Fleisch's Axiom

My friend Fleisch (who had a supporting role in another blog post) is not much of a cook.  Unlike me, she does not enjoy cooking (a character trait which she inherited from her mother), unless one considers making a sandwich to be cooking.  However, she is very enthusiastic about food prepared by others, and does not hesitate to make pronouncements about food.  I have dubbed one of these pronouncements "Fleisch's Axiom," and it states:

All foods can be divided into two categories:  Foods which are improved by adding garlic, and foods which are improved by adding whipped cream.

It is difficult to find exceptions to Fleisch's Axiom.

So today's blog post is a tribute to Fleisch's axiom, with three recipes.  There is one recipe, Garlic Mashed Potatoes (adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1) which uses massive amounts of garlic.  The next, Chocolate Mousse with Rum (adapted from The 1997 Joy of Cooking) uses a lot of whipped cream.  And the third, Raw Vegetable Dip with Horseradish and Garlic, uses both.  (Of course, one thinks of raw vegetables as a healthy snack.  This dip completely negates the health aspect of the veggies, but it is very tasty!)

If you should happen to have any garlic mashed potatoes left over, they are delicious the next morning for breakfast.  Simply drop a serving of them into hot butter in a skillet, and cook over medium heat until they develop a golden crust.  Flip, and do the same thing on the other side.  Serve with scrambled eggs for a delightful breakfast.


Garlic Mashed Potatoes

5 lbs. potatoes (Idaho-type potatoes work best for this recipe)
4 heads of garlic (Yes, you read that correctly.  Do not attempt this recipe with any less than that.)
1/2 cup (1/4 lb.) butter
4 T flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups milk
A few tablespoons cream (optional)

Peel and dice the potatoes.  Cover with salted water, and boil until tender.

Separate the garlic into cloves (depending on the garlic, there will probably be 50 to 60 cloves).  Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil, and drop the cloves of garlic into the boiling water.  Boil for 2 minutes, and drain.  Rinse the garlic with cold water so they are easier to handle, and peel.

In a medium saucepan, melt 1/4 lb. butter.  Cook the garlic in the melted butter on very low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the garlic is very tender but not browned.

When the garlic is very soft, increase the heat slightly, and add the flour.  Let the flour froth in the butter for 2 minutes, but do not let it brown.

While the butter and flour are frothing, heat the 2 cups of milk to nearly boiling.  Off the heat, pour all the boiling milk into the butter, flour, and garlic at once, add the salt and pepper, and beat vigorously.  Return to the heat, and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Drain the potatoes, and return to the pot.  Add the garlic sauce, and whip with a hand mixer until the potatoes are smooth.  If necessary for a smooth consistency, you may add a few tablespoons of cream or milk to the potatoes.

Serve piping hot.  This recipe makes a lot of mashed potatoes, at least enough for 10-12 servings.  But people also tend to eat more of these than they do normal mashed potatoes.


Chocolate Mousse with Rum

1/4 cup sugar
4 T rum
1/4 lb. semisweet chocolate
500 ml (1 pint) whipping cream
2 egg whites

Cook the sugar and rum together over very low heat until dissolved, but do not let it brown.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate.  When the chocolate has melted, beat in 3 T. of the whipping cream.  Add the syrup to the melted chocolate, and stir until smooth.  Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.

Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  When the chocolate mixture has cooled (but not chilled), fold the egg whites into it.

Whip the rest of the cream until stiff.  Fold the chocolate and egg white mixture gently into the whipped cream.

Spoon the mousse into champagne flutes or sherbet glasses, and chill.  Makes 8-10 servings.




Raw Vegetable Dip with Horseradish and Garlic

1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 or 2 cloves garlic
2 T prepared horseradish
500 ml (1 pint) whipping cream

Mince the garlic very finely, or put it through a garlic press.  Combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and horseradish.  Whip the cream (unsweetened, of course), and fold it into the mayonnaise and ketchup mixture.

Let chill until firm.  Serve with plates of raw vegetables.

Merry Christmas to all!

It's Christmas Eve, and I've had a busy day.

For the first time in many years, I am not going to be able to go to Maryland for Christmas.  So I decided to cook a little Christmas dinner for a few friends who also do not have much family in Montreal.  I've spent most of today cooking.  I've made rosemary-roasted nuts, cream of peanut soup, cornbread stuffing, apple pie, and cranberry sauce.  Tomorrow I have to roast the turkey, cook the stuffing, make garlic mashed potatoes, and roast the vegetables.  None of those tasks are very onerous, so tomorrow should be a great deal of fun.

Tonight we had our Christmas Eve service at church (with lots of lovely Christmas carols), and then we went to Kit's house for drinks and snacks afterward.  I made egg nog, and brought some of the rosemary-roasted nuts.

Let me tell you about how I came to make the rosemary-roasted nuts.

On Wednesday night, I was on may way home from work on the Metro.  The train had just left Charlevoix station and was on its way to Lasalle station, when suddenly, it lost power and came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the tunnel.  We could overhear the two drivers on the intercom, saying that there was a fire at Lasalle station.  Then we began to smell smoke, and there was an announcement that service on the Green Line was interrupted due to smoke in the tunnel.  Well, the smell of the smoke wasn't that strong, but they clearly weren't going to start the train again any time soon.  Eventually they came on the intercom and told us that we would have to evacuate the train, and walk back through the tunnel to Charlevoix station.  The walk was arduous, on a narrow ledge on the side of the tunnel above the track, with only a grimy handrail to hold onto.  By the time I got back to the station, I was exhausted.

Of course there were no buses at the station to pick up all the stranded commuters.  Fortunately, I used to live near Charlevoix station, and my friends Rebecca and John live near there.  So I phoned their house, and Rebecca answered.  "Rebecca, would you like to do a Good Samaritan deed for the day?" I asked.  I explained my predicament, and asked if she could drive me the rest of the way home.  "I'll be there in five minutes," Rebecca replied.

It took her slightly more than five minutes, but I didn't mind.  When I sat in the car, she handed me a parchment paper envelope filled with warm nuts.  "I was just making these when you called," she said, "and I took a little longer because I wanted to bring you some."

I tasted them.  They were wonderful.  They were sweet, salty, and spicy, all at the same time, and still slightly warm.  It made the whole ordeal seem not so bad.

Afterward, I decided that the nuts would make a marvelous accompaniment to my cranberry and gin punch that I plan on serving to my dinner guests when they arrive.  So I asked Rebecca for the recipe, and made some myself.

Thank you, Rebecca, for rescuing me, and for the gift of those delicious nuts!


Rosemary-roasted nuts

1 lb. unsalted mixed nuts
1/3 cup butter
2 T. fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
3 T. brown sugar
1 T. white sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (a whole teaspoon if you enjoy things spicy)
a pinch freshly-ground black pepper
2 tsp. kosher salt or sea salt

Heat oven to 375°.

Spread the nuts onto a baking sheet, and roast them in a 375° oven for about ten minutes, or just until they begin to be fragrant and change color slightly.  Remove from oven.

In a saucepan large enough to accommodate all the nuts, melt the better, and add the chopped rosemary leaves, brown and white sugar, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt.  Bring to a boil, and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add the nuts, and stir well to ensure all the nuts are evenly coated.

Spread coated nuts on the baking sheet again to cool.  They are wonderful if eaten warm, or if left to cool completely.


Cranberry and gin punch

1 liter cranberry juice cocktail
1 liter club soda
375 ml (about a cup and a half) dry gin
a little splash of Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur

Serve over ice.

Serendipity - Updated with Margaret's recipe

**Update** - Margaret got back into town, and she shared her recipe with me.  It turns out that my memory, as often happens, was faulty.  It was not Cayenne Zucchini Bread that she made, but Cayenne Pumpkin bread.  Jump ahead for the recipe.

Necessity is the mother of invention, the saying goes.  And dumb luck never hurts, either. Often a cook will have to substitute what's available for what's called for in the recipe, and discover that the substitution works better.   But sometimes the best cooking inventions come about totally by accident.  That's what I call serendipity.

Just today, as the gang from church was having a post-church brunch in the restaurant across the street, Pat (who starred in another one of my posts, with her name poorly disguised) was telling me about a baby shower she was hosting at her house.  She was baking a cake for the guests, and had poured the cake batter into a springform pan instead of a tube pan.  The time for the guests to arrive was swiftly approaching, but the cake was far from done.  While the edges were cooked, the center was still soft and gooey.  So she took the cake from the oven, scooped out the soft center, and returned it to the oven.  Meanwhile, she whipped some cream with a little sugar and some lemon zest.  She had already prepared some lemon custard with sweetened condensed milk.  Once the center batter had been scooped out, the rest of the cake was ready in short order.  Of course, it didn't look very pretty.  So Pat removed it from the springform pan, let it cool a bit, filled the center with the lemon custard, and slathered the whole thing with the whipped cream.  The dessert was a huge success, and Pat got lots of compliments.

I also remember some zucchini  pumpkin bread that my friend Margaret made one time.  She passed it around during a church meeting, but apologized for it in advance, saying she didn't know what it was going to taste like.  While making it, she had reached into her spice cabinet for what she thought was cinnamon - and dumped in a couple of teaspoons of cayenne pepper instead.  It was already stirred into the batter before she realized her mistake.  So she baked it anyway, and we all tried a piece.  It was delicious!  The cayenne pepper gave it just a bit of a bite, and stimulated the taste buds.  Now, Margaret makes her zucchini pumpkin bread that way on purpose!  (Unfortunately, she's out of town right now - as soon as she gets back, I'm going to get her recipe and publish it.  Keep checking this post for the recipe.)

But my favorite serendipitous cooking discovery belongs to my Grandma Sauder.  Grandma was a baker par excellence.  When she was a young woman, she and her sisters owned and operated a bake shop in Newport News, Virginia.  Grandma's specialty was pies.

Grandma's pie crusts were a thing of beauty.  They were invariably light and flaky, and always picture-perfect.  Once, when I was in my early twenties, I asked her to show me her technique, so I could learn it too.  Grandma's preferred shortening was pure lard, and she made pie crusts by feel.  Although she used rough measurements, she would always reserve a half cup of the flour when combining it with the lard, and add the rest of the flour only if it felt like it needed it.  She did not use a fork or a pastry blender; she always worked the lard in with her hands.  I remember she told me that the flour and lard had been properly combined when it felt like coarse cornmeal and small peas.  Grandma also said that pure lard took less flour than vegetable shortening.  Then, she would add ice cold water, a little at a time, just until the dough held together when pressed between the fingers.  She was able to roll her dough out in a way I've never managed.

Try as I might, I've never been able to duplicate Grandma's pie crusts.  (My Uncle Don, on the other hand, made pie crusts with her several times, and his are awfully good.)  So nowadays, I often just buy pie crust.  I'm just never quite satisfied with the ones I make - mostly because I'm comparing them to Grandma's perfection.

Grandma made all kinds of pies.  Grandpa was something of a scavenger - he would buy fruits that were about to go bad (or that were already half-bad) for next to nothing, and Grandma would turn them into pies.  They would also stop by the side of the road to pick wild fruit.  I remember Grandma's elderberry pies.  They were one of my favorites.  She also made other berry pies, peach pies, mincemeat pies, and shoo fly pies.  But Grandma's best pies were her apple pies.  They were wonderful.  And I'm about to share her secret with you.

Grandma said that she discovered the secret to apple pie because she had five children.  She would peel and slice her apples, combine them with the sugar, flour, and spices, and then set them aside while she went and attended to the children's needs.  When she got back around to baking the pies, she discovered that the apples, while sitting around, had become a bit soupy.  The sugar and the spices had penetrated the apples, and created a sauce.  When baked in Grandma's perfect pie crusts, they became the most marvelous apple pies in the world.

Grandma went on to her reward in 1989.  But her apple pies live on, as her serendipitous secret has been passed down to succeeding generations.  And now you know it, too!

Alice and J. Paul Sauder, 1964

Cayenne Zucchini Pumpkin Bread

1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin (cooked or canned)
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup dried cranberries or dried apricots (or a combination of both)

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine the dry ingredients, along with the chopped pecans and dried fruit, in a mixing bowl.  In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and shortening together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and beat until smooth.  Add the pumpkin, and then the milk and the vanilla, and beat until smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.  Stir just until all the dry ingredients have been moistened.  The batter will still be lumpy.

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake about 1 hour or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool, slice and serve. 

Pie crust (for a 2-crust 9-inch pie)

2 1/4 cups flour

2/3 cup pure lard

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup cold water

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt (reserving 1/2 cup of the flour).  Cut lard into flour with a pastry blender or two knives.  (Grandma would have done it with her hands.)  Add reserved flour as necessary, but do not overmix; it should feel like a mixture of coarse cornmeal and small peas. 

Add water gradually, sprinkling 1 tablespoon of water at a time over the mixture.  Combine lightly with a fork until all particles of flour have been dampened.  Use only enough water to hold the pastry together when it is pressed between the fingers.  It should not feel wet.

Roll dough into a round ball, handling as little as possible.  Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.  Then divide into two balls.  Roll out on a lightly floured board.  Dough should be about 1/4 inch thick, and 1 inch larger than the diameter of the top of the pie plate.

The second (top) crust does not need to be quite so wide.

Grandma's Serendipitous Apple Pie (one 9-inch pie)

3 cups sliced apples

2/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg (or 1/4 tsp of each - I prefer nutmeg)

2 tablespoons milk or cream

2 tablespoons butter (optional)

1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Pastry for two 9-inch crusts (see above)

Note - I have 10-inch deep-dish pie plates.  Although the amount of pie dough necessary is about the same (the above recipe will always leave you with leftovers), that extra inch means I need to double the amount of filling.

Combine apples, sugar, flour, spices, and milk or cream in a mixing bowl.  Mix together well, and cover with plastic wrap.  Set aside (unrefrigerated) for at least 45 minutes; 2 hours is better.  Apples will develop a liquid.

Roll out the pie dough, place it in the pie plate, and fill with the apples.  Add dots of butter over the top, if desired, and sprinkle on the optional nuts if you are using them.  (I don't remember Grandma putting nuts into her apple pies, but I like to do so if I have some on hand.)

Roll out the top crust and place it on the pie, and fasten the top and bottom crust together securely at the edges (dipping your fingers in water helps make this easier).  You can also make a lattice crust for the top, if you desire.

Bake in a 400° oven for 50 minutes.

Egg Nog Update

After my last post, my friend Betsy searched through her recipe files, and found her mother's original recipe (which was actually Mrs. Becker's mother-in-law's recipe), written in her own hand! 

(Click on the recipe to see a bigger version of it.)

It turns out that my recollection of the proportions and the technique were pretty accurate; the only thing that I had not remembered correctly was that her recipe called for either rum or brandy in addition to the bourbon.  However, I've always made it with just bourbon, and it is excellent that way, too.

Mrs. Becker's Egg Nog - Updated

A quick note to my readers - I recently started a new job.  That's why my posts have become much less frequent.  But I do plan on continuing the blog!

Well, with the holidays coming up, I thought I'd talk a little bit about egg nog.  When I was a youngster, the only egg nog I ever knew was this commercial non-alcoholic stuff that my father used to buy.  It was overly sweet, overly thick, overly spiced, and I couldn't take much more than a few sips of it.  I had also had non-alcoholic homemade egg nog, at the Shanks' house.  The Shanks were our dear family friends, and they would host a New Year's Eve party nearly ever year, and Ann Shank would serve homemade egg nog. It was considerably better than the store-bought stuff.  But of course, being raised in a teetotaling household, I had never tasted egg nog the way most people drink it, which is an alcoholic treat.

When I was a little older, I was served egg nog with alcohol a few times at some friends' houses, and I was nonplussed.  The alcohol usually tasted too strong, and it just didn't have a pleasant flavor.  It was made with rum, and the flavor of the rum overpowered the subtle flavors of the eggs and the milk.  So I figured egg nog was just one of those things I didn't like.

And then, one holiday season, I was visiting my friend Betsy Becker's house.  I can't even remember why I was there; usually when I was at the Beckers, it was with the whole gang from high school, but this time I don't recall the rest of the gang being there.  But some other friends of the Beckers were there, and Mrs. Becker offered everyone some egg nog.  Well, I didn't have any high hopes, but I didn't want to appear rude, so I took a glass.

I lifted it to my lips and tasted.  It was an altogether marvelous elixir.  It was just sweet enough, just creamy enough, just alcoholic enough, and whatever liquor was in it complemented, rather than overpowered, the other flavors.  "Mrs. Becker," I exclaimed, "This is wonderful!  What is your secret?"

Her secret, it turned out, was bourbon.  That was what all the other egg nogs I had been served had been getting wrong.  She also used confectioner's sugar to sweeten it.  I asked her for her recipe, and she gave it to me.

So I've been making egg nog ever since, and I always call it Mrs. Becker's egg nog.  I've long since lost the actual recipe Mrs. Becker gave me, and I just make it from memory.  But here is how I do it.  If you try to make it, be sure to give Mrs. Becker the credit!

A word of caution:  This recipe calls for raw eggs.  Raw eggs always carry the risk of salmonella.  If that's a concern for you, you probably shouldn't try this.  But you'll be missing out.  And remember, if you ever stick your finger in the raw cookie dough, or eat your eggs over-easy, you're already taking the risk.


Mrs. Becker's Egg Nog

6 extra-large eggs
1 cup confectioner's (icing) sugar
Bourbon
2 liters milk
1 cup whipping cream
Freshly grated nutmeg

Separate the eggs, and reserve the whites.

In a large punch bowl, beat the egg yolks with a wire whisk until they are lemony yellow.  Gradually beat in the confectioner's sugar until the egg yolks and sugar are fluffy.  Gradually beat in the bourbon.  (How much bourbon, you ask?  It depends on how drunk you want your guests to get.  I'd start with about a cup or a cup and a half.  You can always add more later.  You could also omit the bourbon altogether, if you don't want to serve alcohol.)

Now beat in the two liters of milk.  This is where you can taste it and add more bourbon if you'd like.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they are fluffy but still somewhat soft.  Float the beaten egg whites on top of the egg nog.

In the same bowl as you beat the egg whites, whip the cream to about the same consistency as you did the egg whites.  Float the whipped cream on top of the egg nog with the egg whites.

Please note - you can whip both the egg whites and the cream in the same bowl, but you must whip the egg whites first.  If you whip the cream first, the egg whites will never stiffen.

Grate fresh nutmeg over the top and serve.  Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers immediately.

This makes quite a bit of egg nog, easily enough for 10 or 15 people.

Update:  Betsy Becker tells me that her Mom would sometimes use both bourbon and rum, or bourbon and brandy - but always bourbon.  I stick to the bourbon.

Mildred and the Sand Tarts

Mildred was a beagle.  She was our family pet in the late 70's and early 80's.

Mildred was a great dog.  She was smart, and loyal, and the only one of our beagles who managed to not get herself run over and killed by a car.  She loved all of us, but especially my mother - she refused to sleep anywhere else except under Mom's bed.

Mildred was not aware that she was not human.  She fully thought of herself as one of the family.

She also had a sweet tooth.  Mildred dearly loved candy.  At Christmas time, Mom would always have little dishes of hard candies on coffee tables and other places around the house.  If you were sitting in a chair next to a dish of candy, Mildred would sit in front of you, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, and whimper softly.  She was entirely irresistible, and she would pester you until you gave in and fed her a piece of candy.  However, we could leave the house with her alone in it, and she would not steal the candy while we were away.  She only ever once tried to steal candy, and that was when there was a dish of candy sitting on top of the piano.  We were all in the kitchen when suddenly we heard a loud note from the piano.  We went into the living room, and there was Mildred.  Her hind legs were on the piano bench, her left leg was poised motionless in mid-air, and her right leg was on the piano key which had told on her.  She was looking in our direction, and had an expression on her face that said, "Uh-oh.  I got caught."  Of course, we all laughed hysterically.

Every year at Christmas, Mom would let us help make sand tarts.  Sand tarts are the absolutely tastiest sugar cookies in the entire world.  Mom got the recipe from my paternal grandmother, and I'm sure it has been handed down for many generations.  I don't know why they are called sand tarts.  I suspect it's a bastardization of some German word, but I don't really know.  All I know is that they're simple and crisp and buttery and my favorite cookies ever.

So every year, Mom would mix up a batch of sand tarts, roll them out, cut them with cookie cutters, and place them on cookie sheets (or on sheets of aluminum foil, which would later go on the cookie sheets).  Then it was our job to brush them with an egg wash and sprinkle them with colored sugar.  Then she would bake them, and remove them to a rack to cool.  Often, she would make sand tarts (and other Christmas cookies) ahead of time, and put them in the freezer.  I got pretty adept at opening the freezer noiselessly and stealing cookies!  (Actually, I was a little too good at it - once, I did it so often that Mom ended up not having enough cookies, and I got in trouble.)

So one year, when we were making sand tarts, we thought they would make lovely decorations for the Christmas tree.  So we poked little holes in the cookie dough before they were baked, and then when they were cooled, we put ornament hangers in the holes, and decorated the Christmas tree with sand tarts.  The tree looked very pretty.

And then, one day, we noticed that there were only sand tarts on the top half of the tree!  Mildred had been unable to resist the temptation of the low-hanging cookies, and had eaten them all up.

Here's the recipe for sand tarts.  I'm a little hesitant to give it.  It seems so easy, but one year I made a batch and took them into the office.  Everyone wanted the recipe, and two women actually tried to make them.  One of them had cookies that looked perfect, but had absolutely no taste.  She vowed that she had used real butter and pure vanilla extract, but I suspect she substituted something somewhere.  The other one made cookies that tasted good, but which she had not rolled out very thin, and they were as hard as hockey pucks.  So just remember this:  use only real butter (I always use salted butter) and pure vanilla extract.  And roll them as thinly as you can, less than 1/8 of an inch.

Sand tarts

1 lb. confectioner's (icing) sugar (about 3 3/4 cups, or a little less than 1/2 kg.)
1/2 lb. butter (I use salted butter.  If using unsalted butter, you would need to add a little salt to the dough.)
2 eggs
1 lb. flour (3-4 cups)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg, beaten with 1 T. water
Colored sugar for decoration (you can buy colored sugar, or just add some food coloring to granulated sugar)

If you have a stand mixer, it is perfect for making sand tarts.  Otherwise, you can make the dough by hand, but it will take a little longer.

Cream the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla, and mix until they are well incorporated.  Add the flour a cup at a time, and mix until the dough has a consistency similar to pie dough, and can be easily rolled out.

Roll out the dough paper-thin - less than 1/8 of an inch thick.  Cut them out with cookie cutters or with a glass turned upside-down, and transfer them to cookie sheets.  (Because I only have two cookie sheets, I cut all the cookies out and put them onto aluminum foil.  I then just transfer the foil to the cookie sheets as each batch comes out of the oven.)

Brush each cookie with the egg wash, and sprinkle with colored sugar.  You can also use other decorations such as colored sprinkles or cinnamon hearts.

Bake at 400° for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown.  Because they are so thin, sand tarts burn easily, so don't wait for 8 minutes before checking on them.  You should check on them at 6 minutes, to ensure they don't burn.

Remove them to a cooling rack.  Cookies will crisp up as they cool.

This recipe makes A LOT of cookies - probably 12 dozen or so.  I've developed my own tradition living alone - one December Saturday, I put my recording of The Messiah on the CD player, and make sand tarts.  By the time The Messiah is finished, so are the sand tarts.

A Clash of Cultures

Warning:  This blog post contains coarse language.  Reader discretion is advised.

Ever since I first had it as a boy, I have loved Chinese food - that is, once I learned that chicken chow mein wasn't really Chinese, and tasted more authentic Chinese food in a restaurant.  As I matured, I learned to love even the more exotic (to a Western palate, anyway) elements of Chinese foods, and learned that saying "Chinese food" is a little akin to saying "European food," because regional Chinese cuisines are as different from one another as Spanish cooking is from German food. 

I've never been shy about trying out unusual items on Chinese menus.  I love going for dim sum, and the opportunity it provides to sample some of the exotic fare without having to commit to a whole plateful of it.  So I've tried chicken's feet (tasty), duck's feet (nasty), tripe (chewy), beef tendons (odd texture), and cuttlefish (yummy if a bit rubbery), among others.  It's been said that if it moves, the Chinese will eat it.

In fact, there have been persistent rumors about Chinese restaurants in North America surreptitiously serving up animals we keep as pets to unsuspecting diners as food.  Although this rumor has been largely debunked, people still believe that Chinese restaurants serve cat.  And that leads me to today's story.

Unlike most of my stories, I can put the exact date on this one.  It was October 16, 1979.  That was the fall that my beloved Baltimore Orioles were in the World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.  I had managed to get two tickets to Game 6, and had gone to the game with my best friend from high school, Fleisch.  (Fleisch's real name is Suzanne, but we always called her by a shortened version of her last name.)  Sadly, the Orioles lost, 4-0.  Now, those of us who remember Memorial Stadium in Baltimore remember that the least attractive aspect of that ballpark was the parking.  There weren't enough parking spots for a regular-season game, and finding parking for the World Series was next to impossible.  Fleisch and I had eventually found parking some distance away, and we were walking back to our car.

As we walked back, we passed a small Chinese carry-out shop.  I don't think you could even call it a restaurant, technically, as there were no tables, and not even a chair to sit while your food was being prepared.  But we decided we were hungry, and  went into the shop.  We looked at the menu on the wall, made our selection, ordered, and began waiting for our food.

I can no longer remember what we had to eat.  But I can tell you what the two young African-American women who had ordered before us and were waiting for their food had ordered.  That is because we overheard their conversation.  And it went something like this (and the conversation took place in full ebonics, which somehow made the whole thing funnier, and which I'll attempt to reproduce here):

"I ordered the shrimp.  What you order?"

"I ordered the pork."

"Girl, what wrong wit' you?  What you doin' orderin' pork in a Chinese restaurant?  You ain't never seen no CAT runnin' 'round in back of no Chinese restaurant!  You don't order no pork in a Chinese restaurant!  You order pork in a Chinese restaurant, you ain't know what you get!  That's why I ordered the shrimp.  You cain't fool* wit' no shrimp!"

* "Fool" is not the word she actually used.  She used a word which begins with the same letter, but which is considerably more vulgar, and would offend many of my readers.

It was all Fleisch and I could do to not break out into guffaws.  But we did manage to wait until they had left to laugh out loud.  And we've carried that incident with us ever since.  Even today, when she and I go out for Chinese food, we'll look at each other and say, "Let's order the shrimp!"


I've never been particularly good at creating Chinese food myself.  However, a few years ago, there was a Chinese restaurant in the food court near where I worked that made a dish called "Noodles with Spicy Meat Sauce" which I really liked.  I asked what kind of meat was used in it, and they told me pork.  It also had lots of seasonings and a peanut-based sauce.  I thought that I could probably recreate that one, so I bought some ground pork, and it turned out surprisingly well.  As a matter of fact, I think it turned out better than the original.  Here's my recipe for it:


Chinese Noodles with Spicy Meat Sauce


1 lb. ground cat pork
3 T. vegetable oil
4 or 5 scallions (green onions), chopped
2 T. freshly grated (or finely chopped) ginger
5 or 6 small chilis, finely chopped (depends on how hot you like it, and how hot the chilis are. You could also use a jalopeno, or dried red pepper flakes, to taste.)
3 large cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tsp. salt
1 lb. lo mein noodles (You can get these in a Chinese market. You could also just use spaghetti, if you can't find the Chinese noodles.)

Saute scallions, ginger, and chilis in the oil until soft. Add minced garlic, and saute until golden. Add ground cat pork, sprinkle on the salt, and saute until the meat has lost all its red color. Then add the peanuts and peanut butter.

Serve over lo mein noodles. You may need to add some of the water from the noodles to get the proper consistency for the sauce.

Mom Commits a Faux Pas

When we made our trip to Kenya in December 1987 and January 1988, there was a man named Kibugi who attended my sister's church and who came from a rural area in Kenya not far from the town where my brother and sister-in-law were living.  Kibugi prevailed upon Carol to carry some Christmas gifts to his mother and family, and she of course obliged.

Let me tell you about the role of mothers in Kenya.  Although Kenyan culture remains very patriarchal, motherhood is a state of very high honor.  Once a Kenyan woman has borne a child, she is often no longer referred to by her own name, but rather by the honorific "Mama" and the name of her child, usually the firstborn.  So I really don't know the name of one of the main characters in this story.  We just called her Mama Kibugi, and she was, of course, the mother of my sister's friend.

Once we had arrived in Kenya, my brother contacted Kibugi's family, and told them that we had gifts for them from their son in America, and they arranged to come to Jerry and Donna's house to collect the gifts.  They arrived, and were very happy to meet all of us, and thrilled with the presents, which included a fancy dress that Kibugi had sent his mother.  And then, as is the Kenyan custom, they insisted that we come to visit them at their home for a meal.

Kenyans are very hospitable people.  Even the poorest will invite you into their home, and serve you something, even if it is just tea.  (The Kenyans brew their tea very strong, and serve it with equal amounts of hot milk, and very sweet.)  It's quite humbling.  These people who have even less than North Americans who rely on welfare are always willing to share what little they have.  Those who have a little more will, of course, offer their guests more.

I had learned in my earlier trip to Kenya that the highest honor a Kenyan could bestow upon a dinner guest was to serve chicken.  It is not budget food there.  It is special occasion food.  If a rural Kenyan serves chicken, it is not something she bought at the local supermarket or butcher.  It is livestock from her back yard that she has slaughtered.  It's the African equivalent of killing the fatted calf.

So on the appointed day, we were off to Mama Kibugi's house.  There were quite a few of them living in that small house (something that is not all all unusual there).  There were several other sons, a daughter-in-law, and some grandchildren, as well as two of Mama Kibugi's sisters.  Mama Kibugi was a teacher in a school not far from their house.  She had taken the day off work to receive us, but we walked to the school to see where she taught and to meet the schoolchildren.  I believe it was the first time some of those children had ever met someone of European descent.

Then we went back to the house for the meal.  The Kibugi family is from the Kikuyu tribe.  Most traditional Kikuyu food is rather bland, but quite heavy.  They make a dish called githeri, which is beans and dried corn cooked together, and they also make something called irio, which is a Kikuyu version of mashed potatoes and peas.  Irio is what Mama Kibugi served us that day, along with some fresh fruit, and of course, tea.  We ate our fill, and those potatoes and peas were feeling rather heavy in our stomach.

It was only when we were already stuffed with the irio that Mama Kibugi produced a blue-green plastic bowl of chicken.  In my mother's defense (and you will soon see why she needs defending), the chicken didn't look very appetizing.  It looked like it had just been boiled, and there didn't appear to be any spices or seasoning of any kind on it.  The bowl containing the chicken had been covered by a plate, but as soon as the plate was removed, flies started buzzing about it.  Mama Kibugi took this plastic bowl of chicken, proffered it to my mother, and said, "Have some chicken."  Mom, unaware of the honor that was being bestowed upon her, looked at that rather unappetizing plastic bowl of plain boiled chicken and said, "Oh, my, I've eaten so much today that I don't think I could possibly eat anything else!"

Stunned silence fell over the room.  Mama Kibugi looked at my mother with an uncomprehending stare.  "But it's chicken!" she said, giving the bowl a little shake.

Mom looked like a deer caught in the headlights.  I was just a little too far from her to be able to kick her under the table.  So I looked at her with a deadly serious expression on my face, and said quietly but firmly through clenched teeth, "Mother, eat chicken."

Mom got the message.  She said, "Well, I'll just have a small piece, then!" and helped herself to a chicken wing.  Everyone smiled, the rest of us each took a piece of chicken, and pleasant conversation resumed.  An international incident had been averted.

A few years later, Mama Kibugi and one of her sisters came to the U.S. to visit her son.  My mother invited them to their house for dinner.  And of course, she served chicken!

Here are two pictures of the Kibugi family.  The first one is of Mama Kibugi (wearing the dress that her son had sent her), with her sons, daughter-in-law, and grandson.  The second is of her two sisters.

Here are some recipes for Kenyan tea, irio, and githeri.


Kenyan Tea

A pot of freshly-brewed black tea, brewed very strong  (If you can find tea grown in Kenya, use it.)
Milk which has been brought to the boiling point
Sugar

Pour equal amounts of strong tea and hot milk into a teacup.  Add lots of sugar.


Irio

1/2 cup dried green split peas
1 lb. potatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup canned, frozen, or fresh corn (optional)
2 T. vegetable oil
2 T. butter
1 tsp. salt

A note about the corn - Kenyans do not eat sweet corn.  They refer to what they eat as maize, and it is what we would call field corn.  For this dish, they would use fresh (not dried) field corn.

Put the dried peas into about 4 cups of water with the salt.  Bring to a boil, and reduce the heat.  Let simmer for about 20 or 30 minutes, until the peas are beginning to soften.

Peel and dice the potatoes.  When the peas have begun to soften, add the potatoes to the peas.  Continue cooking until the potatoes and peas are both quite soft.

In a small skillet, saute the onion in the vegetable oil and butter until they are soft.  Drain the potatoes and peas (leaving enough liquid to mash them), add the sauteed onions, and mash with a potato masher until they have a smooth consistency.  Stir in the optional corn.

Add salt and pepper to taste.  You may want to add a little butter for flavor, although the Kenyans would probably not use butter at all.  My sister seems to recall Mama Kibugi adding large globs of Crisco to the irio as she mashed it.


Githeri

1 cup dried red kidney beans
1 cup dried corn (see above note on corn - you could use hominy if you can't find dried corn)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 T. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt

Soak the beans overnight in a large quantity of water.  Add the dried corn and salt, and cook together for about 2 hours, or until both the beans and the corn are soft.  By the time the beans and corn are done cooking, most of the water should have cooked off.

Saute the onion in the vegetable oil, and add it to the githeri.  Stir and add salt and pepper to taste.