Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [4]
Primitive man did not eat at certain hours but simply when hungry. Gradually a regularity developed. Families and clans ate together, and in fact, for ages most eating was communal.
Food is closely interwoven with religion—the sacrifice of animals, the blessing of fields, the Eucharist, the traditional feasts—and it has been crucial to medicine, which, for centuries, was based on dietary principles. In its wake, food has sown cities, formed politics, and been at the root of prosperity or war.
The most important human relationships are all celebrated with or nourished by the sharing of food. Even death is marked by the serving of food and drink.
CREAMED CHIPPED BEEF
Lorenzo Semple, a close friend and neighbor, often stopped by in the morning to have tea. He’d abandoned his self-constructed diet that included rules for foods he said had no calories: anything eaten from someone else’s plate, anything eaten in the movies, anything brown. Recently, he’d been carrying a pack loaded with rocks to increase the number of calories he could burn on his walk to work. One day when he arrived at our house, there was a large bowl of rice pudding on the table, just out of the oven. It was intended for later in the day, but we knew he loved it.
“Help yourself,” we said.
“No, no, please, I’m trying to lose weight,” he insisted, “and anyway, I’ve already had breakfast.”
We poured him some tea.
“Well, maybe just a bite, just one taste, to see if it’s any good,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, he’d eaten the entire bowl. He stormed out of the house, furious at us for tempting him beyond his strength. The recipe, from Jennie Grossinger’s The Art of Jewish Cooking, was plainly worth putting into our own cookbook. “Serves eight or Lorenzo,” we noted.
The next day, to show he’d forgiven us, he returned and made us one of his favorite breakfasts: creamed chipped beef on toast. In the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks, this is recipe no. 251, and servicemen through the decades have called it—none too affectionately—SOS (shit on a shingle). But Lorenzo’s recipe might have turned them around:
CREAMED CHIPPED BEEF
1 4.5-ounce jar dried beef
2 tablespoons butter
Wondra flour, about 2 tablespoons, but it’s not necessary to measure it out
1 cup 2 percent or fat-free milk (more or less, depending on desired thickness)
Soak the dried beef in water to eliminate most of the salt, pat dry and tear into pieces. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium/medium-high heat, and add beef. Shake in Wondra flour and lightly sautée. Add milk gradually, stirring, and heat until mixture thickens. Add more milk to achieve desired consistency. Serve over toast. Serves two.
He could even join us, since dried beef has very little fat and is low in calories (and is brown).
TALLEYRAND
Talleyrand, who was bishop of Autun before he became a great statesman, was nearly as famous for his table as for his diplomacy. His knowledge of food was impressive, and he spent time in his kitchens daily deciding on the dinner for the evening and questioning the staff on what they may have overheard from guests the night before.
Breakfast and lunch for him were not consequential, and at night, as one source said, he liked heavy dishes and light women.
In the winter of 1803, during a time when there was virtually no fish to be had in Paris, Talleyrand gave a state dinner. At the appropriate time, to sounds of appreciation, a servant entered with an enormous salmon on a great silver platter. To the horror of all, he tripped while carrying it, and fish and platter fell to the floor.
Seeing this, Talleyrand said calmly, “Have them bring in another salmon.”
Almost immediately another appeared. The whole incident had been planned.
PINEAPPLE
On this day in 1813, the first pineapples were planted in Hawaii. They may have originally come from Brazil, though other sources say that Columbus encountered them first in Guadeloupe, their true home. As if in tribute,