Last month I started down a Louisiana-centric path for my first Charcutepalooza sausage challenge, with a Creole Chicken Sausage. This only whet my appetite, however, for a recipe I’d been eying for a while in Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie: Smoked Andouille Sausage. So, for this month’s stuffing challenge, I pulled out all the stops, dove back into pork with a vengeance, and lived the andouille dream. I even got some shrimp ‘n grits into the picture.
Charcutepalooza has been trucking along for four months now, and I’ve had an awesome time with four delicious challenges. OK, maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve had an awesome time with three, and an interesting time with one: I have a great talent for messing up the oh-so-simple duck prosciutto with which we started. I’ve tried twice and have yet to make a successful prosciutto. Enough of my woes, though. I’ve had enough success and gotten excited enough about this whole business that I started asking myself: Why?
Why am I doing this? Why have I gotten so incredibly into it? Why do I find it so unbelievably thrilling to get down and dirty with large chunks of meat that I devote time, money, and precious space in my under-sized Manhattan fridge to this? Why do I lavish precious time and money on expensive, intensive meat projects? Why has from-scratch deli become my hobby obsession instead of, say, knitting? You may have guessed I’m going to settle in for some philosophizing. I’m going to intersperse photos from April’s Smoking Challenge BBQ pulled pork adventures amongst my thoughts to keep you entertained. A bargain: food for thoughts.
In metulis: liquamen porrum concisum cuminum passum satureiam uinum; mixtum facies aquatius et ibi mitulos quoques.
– Apicius, De Re Coquinaria IX.ix
Translation: For mussels: fish sauce, chopped leek, cumin, raisin wine, savory, wine; add water to the mixture and cook the mussels in it.
Tomorrow is the official posting day for March’s Charcutepalooza challenge, but I thought I’d get the ball rolling early, since I kind of went nuts on this one. The second I saw “brined brisket” in the challenge discussion, my mind leapt to pastrami…and from there it naturally went to bagels and lox.
Sixties salads are really something else. Those ladies (puh-lease, no gender neutrality necessary here – the gents were all off sippin’ old fashioneds) were willing to chop up anything, put it in mayo, and serve it up. OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating. But seriously, salads and canapes were a staple of any wife’s party repertoire, and there are many varieties of both scattered around the books on The Collection. Sometimes you find some with interesting flavor combos we might not necessarily think of in the 21st century.
PISUM INDICUM. Pisum coques. cum despumaverit, porrum et coriandrum concidis et mittis in caccabum ut ferveat. et accipies sepias minutas, sic quomodo sunt cum atramento suo, ut simul coquantur. Adicies oleum, liquamen et vinum, fasciculum porri et coriandri. facies ut coquantur. cum coctum fuerit, teres piper, ligusticum, origanum, carei modicum, suffundis ius de suo sibi, vino et passo temperabis. sepias minutatim concidis et in pisum mittis. Piper asparges et inferes.
– Apicius, De Re Coquinaria V.iii.3
I’m honestly really not sure what makes these peas “Indian.” As a purely historical matter, there was trade between Rome and India (I’m lazy – if you want more info, check out this reputably-researched and -sourced Wikipedia article). The weird thing about this dish, though, is that it really isn’t very different from other dishes in Apicius’s collection: the typical Roman flavor profile is based heavily on leeks, cumin, coriander, sweet wine, pepper, garum, and garlic. These Indian peas have a good number of those ingredients, and not a ton of others. But then, I don’t know what 4th century Indian cooking was like – or what regions the Romans dealt with. I’m guessing they weren’t bringing takeout containers of chicken tikka masala back to Italy, though. Anyone know more about ancient cooking on the subcontinent?
Anyway, just a few things about Roman cooking. First, I always grind my spices by hand when I do it, to give the right taste and texture. Here are my cumin, coriander, oregano, peppercorns, and anise (I substituted the last for lovage, which I don’t have).
I’ve blogged previously about recipes from my Jewish grandma. I have, however, been remiss in addressing my other culinary heritage. For Christmas, I’m home with my Mom, and I think it’s time to come clean: I’m a pizza bagel. Half Jewish. Half Italian. Actually, half Jewish and one quarter Italian/one quarter Welsh. So, enough with the bagels: it’s time for pizza. This Christmas, in between family time, I’m working a few traditional recipes into our meals, and posting them up here.
In Italian families, it’s traditional on Christmas Eve to eat fish. When big clans get together they’ll often have a “Feast of Seven Fishes.” I did this once with my grandparents and their friends: the feast lasted about 7 hours, with intense numbers of courses and a ridiculous amount of food. Because last night it was just me and my mom, we just made a really nice fish stew. I took the stew out of my mom’s copy of Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cook Book. Marcella, if you haven’t heard of her, is to Italian cooking as Julia Child is to French: she wrote one of the first great English-language cook books for her cuisine – published in 1973.
We chose to do her brodetto di papi – “Dad’s soup.” It’s a simple, flavorful homestyle fish stew. Marcella’s recipe calls for whole fish and for pureeing of fish heads: I am technically on vacation and was simply not up for this. So, to add flavor I substituted Madeira wine for white, and tossed in a tablespoon of baharat. Cross-cuisine blog fusion! It turned out tasty and festive, if I may say so myself. I’m putting both versions of the recipe below (omitting fish heads), so you can try it old-school or modified.
While I was cleaning fish yesterday, my mom was pulling together a panettone – an Italian Christmas bread. This bread has been a feature of my Christmas morning for as long as I can remember, and is largely responsible for making me a little obsessed with candied fruits (I love little surprise chunks of citron, citrus peel, etc.). My mom uses a recipe from the old Vegetarian Epicure: it’s not a family recipe, but I’ve been eating it for so long that it is tradition. It’s not my handiwork, but I’m putting up pictures and recipe anyway – guest food is welcome!
Finally, today I’ve been heading north, so-to-speak, and paying tribute to my Anglo-Celtic heritage by trying my hand at figgy pudding. Yes, the thing from “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” I got this recipe from my mom’s copy of Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Cook Book: her copy is actually a 1970 edition picked up around that time in Taiwan. The best bit: it’s pirated. Yes, people apparently used to pirate books as well as DVDs. I actually have pirated Taiwanese bound editions of Golden Age Batman and Superman comics my Dad picked up on that same trip. (These volumes are totally the “root” of my comic book geekdom. Thanks, Dad!) About Craig Claiborne, though, if recipe copyrights are dubious/thin, is there really a big problem with a pirated cookbook? Something for my lawyer readers to chew on along with Christmas dinner…
