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By Root 524 0

harvesting, grinding, cooking, and eating. It is used in many ways, but the basic one is the tortilla, Spanish for the Aztec tlaxcalli. Tortillas are often eaten fresh and warm as bread, and when eaten by hand, they are used almost as a plate and spoon—folded, rolled, or stuffed with other ingredients, often including frijoles refritos. Mistranslated as “refried beans,” the beans, in fact, are first cooked in water and then fried—once only—until nearly dry. Tomatoes—along with chili peppers that are roasted, fried, stewed, or used fresh—create the sauces whose hotness varies according to the peppers, of which there are some two thousand varieties.

BUTTERMILK

Buttermilk, for centuries a drink of shepherds and milkmaids, is a byproduct of the churning of butter. Slightly sour-tasting and thicker than ordinary milk, it also, contrary to its name, contains less fat. Real buttermilk is not so easy to find. The product that is labeled “cultured buttermilk” is a manufactured replica, but not as good.

LEARNED HAND

Learned Hand, known as the greatest American judge never to serve on the Supreme Court and admired for his many, often-cited decisions, once gave a description of what would be, for him, a perfect day:

A soft, summer day in June would begin with a walk in the garden with his wife and, much later, after a number of other events, a nap with her, then cocktails with all the friends they had valued throughout life. Crowning it all would be a magnificent dinner and afterward, conversation with the most brilliant and glorious figures in history, the climax of which would be Marcus Aurelius turning to Voltaire and saying, “Oh, shut up. I want to hear what Learned Hand has to say.”

BLUEBERRIES

According to Waverly Root, certain Alaskan voles are so fond of blueberries that they have blue teeth during the season. These are wild blueberries, of course, smaller and less sweet than the cultivated variety found in stores and widely agreed to be better in pies.

Barbara Stone, who ran a modeling agency in New York and is an expert cook, has the following recipe for an open blueberry pie that takes no more than twenty minutes to prepare, with superior results.

BLUEBERRY PIE

1 cup blueberries, mashed

¾ cup sugar

½ cup water

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 cups whole blueberries

In a saucepan, cook the first four ingredients over high heat, stirring into a thick sauce (it thickens suddenly). Remove from the stove and immediately mix in the three cups of whole blueberries. Put into a baked pie shell—the best quality frozen pie shell available. Serve with whipped or ice cream.

DINNER COMPANIONS

Epicurus, Montaigne, and many others offer the same advice: choose the companions first. Certain people will be better with certain others. A few will go well with anybody.

Once in London, Robert Ginna, at the time a film producer and afterward editor in chief of Little, Brown and Company, was invited with his wife to dinner at the Savoy. The host was a wealthy man who had racehorses and also a stunning French mistress who was present, along with the host’s son and daughter-in-law. Ginna sat next to the mistress, who was wearing emeralds and who, throughout the meal, ignored him until the very end, when for a few dizzying minutes she directed her full powers at him. He imagined he behaved normally.

Afterward they all walked to the bar. Margaret, Ginna’s wife, was walking beside him. “That’s all right, darling,” she consoled him in a low voice. “When you get to be his age, you can have one, too. Every boy should.”

FETA

In an ordinary small grocery store in Greece there will often be three or four containers of differing qualities of feta, white and crumbly the signature cheese of Greece. Feta, like the French Roquefort, is made from sheep’s milk. At a certain point, its ripening is arrested with brine, and the cheese stays in brine to keep its freshness and flavor. It is sold in bulk, the amount you desire being cut off and weighed. Feta, in Greek, means “slice.”

Excellent when accompanied