What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [11]
5. Farm workers’ food: A farmer in Texas talks about how his workers cook when they’re out in the country on an isolated farm, cooking and coping for themselves. Try to hear the slow drawl, the chili-thick accent, and a liberal sprinkling of expletives. Although it was winter when Larry Butler reported to us, I think the word “cold” means raw.
“They take sardines, cold Romas, cold onions, chop and mix, and put it on a hot corn tortilla. Or they start with some Top Ramen noodles, scramble up an egg and put it in the pot along with a can of green English peas. They also boil pork rinds until they’re disgusting and terrible looking and throw them, with fried onions, into scrambled eggs, then put it all in a hot tortilla. And they eat this stuff like it’s good!”
In self-defense, Larry, who’s a vegetarian, retreats to his outdoor kitchen. “Up front I sauté wheat berries with garlic in olive oil on high heat. Wheat berries give you something to chew on. I put garlic in all foods. Chop turnips, onions, carrots, and beets and add to the sauté, then add cold tomatoes if I have them. About the time it’s going to catch fire and explode, I put in tomato juice and nutritional yeast—the yeast gives body, flavor, and B vitamins—add more water, then cook for 30 minutes.”
Meanwhile, back on their urban farm in East Austin, Larry’s wife, Carol Ann Sayle, reports that she is likely to be having “a glass of wine with Seinfeld, to be followed later by some granola with raw goat milk” for her solo dinner.
I suspect that none of these meals are interchangeable even though all the parties know each other well and two are even married to each other. Each is right only for the one who cooked it.
Why, and for whom, you might ask, do people produce food magazines and cookbooks, host cooking shows and culinary tours, and indulge in all the other culinary hoopla? Behind closed doors it’s a free-for-all out there, even for otherwise sophisticated eaters. But it does get better. And some personal foods do make sense, in a way. A doctor friend volunteered that he often does something thoughtless, like indulging his serious sweet tooth with cookies and ice cream. And then he added, without our having even mentioned the idea of personal foods, that he had a favorite unshareable dessert, a small bowl of Grape-Nuts with vanilla ice cream.
Because personal foods are just that, personal, there are no recipes in this chapter. But we do think that Grape-Nuts with vanilla ice cream would be almost universally enjoyed. In fact, we learned recently, this is actually a popular ice cream flavor in Canada.
Getting the Body Fed with Rough and Ready Foods
“When I’m cooking for myself, it happens like an urge. That is, it probably isn’t a regular mealtime. I first notice that I’m hungry and then have a vision of something that’s in the fridge or the pantry. Then I dream up a recipe for it.”
Moky McKelvey, musician and graphic designer
Although I was heading out the door, I had to take a quick kitchen detour and peek in the oven to see what smelled so good. Inside were seven big potatoes baking away. They were almost adorable, the way they were all lined up in a row. But it did seem like a lot of potatoes.
“It saves on propane and, besides, there are lots of things I can do with baked potatoes,” Patrick explained. Clearly, he’s an example of one who doesn’t mind eating the same thing over and over again.
How do men feed themselves when they’re home alone?
In different ways, of course. A neighbor tells us that he doesn’t mind taking two hours to cook his dinner when he’s alone. (His wife, on the other hand, turns to frozen macaroni and cheese, delighted not to think about cooking for a change.) Other men go out to eat on a regular basis. And some happily make do with something they can eat off of for days, like a pot of chili, a ham—or potatoes.
Men also eat things their wives don’t care for, like greasy sausages,