Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies

by Dane, Michael

  There’s one step you’re supposed to do for exactly 15 seconds, and something or other is supposed to be cut into 3 x 1 1/4″ tubes. Then you blanch the yam disks! Yum!

  I swear, with all the references to emulsions and infusions in modernist cuisine, I’m not sure if they’re making food or shampoo. Maybe ‘sage foam’ can be both. I don’t know.

  I’m pretty sure that for the last, maybe, all of recorded history, people have done just fine cooking with pots, pans and spatulas.

  Not to mention that nobody has ever had a meal in a restaurant and told their waiter,

  “I’ll have the special, but could you immerse it in liquid nitrogen? I’d like to feel like I’m dining in a laboratory.”

  The equipment alone for a ‘modernist’ kitchen is a little intimidating. Unless you scored a 4 or a 5 on your Advanced Placement science exams, do you really need to be trying to use a ‘rotary evaporator?’

  How about a ‘vitoceramicgriddle’? Let alone a twelve-hundred dollar ‘immersion circulator.’ I’d be too worried about meeting OSHA workplace standards, and waiting for an environmental impact study.

  By comparison, let’s look at the Country Kitchen Cook Book. Published originally in 1911 by the Dakota Farmer newspaper, this handy volume weighs in at a lean 150 pages.

  I have the 1924 edition, and you’ll notice it’s “Completely Revised.” Because you wouldn’t want guests digging into some ‘Stewed Prairie Chicken’ and thinking, “Seriously? That is so 1911.”

  Most of the ‘information’ in here was, I suppose, common knowledge to the pre-Depression ‘Farm Woman.’ Seriously, who didn’t know how to make Chicken Maryland, or Broiled Squab on Toast Points?

  What makes this book a treasure are the various clippings that a woman named Mae kept tucked between the pages of the book.

  Because of Mae, I now know how to make my own floor wax and furniture polish, and I also have hand-written instructions for making cheese biscuits

  There’s actually a recipe for making crackers. Shows you how spoiled by modernity I am—I didn’t know you could make crackers. I thought all the crackers on Earth were made centuries ago and boxed up by monks.

  She saved the news item above, with the headline “Autumn Dish Recipe Wins In Contest,” and as you read about ‘Mrs. Thomas’ and her ‘Better Homes and Gardens Recipe Endorsement’, you can almost picture Mae ripping it out in disgust and vowing to win in 1925.

  By the way, the other side of this is a recipe for rabbit pie, from a booklet called How to Dress, Ship, and Cook Wild Game, published by the Remington Arms Company! It’s really too bad that weapon manufacturers got out of the cookbook industry.

  .My favorite discovery in this book was stuck between pages 77 and 78, and it’s Mae’s personal recipe for ‘Apple Crisp.’ It’s exactly what a recipe should look like.

  You can tell that Mae was experimenting every bit as much as today’s hot shot chefs. Did you notice she changed the amount of oatmeal at the last minute? Brilliant, and no doubt based on years of empirical evidence.

  I wish Mae had told us what makes up the ‘crumbly topping,’ but that secret may have, sadly, died with her. Whatever it was, I’m almost sure you didn’t need protective goggles or hazmat gloves.

  Anyway, enjoy the apple crisp, in memory of Mae, and all the other Farm Women who didn’t need a digitally calibrated thermometer to tell when something was done.

  Who Needs Recipes, Anyway?

  I think one of the few ‘typically male’ pieces of my personality is my unwillingness to read the instructions. To anything.

  If everything is in the box that should be there, I should be able to assemble it or program it or hook it up without reading a freaking manual. I’ve assembled, programmed, and hooked up other things, how hard could it be?

  I have a hunch that if I ever used a GPS device, I would end up arguing with the recorded voice that was giving me directions, or just get passive aggressive.

  ”Fine. I’ll turn left at Oak Street. You’re probably right. But you should know that when I turn, I will not be happy about it.”

  I’m the same way with microwave dinner instructions. The box may ‘suggest’ that, after four and a half minutes with the plastic covering ‘vented’, I remove the cover, stir the meal and then cook on medium for another minute and a half.

  But instead, I’ll just nuke the whole thing with the covering off for a total of 6 minutes (I’m crazy, I tell ya!), because I’m hungry, and the entire meal cost two bucks!The truth is, when I was younger, I probably went two or three years without eating anything that wasn’t irradiated, so I’m willing to take some chances.

  Given my aversion to instructions, it’s probably no surprise that I substitute pretty liberally when I see a list of ingredients. The only time this is a bad idea is if you don’t really know what a listed ingredient is (I suppose I could use cinnamon instead of turmeric—same number of syllables . . .)

  I’ve always had a problem with ‘no substitutions’ at restaurants, too. Now, I get that, at a steak joint, I can’t substitute braised perch for the top sirloin, but if you have what I’m asking for in the kitchen, and you cook said item on the other days of the week, you can make me a fish sandwich even if it’s not the special for today!

  The Girlfriend and I went to a restaurant a while back, and the ‘vegetable of the day’ was green beans. I’m sure all the veggies there were canned, but the day before, it was carrots, and I wanted carrots. My server told me: “We can’t do that.”

  “So, you’re telling me that, overnight, you guys threw out whatever carrots you didn’t sell? Or is the guy who knows how to heat up the carrots only available on Monday?

  I think what I lost at video poker should buy me a few carrots, don’t you? OPEN A CAN OF CARROTS, YOU PUNCTILIOUS BASTARDS!”

  Sorry for the digression. Getting back to recipes, the earliest ones wouldn’t have had much room for creative substitution. The very first recipes were probably just drawings of an animal, a knife, and some fire.

  The first published recipe book is believed to be the Latin collection called De re coquinaria, and attributed to Apicius, who was known as ‘the Guy Fieri of ancient Rome.”

  I figured a Roman cookbook would simply consist of the words “Take food from people you’ve conquered. Reheat their food.” But there are some detailed recipes, for example, this lamb stew:

  “Put the pieces of meat into a pan. Finely chop an onion and coriander, pound pepper, ‘lovage’ (leafy, green, tastes like celery), cumin, ‘liquamen’ (a thick fish sauce, tastes like fish sauce), oil, and wine.

  Cook, turn out into a shallow pan, thicken with cornflour. You should add the contents of the mortar while the meat is still raw.”

  Sadly, my grocery story doesn’t carry liquamen, or I would have given this a try. As willing as I am to substitute, everyone knows that there’s nothing quite like liquamen. Ask for it by name!

  I try to be careful with recipes I find online, because unfortunately, there isn’t a National Internet Recipe Oversight Commission. And sometimes the problem with an online recipe isn’t the ingredients, but the instructions.

  Especially if they’re too precise, because then I feel like I’m just recreating that person’s cooking success. It’s like doing culinary karaoke.

  I found a chicken recipe by someone named Joy Beeson, and although I’m sure she’s a lovely woman, she seems a little . . . demanding in the kitchen. Check out these steps:

  * * *

  “Put half of a Knorr chicken-flavor bouillon cube into a #5 iron skillet (8″/20cm dia.). Have ready another #5 skillet or an oven-proof lid.”

  Yeah, because I have plenty of ‘#5 skillets.’ And does the brand of bouillon cube really matter?

  “Add a generous crank of black pepper.”

  Oh, so you know the model number of the skillet but can’t be more precise than a ‘crank’ of pepper?

  “Add one tablespoon (1/16 cup) of cornstarch to the milk, cover tight
ly, shake vigorously, pour over the bouillon in the skillet. Heat to boiling point while stirring constantly, scraping the sides and bottom of the skillet with a spatula.”

  Well, after all that covering, shaking, pouring, heating, stirring (constantly!) and scraping, I’ve now forgotten what I’m cooking.

  “Do not dally between adding cornstarch and shaking, nor between shaking and pouring.”

  So what you’re telling me is, I can’t dally at all. I suppose there’s no lolligagging in your kitchen either.

  “The cornstarch will settle out if it is given half a chance.”

  Because all know how vindictive cornstarch is.

  “When the foam has settled to the bottom of the jar, pour that in with one hand while continuing to stir with the other. After five minutes, turn the thighs over, spoon gravy over them, cover tightly again, put skillet in oven. Immediately turn the oven to 200F.”

  Okay, I’m not having fun anymore. This with one hand, that with the other, turning, spooning…and what if I want to wait a minute or two before turning the oven down? No—do it “immediately.” Jeez.

  “Ignore until serving time.”

  The meal? The guests?

  “One half hour before serving time, zap one large or two small potatoes and throw them naked onto the oven rack.”

  For God’s sake, don’t dally if you’re zapping! And this meal would be WAY more fun if you could throw the potatoes on the rack while you’re ‘naked.’

  * * *

  At one point, this book was going to be filled with recipes that express my unique vision as a cook, but based on feedback I got from publishers, I went in a different direction.

  The rejection letters all droned on about the same supposed ‘problems’ with my recipes. For example—even though I’m not into the whole ‘precision’ thing in my cooking, I knew I had to be precise in a real cookbook. Apparently, though, you can be too precise, like when I specified

  “Place casserole in 22.6 cubic-foot oven at 213 degrees Celsius for 47 minutes, 18 seconds.”

  I also thought it would be fun to have a section where the recipes all had blanks where temperatures and timings would normally be:

  “Bake for _______ minutes at ______ degrees. Now— can you solve the recipe?”.

  One last note might be helpful to anyone thinking of writing their own cookbook. Apparently, publishers don’t want you to use too many endangered species in your recipes. That’s unfortunate. My ‘Spotted Owl Stuffed with Snail Darter’ is really quite good.

  To be honest, I guess I’m just not a recipe kinda guy. Too confining—stifles my creativity, and the joy of discovery, and blah blah blah. Sure, I’ll borrow some ideas here and there, but if you ever have dinner at my place, you can be certain that some element of the meal will be a direct result of improvisation. And guessing.

  The Pot Pie Pizza Process

  In physics, fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together to form a single heavier nucleus. Or, it’s how you turn lead into gold. I can’t remember. In music, ‘fusion’ refers to a blending of styles, like the jazz-rock fusion of Pat Metheny, or the jazz-crap fusion of Kenny G.

  Not really sure what my point was. but ‘fusion’ is also used to describe food. Tex-Mex. Afro-Cuban. Kosher-Asian. And sometimes, cultural cross-pollination works.

  On the other hand, I had to give up my dream of opening a chain of British-Korean restaurants (to be called Kimchee-dilly Square) when our market research showed that people didn’t really want bland food that also smells bad.

  My first ‘fusion’ dish, like most of my truly inspired creations, came about because I was out of something. Here’s the backstory:

  The Girlfriend wanted pizza. I had, unfortunately, eaten the last slice of pizza. We also had no pizza sauce, and not much in the way of potential pizza toppings.

  What we had, was a box of frozen na’an that I think had been in the freezer since ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ came out. Then it occurred to me – our na’an was already cut into pizza-slice shaped pieces!

  Once again it was all coming together—ingenuity, inspiration, the ability to recognize simple shapes . . . I would make Na’an Pizza! Or I could call it ‘Non-Pizza.’

  So I had a box of na’an (which sounds like the name of an alien on “Star Trek”—“I am Box of Na’an—fear me!”). We had lots of fresh veggies, and some chicken breast from the previous night’s dinner, along with some homemade gravy.

  I’m all set to assemble my Chicken Non-Pizza when I remember I have no sauce. I could make a sauce, but I had no tomatoes. No stewed tomatoes, no diced tomatoes—not even a tiny can of tomato paste.

  Here’s where it gets a little weird. To recap, I had chicken, vegetables, and the aforementioned gravy. That’s a pot pie waiting to happen!

  But realistically, I wasn’t going to take the time to bake a pie. The Girlfriend was hungry, and she wanted pizza. So, I made Open-Faced Pot-Pie Pizza. It’s all the comfort of a pot pie, but easier to carry around with you!

  Ingredients

  · 3 pieces of frozen na’an

  · Some leftover chicken

  · Some leftover chicken gravy

  · Some celery

  · Some carrots

  · Some mushrooms

  · A piece of cheese

  Instructions

  Defrost the na’an. Meanwhile, chop the chicken, celery, carrots and mushrooms into pizza-topping sized chunks.

  Take the na’an out of the oven. Carefully pour chicken gravy on each slice.

  Place chunks of chicken, celery, carrots and mushrooms randomly on each slice.

  Put a piece of cheese on one of the slices for The Girlfriend.

  Put it all back in the oven for a while until it looks like pizza.

  ALL THE COMFORT OF A POT PIE—

  WITH THE CONVENIENCE OF A PIZZA SLICE!

  There you have it. An Indian-Italian classic. I’ll admit I was worried about this one. I didn’t want my mashup to be the food equivalent of those horrible ‘crossover episodes’ on TV. You know, where the cast of Beverly Hillbillies inexplicably visits Petticoat Junction?

  As it turned out, my mix of Milan, Mumbai, and the Midwest was a hit. I’m already thinking about what I’ll combine next.

  Maybe I’ll put German sausage on a French baguette and call it a Vichy Sandwich. Or I might mix Newfoundland and New Orleans, and create . . . whatever that would be. All I know for sure is that, through my cooking, I am single-handedly bringing the world together, one dish at a time.

  Note: I have since withdrawn my trademark application for the name ‘Pot Pie Pizza,’ as there are, according to the web, “about 168,000” people who have used that phrase. There are also at least 77,100 people who have invented “naan pizza,”and 65,800 who beat me to the phrase “non-pizza.” Damn you, Google.

  What Do You Call That?

  I’m never sure how to describe what it is I write. I could say, “I write short humorous essays, sort of like how newspaper columns were, but in first person, like a blog,” but that’s not very catchy. It’s not exactly ‘high concept.’

  I could combine the two concepts and tell people I write ‘blogumns.’ Haven’t you always thought there should be more words in English that end in ‘mn?’

  What you call something matters. Take rock and roll. I think even die-hard fans of ‘My Backyard’ and ‘The Polka Tulk Blues Band’ would have to admit that ‘Lynyrd Skynyrd’ and ‘Black Sabbath’ are better band names.

  It’s the same with food. There are certain foods that I’m convinced wouldn’t sell at all if they had different names. Or more accurate names.

  If you’ve ever had beignets, you know they’re a delicious pastry popular in New Orleans. But I’m guessing the lines at Mardi Gras would be a bit shorter if they were called “Deep-Fried Dough Balls (which should be a band name).”

  Sometimes all it takes is a vaguely evocative name to distract people into buying an otherwise odious food. Case in poin
t: ‘Vienna Franks.”

  These little Franken-franks are composed of a disturbing paste made from chicken and pork and beef and turkey . . . parts.

  Then the ‘franks’ are stuffed in a can in some sort of briny sauce. Since they’re Viennese, though, people think they’re being cosmopolitan. Anyway, even though I KNOW they’re already cooked, they always look to me like they need to be cooked again. That seems wrong.

  Leave it to the gastronomically-challenged Brits to come up with a questionable food idea, and then give it a name that sounds even more abhorrent. It’s bad enough you serve steamed suet pudding—for God’s sake, do you have to call it ‘Spotted Dick?’

  Call me square, but I like the name of a dish to give me some indication of what might be in the dish before I order the dish.

  Recently voted the best restaurant in the world, Noma in Copenhagen has an entrée called ‘Oyster and the Ocean,’ and that name doesn’t help at all.

  I’d like to know exactly what comes with the oyster and what you’ve done to it. Not just where you got it. Same reason I wouldn’t order something called “Chicken and Stuff From The Ground.”

  I dig those long, enigmatic, conceptual names you see on menus in Chinese restaurants. “Ants Climbing A Tree” may not sound as appetizing as ‘marinated ground meat over noodles,’ but at the same time, I kinda like having my dinner tell me a little story.

  One night I ordered something called “Bean Curd Made By A Pockmarked Woman,” which is such a great name it should count as dinner and a movie.

  I never know what to call the things I cook, but I feel I have to call a dish something. It always seemed lazy to me for an artist to call something ‘Untitled.”

  This was done by the Australian Charles Green Shaw. Here’s an idea, Chuck. When you’re done with your painting, take the extra five minutes and tell me what it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be literal, but at least make an effort.