Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [109]
There are fondues in which meat is cooked in hot oil or fruit is dipped in melted chocolate, but the classic fondue is made of grated cheese, dusted with flour, combined with white wine, and melted in a pot rubbed with garlic. The pot is brought to the table and kept warm over a flame for a dish that is literally shared.
CRANBERRIES
Cranberries are one of the three native North American fruits—the other two are blueberries and Concord grapes. They were introduced to the Pilgrims by the Indians, who ate them crushed and mixed with honey or maple sugar. They were also a preservative, combined with dried meat in a mixture called pemmican that helped prolong the life of the meat. In addition, crushed cranberries were used for dyes and as poultices for injuries.
The high acid content that makes them an effective preservative also helps control bacteria, and may help prevent urinary tract infections in women. Their acidity also makes them more long-lasting than other fruits, and even freezing barely alters their nutritional content. And they are loaded with vitamin C. American sailors used to eat them to prevent scurvy, just as their British counterparts ate limes.
The English name “cranberry” comes from their flowers, which bend down into a form rather like the head of a crane. They grow on vines that yield fruit for 150 years if undamaged, and the vines thrive in “bogs,” not of water, but of the remains of glacial deposits, with the addition of sand and peat. They’re harvested from September through December and are therefore fresh during Thanksgiving and Christmas. The berries have a pocket of air inside that makes them float, so they can be knocked off the vines, the fields flooded, and the berries then raked in.
PASTA SHAPES
On Italian menus pasta can be found served in soup, pasta in brodo; as a dish with a sauce, pasta asciutta; and baked, pasta al forno.
There are more names for pasta shapes than stars in the sky, or nearly. They are all in Italian, of course, and many are beautiful. Among them are:
Anelli, “rings,” or anellini, “little rings.”
And occhi di passeri, “sparrows’ eyes.”
Also risino, “tiny rice.”
And semi di melone, “melon seeds.”
And stele and stellini, “stars” and “little stars.”
Then, not for soup, there are:
Cappelli di prete, “priests’ hats.”
And farfalle, “butterflies,” and farfalloni, “large butterflies,” and farfallette, “little ones.”
Also maruzze, “seashells,” in many sizes, including maruzzine, “small seashells.”
Rigati means “grooved” and is an additional form of many shapes, ziti rigati, rigatoni, canelle rigati, and so forth.
Certain of the countless shapes go well with certain sauces. Sometimes if the dinner is special we make a little menu so that what is going to be served can be anticipated, and it’s always a pleasure to write the name of an exotic pasta on it. “Tripolini,” they ask, “what is that?” Little bows named in honor of the conquest of Tripoli, of course.
GRIMOD
In Paris, in 1758, Alexandre Balthazar Grimod de La Reynière was born, misshapen, with rudimentary hands, one like a claw and the other like a goose’s foot. Hastily baptized, since it was feared he would not live, he later would claim, among other stories, that his fingers had been bitten off by a sow when he was three weeks old.
A lawyer and also a drama critic, he was unnoticed until he gave a legendary dinner in 1783 at a time when the ancien régime was already trembling and the ancienne cuisine was also about to disappear. The printed invitations were of enormous size and resembled death notices. When the guests entered the dining room, hung in black and lit by hundreds of candles, a coffin was in the middle of the table. There were nine courses between which Grimod discoursed on his supposedly low-born ancestors. The result was notoriety and a reputation as a madman.
On a later occasion, he dressed a huge pig in his