoning. cooking activity was restricted, she turned to something In fact, these made the enticement complete. else that would serve her almost as well. And if I failed Our own home dinner ritual would also end with to notice what this was, it was because it was something “assorted desserts & pastry” — specifically, different ice I was already far too familiar with to be able to see. cream novelties. There were many of these. I especially re- To my father’s exasperation, Mother took her own member Nestlé Drumsticks, Snickers ice cream bars, Good sweet time whenever she shopped at the supermarket. Humor’s “chocolate éclairs,” and Turkey Hill’s vanilla-bean It was, he said, as if she were a tourist on her first visit ice cream sandwiches. (These last did not prove a hit: the to Paris. She would leisurely proceed down each aisle, same box, minus a single sandwich, was still there, years slowly scanning each shelf, as if expecting astonishments later, when my brother and I cleaned out her freezer.) to happen around every corner.* She preferred these confections to a dish of ice The most maddening thing was that this was cream in part because the serving size was already set. For exactly what happened. Every trip yielded some new Mother, helping herself from the ice cream container was and enticing product to try — or at least buy, put in the guaranteed to summon her inner health cop — resulting cupboard, and forget. And now, in her last years, she in an anxious tug of war between prudence and desire. discovered a whole new arrondissement: the frozen din- However, equally important was the fact that ice ner collection. She would move slowly from one brand to cream novelties, each in their own way, had a patented another, carefully weighing every option before making complexity that intensified Mother’s enjoyment. A Nestlé her choice: Lean Cuisine Café Classics Steak Tips Por- Drumstick is an ideal example of this, and besides, it tabella; Marie Callender’s Creamy Chicken and Shrimp was a treat where Mother and I experienced all the same Parmesan; Healthy Choice Beef Bourbon Dijon. pleasures. If you’ve never had one (where have you been!), Naturally, I was allowed to pick out my own, but it’s an ice cream cone that has been dipped in chocolate Mother was vocally unimpressed with my choices: “Why and scattered with chopped roasted peanuts. would you want to eat that?” I thought it tactful not to You have to exercise special care when you tear explain that my sole criterion was net weight. I was un- open the wrapping to keep the loose peanut bits from spill- swayed by the seductive phrases and tempting photograph ing all over the rug. Once you catch these in your hand on the front of the package; I knew from experience that and eat them, you carefully bite into the hard chocolate these dinners were never anything much, for the simple coating, the curve of which keeps you from taking a large reason that the meat portion inevitably turned out to be one. You have to gnaw at it, bit by bit, watching for the a grudging afterthought, not the meal’s raison d’être. Por- odd loose chocolate shard that will otherwise leave an tions were small (shrimp you could count on the fingers indelible brown stain on your shirt. of one hand) and depressingly overcooked. This initial appetite-enhancing resistance over- What little interest these dinners offered lay in come, the eater sinks into a state of dreamy content- discovering where they crossed the border from lousy to ment. The cone is a genuine sugar cone, not a waffle one, certifiably inedible. For instance, in some the pasta emerged crunchy and full of flavor. Furthermore, the ice cream as a mass of gummy dough, in others it came out dry and (always vanilla, in Mother’s case) goes right down to the scorched. I could go on here but my point is simple enough: bottom of the cone, which is ingeniously coated inside the one thing they couldn’t fudge was the package weight. with a thin layer of chocolate, ending in a solid plug. Mother wasn’t oblivious to such failings, but she That is there, I think, to prevent melted ice cream from drew a strict line between the pleasures of anticipation dripping out of the tip of the cone onto your lap. However, and those of eating. If the first was satisfying enough, any for the eater — and I’m sure you’ve already realized this shortcomings in the second could be endured. In fact, the yourself — that solid slug of chocolate is the dessert’s only effective motivating force that could get her to the dessert, the final moment of bliss. community dining room was the weekly menu. She would Given what I’ve just written, you might think that pore over this, dismissing some dishes immediately and my own freezer is full of the things. But the truth is I spending a long time pondering the others. haven’t bought one for decades — until I set out to write “No one will show up that night,” she would say, this piece. I don’t have a sweet tooth; for me, a spoonful pointing to Monday’s chicken pot pie. “Do you think we or two of ice cream is just enough. should take a chance on this?” she’d go on, indicating But sitting next to Mother, watching the History Thursday’s “crispy onion crusted chicken.” No men- Channel, each of us slowly savoring our confections, I came as close as I ever will to understanding her pleasure * This is another example of how, despite our best efforts, we often in frozen dinners. Individually, none of the parts amount end up just like our parents. While I have learned that I can safely avoid some supermarket aisles (those devoted to baby diapers, pet to much — but packaged together just so, they fuse, for food, commercial bakery products), my trip through the supermarket that moment, into a little bit of heaven.◆ is part goal-oriented (get this, get that, get out) and part discovery- oriented (seek and ye shall find … something. Eventually). Needless to say, these two goals aren’t exactly compatible. Essentially, what I’ve done is incorporate my mother and my father into my shopping persona. The result? Well, it ain’t pretty. page eight Celery Quotes ~ the Good, the Bad, & the Helpful SC•93 Supplement the market, bunches of wallflowers stacked on harrows, the earthy, country scent of them, the pungent smell of oranges, and the great glowing blaze of their colour, the bunches of grapes, white and black, suspended like Japanese lanterns from the awnings, the white nakedness of scrubbed celery heads gleaming wantonly in the flicker and shadow, the rhythmic rows of shining apples, and the subtle, acid aroma of them. — Ethel Mannin, Confessions and Impressions (1936) Consider the two basic ways to make use of the leafy tops of celery. Stew the top portion of the bunch, leaves and all, To eat celery, dig up the required amount and wash it well, and strain the liquid. Store this in the refrigerator, where it and serve it raw with salt and pepper after meals. It is warm, is ready to be mixed with additional water or milk in sauces, and has great digestive and generative powers, and for this gravies, or stews. The second way gives you a product reason young wives often serve celery to their elderly or which can be stored on the pantry shelf. Dry celery leaves impotent husbands. thoroughly in a very slow oven, then rub through a sieve to — Giacomo Castelvetro, The Fruit, Herbs, and make a powder. Add this powder to fish, meat, vegetables, or Vegetables of Italy (1614) whatever you like, and note the additional and delicious flavor. — Alex D. Hawkes, A World of Vegetable Cookery Celery. — The stems of the leaves are the parts of the plant used. These, after being blanched, are exceedingly crisp Of all vegetables, celery has one of the strongest flavors. To and tender, with an agreeable and peculiarly aromatic me, it is almost like a truffle. In a mirepoix, you need all the flavor. They are sometimes employed in soups, but are more vegetables — but if I could have only one, it would be celery. generally served crude, with the addition of oil, mustard, and I love its earthy flavor. — Chef Daniel Humm* vinegar, or with salt only. The seeds have the taste and odor It has to be said that of all the vegetables I have grown, of the stems of the leaves, and are often used in their stead cooked with or talked about, celery is the most unpopular. for flavoring soups. With perhaps the exception of Lettuce, For every person I have met who turns their nose up at Celery is more generally used in this country than any other swede or claims not to think much of parsnips, I must have salad plant. It succeeds well throughout the Northern and come across twenty who reckon they “hate” celery. A lifelong Middle States, and in the vicinity of some of our large cities fan, I almost feel like starting an appreciation society. I like is produced of remarkable size and excellence. vegetables that remind you that they come from the soil, — Fearing Burr, Field and Garden Vegetables and few do that as uncompromisingly as this one. At least, of America (1865) the white stalks do; I’m not sure some of the imported green Lettuce, greens and celery, though much eaten, are worse stuff has ever been near real earth. — Nigel Slater, Tender than cabbage, being equally indigestible without the The tradition of Italian cooking is that of the matriarch. This addition of condiments.” is the cooking of grandma. She didn’t waste time thinking — William Andrus Alcott, The Young House-keeper (1846) too much about the celery. She got the best celery she could Celery. — There are several varieties of this excellent plant, and then she dealt with it. — Mario Batali (from the Internet) of which the white solid, red solid, and the white dwarf are Now pay attention. There is one simple imperative with celery now generally preferred. The latter, I think, is the sweetest that almost all cooks ignore, but for which, if someone did it and tenderest in February and March. In buying, select the for you, you would be eternally grateful and notice how nice solid, close, clean and white stalks, with a large, close heart, it was that they had bothered. And that is always to peel your as they are apt to be the most crisp and sweet; however, celery. (This is unnecessary when making soup, of course, early in the season all celery is a little bitter. The season assuming that you will carefully push the result through a commences about the middle of August, and as soon as fine sieve once puréed.) A stalk stuck into a Bloody Mary, or the frost is found, celery becomes sweeter and better. It is sliced up into a well-made Waldorf salad or even neat hearts found constantly in our markets afterwards, until about of the vegetable gently braised to go with a traditional roast the 1st of April. duckling: celery should always, but always, be peeled. Just — Thomas de Voe, The Market Assistant (1867) why is this so rarely done? Everyone knows the excellence of braised celery, when, as — Simon Hopkinson, Second Helpings of Roast Chicken seldom happens in a middle-class English household, it Celery salt is very useful for seasoning tomato sauces or really has been braised. For a perfect success with it, proceed soups, vegetable broths, and salads, and it couldn’t be easier as follows: Blanch the trimmed and very carefully cleaned to make at home. Put some dried peelings into a celery by plunging it for four or five minutes into boiling blender along with a handful of high-quality coarse sea salt, water; drain it; and put it to cook in a casserole lined with and blend to a powder. Strain the mixture and keep it in a bacon, together with some slices of onion and some slices of jar or a tightly sealed canister. carrot, and portion of a bayleaf. When the onion has begun — Roger Vergé, Roger Vergé’s Vegetables in the French Style to take a little colour, just cover the celery with good stock which has not been freed of its fat; place a saucer on the *Quoted in The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dorneburg celery to ensure that it will be kept submerged; and after (Little Brown, 2008). This is a massive compendium of flavor relation- boiling point has been reached, simmer gently for about ships, matching a particular foodstuff (of any sort — including wines) forty minutes. Then take out the pieces of celery, use as the with what tastes best with it. Look up celery, for instance, and you find forty-six spices, herbs, flavorings, and foodstuffs that marry well moistening in which the celery will come to table a portion with its flavor, including various cheeses (the better the affinity, the of the much reduced braising liquid, to which a little butter bolder/larger the type). Directly below these are “flavor affinities,” should be, and very little Madeira may be, added. which is to say larger flavor combinations in which celery plays a — T. Earle Welby, Away Dull Cookery! (1931) part, such as celery + carrots + onions or celery + tarragon + vinegar Now, as then, I find a curious excitement in the dark tide of (usually these “affinities” are a tad more imaginative). This sounds useful, and the book certainly can be, especially because of the many humanity, the yellow glare of lights from the shop-fronts, the helpful observations and tips from top-level chefs. The downside is warm smell of people pressed close together, the dark fire of information overload. The book is twice as big as it ought to be, and what would be helpful in smaller doses risks becoming annoyingly SC•93 Supplement | page one obvious or frustratingly vague — or both (as when they link celery with “stir-fried dishes”) — when piled on with a trowel. I thought, wow! — that combination of tripe and celery has Additional Celery Recipes to be a perfect flavor match. Alas, my vision of the dish and Wolfert’s recipe turned out to have little in common. Hers Garlic Sausages Braised with would have been more accurately entitled “Tripe Stew with Vegetable Mirepoix,” since the celery (minced) is only one of Celery and Potatoes the usual players — carrot, parsley, onion, etc. So, I just helped myself to what appealed to me and left the rest to the Inspired by a recipe from Marcella Hazan’s Sardinians. By the way, this is not the mythical tripe recipe The Classic Italian Cook Book that will convert those of you made uneasy by tripe — to accomplish that I suggest you drive to Waldoboro, Maine, I reworked this recipe with pork sausage in mind, the rich stop by Moody’s Diner, and order their transcendental fried savor of its seasoned fat being an essential component of tripe. However, the dish offered here will make any tripe the dish. If fresh garlic sausage is unavailable, substitute lover supremely happy. sweet Italian sausage. While you could substitute chicken sausage, please don’t invite me over if you do.

SC•92 Supplement | page five out from the shell. Rinse them quickly in cold water. (See Chasing Taieddhra note below.) Set them in a casserole or covered skillet. Pour over the wine/water mixture, cover, and bring contents to pend some time researching taieddhra online and a boil. Turn off the heat as soon as most of the mussels you’ll see the truth in Silvestro’s remarks (see page have opened. (Discard any that fail to open.) Remove the 7, SC•93) about how conflicting and heartfelt are mussels to a bowl and pour the cooking liquid into a large S measuring cup. Let this sit to allow any sand to settle to the opinions about its making. There’s even a mash-up the bottom. Meanwhile, remove and discard the top shell on YouTube showing a bunch of grannies giving contrary of each mussel. instructions — in Italian, it’s true, but you don’t have to speak the language, it’s all in the tone of voice. • Use a mandolin or very sharp knife to thinly slice the potatoes and zucchinis. Have ready the casserole in which However, Silvestro’s version has particular virtues you plan to cook the dish. Pour the olive oil into a bowl that might well persuade any mussel lover to try it. First, and stir in the minced garlic. Use your hands to toss the the mussels are added to the casserole on the half shell, slices of potato in the garlic/olive oil mixture, then use which emphasizes their presence and requires employing the oil that clings to your hands to grease the bottom and the fingers as an eating tool –– a pleasure not usually the sides of the casserole. case with a casserole. Next, the mussel liquid permeates • Cover the bottom of the casserole with a layer of potatoes, the dish, deliciously marrying with both the potatoes and seasoning lightly with salt and black pepper. Sprinkle over the zucchini (whose slightly bitter, vegetal flavor proves a thin layer of breadcrumbs, Grate the cheese directly over a surprising but winning match with shellfish). And the this, enough to just cover the breadcrumbs. Add a layer of the mussels, then a layer of zucchini. Scatter over some of layers of breadcrumbs absorb these juices, keeping them the minced chives and parsley. from trickling down to the bottom of the bowl. Lastly, the scattering of sharp sheep’s-milk cheese, used in the right • Now repeat the above directions, until everything is used up, ending with a layer of potatoes. Pour over the reserved proportion, amplifies the flavor of the mussels, in the cooking liquid, being careful to leave behind any residue at same way that a grating of Parmesan can bring a pasta the bottom. (If you wish, you can taste this for sand, and dish to life without making it noticeably cheesy. use all the liquid if you find none.) All this said, it’s important to note that I have • Put the casserole over a high flame, cover, and cook until worked out this recipe from Silvestro’ s verbal sketch of the the liquid inside has been brought to a boil, or about 5 dish, and while he politely answered a few questions, he minutes or so. Then put the casserole, still covered, into remained adamant that I was on my own here, his purpose the oven and bake until the top layer of potatoes are tender, about 35 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a teaspoon of olive being not to provide recipes but to draw attention to the 1 various experiences he offers at his cooking school — very oil in a small skillet and fry /4 cup of the breadcrumbs, stirring the while, until they are a toasty brown. much the same reason that I don’t offer free access to the recipes in Simple Cooking at my own website. • To serve, divide the contents of the casserole into large soup bowls and sprinkle each with some of the toasted breadcrumbs. A salad of sharp-tasting greens makes a Mussels with Potato and Zucchini nice accompaniment. * Cook’s Notes. Mussels: Don’t prepare the mussels Some preliminary notes: I don’t call for specific measure- much ahead of their cooking cooking time, because both ments for the breadcrumbs and grated cheese because I the debearding and rinsing weaken them. Sheep’s-Milk prefer to do this by feel. The former dissolves during the Cheese: Silvestro told me that he uses local smoked sheep’s- cooking and serves to thicken the juices, so they should be milk cheeses (Gavoi or Rodez), which I failed to locate online added with a light hand or you’ll end up with something anywhere in the USA. So, I got some hawthorne-smoked that’s more paste than sauce. I grate over just enough Idiazábal, a classic (and superb) shepherd’s cheese made cheese to coat the zucchini, but that is more a matter of of raw sheep’s milk) imported by Pennsylvania Macaroni how potent-tasting the cheese is and how much you want Company (see page 3 of this supplement). Crunchy Pota- it to flavor the dish. Similarly, while Silvestro uses a cup toes: Silvestro makes much of preparing this dish with a of wine, I found the flavor too dominating, and so cut it in “crunchy” potato topping, achieved by removing the lid and half with water. Again, this will depend on your own taste slipping the casserole under the broiler: “Brown the potatoes and the delicacy (or lack thereof) of the wine you use. Fi- slightly more than you’d think. Go for crunchy.” His defini- nally, this dish was devised to feed Matt and myself and tion of “crunchy” may be different than mine — what I got is built around a given: each eater is to receive a pound was what you would expect from potatoes cooked in a cas- of mussels — by no means an overly generous number. serole: they turn slightly crispy around the edges and then they burn. I got crunch by toasting some of the breadcrumbs [serves 2] (say 2 tablespoons) in a lightly oiled pan, stirring constantly, 3 zucchinis, long but not thick and scatter these over the finished dish. 2 pounds mussels in the shell 1/2 cup of dry white wine mixed with 1/2 cup cold water 3 or 4 large yellow potatoes a bowl of breadcrumbs a chunk of aged sheep’s-milk cheese (see note below) 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 teaspoon 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley small bunch of chives (6 to 8), minced small garlic clove, minced (optional) salt and black pepper to taste to serve: toasted breadcrumbs (see note below) • Preheat the oven to 350°F. • Pick over the mussels, discarding any that are broken and SC•92 Supplement | page six pulling away any threads (the mussel’s “beard”) that stick