Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [20]
J.S.
BANANA
Indian legend, as well as the Koran, says the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden wasn’t the apple but the banana, whose enormous leaves would have been far more effective than those of a fig in covering nakedness. The present variety has been cultivated to be seedless and therefore sterile, and so, unlike Adam and Eve, needs help to reproduce.
Originally from Southeast Asia or perhaps India, where Alexander the Great found them in 327 B.C., bananas are, botanically speaking, the largest herb, with leaves big enough to be used for thatching roofs and wrapping food for cooking. They grow in the tropics, and their name is from the Guinean word banema or banana.
For export, they are shipped while still green but continue to ripen after picking and can be sold in the United States at any of seven stages, from mostly green to spotted with brown. They should not be refrigerated, since at low temperatures they turn black, though this does not affect the fruit itself. As they ripen, they give off ethylene gas, as do most fruits, which further speeds ripening. But bananas produce an unusual amount, so that they’re especially effective in helping other fruits enclosed with them ripen and develop color, including tomatoes and avocados.
LEMON JUICE
Peeled potatoes and sliced apples can be kept from turning brown by sprinkling them lightly with lemon juice, which is acidic and prevents oxidation. This also works with bananas, Belgian endives, and avocados.
HAUT BRION
Among the other things on the kitchen counter, there was an empty bottle of Haut Brion, left there more or less as a reminder and also to hint at our standards, so to speak. Kay wondered about it, “They’ll be asking, but why aren’t you giving that to us? What are we going to say?”
“You give me what my wife gives me, and you’ll get Haut Brion,” Jim said.
FISH
Peter Matthiessen used to stop by with bluefish he’d caught an hour earlier surf-casting in the Atlantic off Long Island. That kind of freshness is rare even at the best seafood shops along any coast. It is far more likely that by the time you sit down to a fish dinner at home or at a restaurant, what you’re eating has been out of the water for at least two days and sometimes as long as a week.
The shortest route to the table is always the best. Mongers prefer fish from day trips or from the last day of the four- or five-day trips needed for bigger deep-water fish like tuna and swordfish that are caught far off shore. Ocean fish can sometimes be contaminated and so can farmed fish, such as trout and salmon, which usually reach the markets within a couple of days.
Fish will be fine if it has been flash frozen or well iced the entire time and not in contact with anything that might contaminate it. Even the freshest local fish have to be kept on ice for six to eight hours before they’re firm enough to properly scale and fillet. With prewrapped fillets of fish, you have to depend on the standards of the store. When buying whole fish, you can usually see or smell freshness. The eye should be clear or, if cloudy because of contact with ice, not sunken. The gills should be red, not brown. The belly should be firm, and the skin should spring back to the touch.
As for preparation, fish served raw, as in sushi or ceviche, must be of the highest quality and purity. The flesh of cooked fish should be opaque and flake with the touch of a fork. Overcooking makes it tough and dry. On the other hand, you’ll probably prefer it more done than Captain Ahab’s orders in Moby-Dick: “When you cook another whale-steak for my private table here, I’ll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show